Asheville Garden Bloggers Fling: Gentling Garden, a mountainside eden
May 23, 2012 The first thing you learn about gardens in Asheville, North Carolina, on the slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains, is that they have a lot of stairs. We’re talking serious elevation changes. What does this mean for the gardeners who live here? Well, for one thing they ...
Houston Open Days Tour 2012: Wolf Residence Garden
April 06, 2012 My next stop on the Houston Open Days tour on March 24 was an Old World-style home in the well-heeled River Oaks neighborhood. While their garden included the sweeping lawns, classic hedging, and emphasis on outdoor architecture commonly seen on this tour, I have to admit that ...
Houston Open Days Tour 2012: Tudor Garden
April 05, 2012 My next stop on the Houston Open Days tour on March 24 was the classically elegant Tudor Garden, located in the Broadacres Historic District. To my mind, the property’s best asset is the view of a double line of mature live oaks marching down the center median ...
Houston Open Days Tour 2012: Lofgren-Bayer Garden
April 04, 2012 My next stop on the Houston Open Days tour on March 24 was the clean-lined Lofgren-Bayer Garden, also located in the close-in Montrose neighborhood. Pictured above is a lovely dining patio in the rear garden. The official description of the garden: A stately live oak dominates this ...
Houston Open Days Tour 2012: J. Green Garden
April 03, 2012 My next stop on the Houston Open Days tour on March 24 was the classic, walled J. Green Garden, located in the Montrose neighborhood. The official description: This urban garden in Montrose is a lovely counterpoint to the house owned by well-known Houston interior designer Jon Green, ...
Houston Open Days Tour 2012: Cortlandt Garden
April 02, 2012 The Garden Conservancy’s 2012 Open Days program opened on March 24 in Houston, a 3-hour drive east of Austin. Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden and I made a day trip of it and started our tour at the Cortlandt Street Garden. Here’s the official description: Located in ...
Outdoors at North Carolina’s Chimney Rock, Sliding Rock & Lake Lure
June 30, 2011 Ever since my Carolina childhood, the mountains of western North Carolina have been one of my favorite weekend destinations. During a recent vacation I had the pleasure of introducing my children to some fun hikes and nature outings in the Asheville area. Pictured above is a view ...
Visit to Biltmore House: Walled Garden & Conservatory
June 29, 2011 As always when visiting a beautiful garden, time was short, so the Walled Garden and conservatory were our final stop at Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, earlier this month. The grounds slope steeply down from the grand house, through the Italian Garden and Shrub Garden, leading ...
Garden Designers Roundtable: Shades of Limelight on the Garden Stage (& Other One-Color Gardens)
June 27, 2011 In Breakfast at Tiffany’s Holly Golightly cautions, “There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl’s complexion.” Maybe so, but not a garden’s complexion. For proof, I give you these images of a limelight-colored border from the Biltmore House gardens in Asheville, North Carolina, which ...
Visit to Biltmore House: Shrub Garden & Frederick Law Olmsted’s trees
June 26, 2011 My favorite part of the extensive Biltmore House gardens, which I visited during a recent vacation in Asheville, North Carolina, was the Shrub Garden—a bit of a misnomer since it also contains a lot of spectacular specimen trees, like this weeping blue atlas cedar. Look at its ...
Visit to Biltmore House: Esplanade, Terrace & Italian Garden
June 25, 2011 Built by George W. Vanderbilt, youthful inheritor of his family’s shipping fortune, Biltmore House is a 250-room, French-style chateau nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville, North Carolina. The home is still owned by the Vanderbilt family but was opened to the public ...
Deer-resistant cottage garden of Freda Cameron
June 23, 2011 During my recent vacation in North Carolina, my dad and I had the pleasure of visiting the garden of Freda Cameron and her husband in Chapel Hill. I’ve long been a reader of Freda’s blog, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel, which is a great source of ...
Visit to Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Shade & bog gardens
June 22, 2011 Juniper Level Botanic Garden, a 5-acre display garden at Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, N.C., is roughly divided in two parts: the sunny, newer gardens surrounding owner Tony Avent’s house, and the shady, older gardens surrounding the house in which the business is run. In this post ...
Visit to Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Hardy tropicals & pond gardens
June 21, 2011 Not everyone loves agaves as much as I do, I realize (shaking my head in astonishment). For you, then, these flowery images from the Juniper Level Botanic Garden at Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, N.C., which I visited two weeks ago. Pictured above is an orange dahlia, ...
Visit to Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Southwestern garden & agave collection
June 20, 2011 Is a southwestern garden what you expect to see when you visit the Raleigh, North Carolina, display gardens of online nursery Plant Delights? Do you expect to see cholla cactus in bloom? Or how about a ghostly ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (Agave ovatifolia)? You do if you’ve spent ...
The artful collector’s garden of Helen Yoest
June 19, 2011 While visiting my dad in central North Carolina last week, I was invited to pop over to Raleigh blogger Helen Yoest’s garden after a morning visit to Plant Delights Nursery. My family and I spent several hours at Plant Delights and then had lunch, so by the ...
