Having visited Ruthie Burrus’s garden before, I knew it would be one of my favorites on the Austin Open Days tour in November, sponsored by The Garden Conservancy. Let’s start with the entry garden, where a concrete trough softened by ferns gently trickles …

November 19, 2019 The Nuevo Santander Garden on the Austin Open Day tour, sponsored by The Garden Conservancy earlier this month, reminded me of native-plant gardens from the old Wildflower Center tour that used to be held Mother’s Day weekend. With its wild and woolly design using Texas natives, it …

An Old Austin-style garden awaited across the street from the Greenway Garden on The Garden Conservancy’s Open Day tour two weeks ago. What does Old Austin style look like? To me it means a mature tree canopy and a lush understory of sturdy subtropical evergreens like boxwood, pittosporum, sago palm, …

Before the big freeze I went to see fall color at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on a beautiful Sunday afternoon …

Reducing runoff and erosion in a sloping yard like this is challenging when you have mature trees because you can’t just regrade the whole lot without disturbing or covering their expansive roots …

We trekked downtown yesterday evening for the opening night of Creek Show, an annual light-art installation along Waller Creek, which is being developed as a chain of parks and walking trails called Waterloo Greenway …

This garden is a great example of how to reduce your turf grass by adding low-water groundcovers like sedge and no-water patios, while still growing plenty of wildlife-attracting native and adapted plants and making the garden a place for easy outdoor living — all on a budget …

A perfect fall day calls for a walk around Lady Bird Lake, so on Sunday there I was, at Lou Neff Point, viewing Austin’s mushrooming skyline and the towering Jenga building …

In early November each year, Austin writer Lucinda Hutson celebrates Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday for remembering and honoring deceased loved ones. Decorating her Rosedale home — her purple casita, as she calls it — and Mexican-style garden with colorful flowers, food, tequila bottles, skeleton decor, and her …

A remarkable green space floats overhead, literally flashing before your eyes, as you commute or pass through downtown Dallas. Built above 3 blocks of the Woodall Rodgers Freeway, Klyde Warren Park is a remarkable green roof that has become a beloved public park …

November 01, 2019 For more than a decade I’ve attended Austin’s annual Day of the Dead parade, Viva la Vida, which this year took place on October 26. For newcomers, Day of the Dead is easily confused with Halloween because of all the skull imagery and skeleton face paint. But …

Happy Halloween! I hope you have a spooky and fun night! …

Given 3-1/2 acres of cow pasture, it turns out you can do quite a lot with it. Douglas Chandor created an English-Chinese garden in his North Texas cow pasture in the 1930s through early 1950s …

White Shadows — the name evokes romance and mystery — seems wholly appropriate for the dappled-shade garden surrounding a pale-gray house in the small Texas town of Weatherford, 30 miles west of Fort Worth …