Owl’ll be watching you
April 28, 2015 After weeks of live oak litter, first leaves and then pollen catkins, and weeks of me raking, blowing, and bagging, the garden is finally visible again. Sunday evening I went outside with no expectation of doing any spring chore: no clean-up, no pruning, no planting, no mulching, ...
Evergreens, color, and hardscape carry garden through winter into spring
March 11, 2015 A recent conversation on Linda Lehmusvirta‘s Facebook page got a few Austin gardeners talking about winter interest. Tracie, a local gardener, wrote that her mostly native garden looks great spring through fall but is “asleep” in winter, and she wanted ideas. Lori at The Gardener of Good ...
Keeping Houston weird at Joshua’s Native Plants
March 04, 2015 Shoehorned into a corner lot in the historic Heights neighborhood of Houston, Joshua’s Native Plants and Garden Antiques is a treasure trove of interesting plants and unusual garden art that you won’t find at every other nursery you visit. Despite a downpour that had me huddled under ...
Blazing red wall
November 12, 2014 I threw a coat of paint on two of my new stucco walls before the cold blew in on Tuesday, and holy smokes — the Dunn-Edwards ‘Hot Jazz’ red on the curved wall sizzles my eyeballs. It definitely picks up every bit of red in my garden, ...
Stuck on my stucco walls
October 01, 2014 I’m in love with the new walls. They’re not even painted yet (the stucco has to cure for a few weeks first), and I love them. I love their sturdy form and embracing curves. Swoop! The culvert-pipe yucca is being moved, by the way. Man, it’s heavy ...
Inspiration for my new bottle tree comes from the desert
August 28, 2014 When it’s too hot to plant, consider planting a bottle tree. It’ll never need watering, and the more the Death Star shines on it, the better it looks. I made a simple, post-style bottle tree 5 years ago. But the cedar post was rotting, and it was ...
Love just around the bend at Bella Madrona: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 17, 2014 For our final tour on the Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland last month, our bus stopped on a rural highway and deposited us in a field with a few pieces of rusty farming equipment strewn about. Not sure what to expect, I walked through open gates adorned ...
All-American blue and red in my garden
May 26, 2014 I threw a little soiree in honor of an out-of-town friend last week and got my garden all spruced up for the occasion. The last of the live oak leaves — or as close to last as I’m going to get — were finally banished, chairs and ...
Hippos, bottle art sculpture, and a free-spirited garden journey with Donna and Mike Fowler
May 22, 2014 Could the official mascot of Hutto, Texas, possibly be anything other than a hippo? The Hutto Hippos. Nope, it’s perfect. Located 30 miles northeast of Austin, the formerly sleepy hamlet of Hutto is growing as quickly as a hippopotamus in a lake full of duckweed. But the ...
Vicki Blachman likes playin’ outside in her rosy, leafy garden
May 05, 2014 I met Vicki Blachman, who blogs at Playin’ Outside, at the first Garden Bloggers Fling here in Austin in 2008. She’s been a warm, light-hearted, steady presence at the Fling and other local blogger events ever since, and I’m glad to know her — not least because ...
Sneak peek: Inside Austin Gardens Tour 2014, coming May 3rd
April 24, 2014 Garden-tour season in Austin is here, despite late freezes that set all our gardens back a few weeks. The Inside Austin Gardens Tour, sponsored by Travis County Master Gardeners, kicks things off on Saturday, May 3, from 9 am to 4 pm. The Austin garden bloggers were ...
Zoom out, zoom in for Foliage Follow-Up
March 16, 2014 Hey, all you leaf lovers! Today is Foliage Follow-Up, and I had fun with my zoom lens in two foliage-driven sections of my garden. Oh, who am I kidding? All of my garden is foliage-driven. Sometimes I regret not having a big, seasonal flower display, but I’m ...
Evening in the garden after the late-winter cut-back
February 17, 2014 We woke to fog yesterday, and in the soft light and early morning chill, I got started on the garden’s annual cut-back of perennials and grasses. Six hours later, with muscles aching but the garden cleaned up for spring, I called it a day. I had much ...
Fall Festival 2013 at Antique Rose Emporium: Beatrix Potter garden, bottle trees & cottage charm
November 06, 2013 After my talk at the Antique Rose Emporium near Brenham, Texas, last Saturday, I explored their display gardens again, enjoying the golden afternoon light and mild weather. The cottagey Beatrix Potter garden, enclosed by a purple picket fence, contains this charming seating area and whimsical features like ...
Happy about these garden blues
May 07, 2013 I’m singing the blues with majestic sage (Salvia guaranitica)… …with a blue bottle tree, purple skullcap (Scutellaria wrightii), and ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (Agave ovatifolia)… …with Texas bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis)… …and with more purple skullcap and bluebonnets, plus velvety mullein. Another view of the purple skullcap and mullein, ...
Springtime visit to the Garden of Good and Evil
May 03, 2013 Last weekend Lori, a gardener in southwest Austin who blogs at The Gardener of Good and Evil, hosted a meet-up of local garden bloggers. It was my second visit. I’d seen her lovely garden three years ago and posted about it then. Lori loves roses, and in ...
