Living colorfully in Civano, Tucson’s green-home community
April 22, 2014 I made a quick visit to Tucson while in Arizona earlier this month, and one of my stops included the green, master-planned community of Civano on the southeast side of town. One of my favorite garden authors, Scott Calhoun, wrote about building his home and garden there ...
Drive-By Gardens: Aloes abloom in modern dry garden of Karen Lantz
April 03, 2014 ‘Blue Elf’ aloes, purple prickly pear, gold sedum, and smooth sotol and silver ponyfoot in the steel ring, with an Opuntia “tree” behind I’m hearing from many of you how much you enjoy my Drive-By Gardens posts, and so I’m pleased to offer a third this week ...
Native plant gardens rev up Austin City Hall
November 21, 2013 Overlooking Lady Bird Lake and backing up to the tall codominiums of downtown, Austin City Hall delights me every time I drive by. With an angular, contemporary exterior clad in copper and limestone and a front facade that steps down toward the lake, the building has a ...
Gorgeous gravel garden outshines former lawn in Lakewood garden
October 29, 2013 Whenever landscape architect Curt Arnette of Sitio Design invites me to see one of his gardens, I say, “I’ll be right there!” Last Saturday we toured a 1-year-old garden in the Lakewood neighborhood of West Austin that he designed and that his cousin John Gibson (of Gibson ...
Drive-By Gardens: No-lawn, deer-resistant garden in Jester
September 19, 2013 While driving the hilly West Austin neighborhood of Jester this week, I couldn’t help noticing this attractive, lawn-gone garden that relies heavily on evergreens and ornamental grasses with a sprinkling of flowering perennials for color. Limestone boulders and pieced flagstone pathways are a key design element here ...
How to plant a sedge lawn
August 23, 2013 If mowing once a year sounds good, if pouring less water on the ground is a goal, and if you appreciate or can tolerate a shaggy, meadowy look, a sedge lawn may be your perfect alternative to a thirsty, summer-crisped St. Augustine lawn. Sedges exist for seemingly ...
Lawn Gone! giveaway and my guest post at Garden Rant
August 15, 2013 “Lawns are for kids, right? After all, they need that big, green carpet to enjoy the outdoors. Would it be an exaggeration to say it borders on neglect not to keep a lawn for your children or grandchildren to play on?” So begins my guest post today ...
Sculptural dry gardens at the Ruth Bancroft Garden: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 27, 2013 Our 1st stop on the 3rd and final day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek. It was about 100 degrees F in Walnut Creek that last week of June, but the heat and intense sunlight seemed appropriate for ...
Shirley Fox’s golden xeriscape garden in San Antonio
June 25, 2013 A week ago I traveled to San Antonio to give a public Lawn Gone! talk at the invitation of the Gardening Volunteers of South Texas. Among the 100 or so people in attendance, two Alamo City bloggers I follow, Shirley of Rock-Oak-Deer and Heather of Xericstyle, were ...
Meet Austin designer Mark Word
April 18, 2013 Photo by Maggie Goen. Used with permission from Mark Word Design. For Austin designer Mark Word, selecting plants for clients’ gardens is akin to playing a good jazz set at a hopping nightclub. “You do plenty of crowd-pleasing standards,” he says—the Deep South evergreens and Hill Country ...
Hungry to lose the lawn? Vegetarian Times buzzes about Lawn Gone!
March 27, 2013 While flipping through the enticing April/May 2013 issue of Vegetarian Times magazine, which has just hit newsstands, you’ll find that my book, Lawn Gone!, got a whole page of coverage in “The Buzz” on page 16! Willi Galloway, author of the popular Grow Cook Eat, interviewed me ...
Lawn Gone needs reader reviews
February 26, 2013 Hey, friends, if you’ve had a chance to read my new book, Lawn Gone!, and you enjoyed it, I’d really appreciate if you’d take the time to leave a review on Amazon. I just noticed that there are no reader reviews yet. You could be the first ...
Inspired by Christy Ten Eyck’s garden on KLRU
January 31, 2013 Ten Eyck’s Austin gardenLinda Lehmusvirta of KLRU’s Central Texas Gardener has produced one of the best episodes ever in her interview with acclaimed landscape architect Christy Ten Eyck, who moved back to Austin in 2006 after 22 years living and designing gardens in Phoenix, Arizona. Watch the ...
My less-lawn obsession goes WAY back, I discover
December 17, 2012 Mowing sucksWhile sorting through my filing cabinet this morning, I came across an old newsletter published by my former neighborhood association. Why in the world did I save this? I wondered. Flipping through the yellowing pages, I saw an article about reducing lawn that I forgot I’d ...
Why Grow That When You Can Grow This? review & giveaway
December 11, 2012 Why Grow That…You can’t help but feel curious about a gardening book titled as provocatively as this one. Why Grow That When You Can Grow This? 255 Extraordinary Alternatives to Everyday Problem Plants is the work of Andrew Keys, a blogger at Garden Smackdown, the creator of ...
Want a sneak peek of my book, Lawn Gone? Here's an excerpt!
December 06, 2012 My new bookMy book is taking its first baby steps out into the world. An excerpt is now available on Scribd, so check it out (below) if you’d like a sneak peek! The excerpt includes the introduction and chapter 1, plus the table of contents, so it’ll ...
