Cowboy pool, colorful outdoor living: Lorie and Michael Kinler’s Fort Worth Garden
March 05, 2021 Last fall, during a weekend trip to Dallas, I was invited to visit the Fort Worth garden of Lorie and Michael Kinler. The Kinlers are the design duo behind Redenta’s Landscape Design Kinler Landscape Architecture (renamed in 2022), formerly affiliated with Redenta’s Garden nursery in Dallas. A ...
An icy garden on my 15th blogiversary
February 14, 2021 I started this blog 15 years ago today, a Valentine’s Day treat to myself as I joined the online gardening community. At first Digging was all about documenting and sharing photos of my Austin cottage garden, which I left behind 13 years ago when we moved to ...
Green texture in my live oak-shaded garden
January 31, 2021 At the end of a dog walk a few days ago, I ran my eyes along the streetside edge of my island bed, automatically checking for fallen branches, weeds, armadillo holes — as one does. Suddenly my perspective shifted, and I saw the plantings anew, as if ...
Origami sculpture in the Culinary and Adventure gardens at San Antonio Botanical Garden
December 10, 2020 Part 3 of my recent visit to San Antonio Botanical Garden to see the Origami in the Garden exhibition by Santa Fe artist Kevin Box takes us through the relatively new Culinary and Family Adventure gardens. Two festive Christmas trees greeted me just inside the entrance. Zachry ...
Tropical conservatory and origami sculpture at San Antonio Botanical Garden
December 09, 2020 Rising Peace I’m not much for conservatories, as regular readers know. They give me mall vibes. But maybe I’m starting to come around a little, thanks to the Origami in the Garden exhibit of Kevin Box‘s sculptures at San Antonio Botanical Garden. This is Part 2 of ...
Origami sculpture and Christmasy cactus garden at San Antonio Botanical Garden
December 07, 2020 I first admired Kevin Box‘s playful origami sculptures on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. Now he’s exhibiting his work at San Antonio Botanical Garden through early May 2021. I kept wanting to visit this fall but couldn’t find time until last weekend, when my husband and I ...
Farewell, fall flowers; hello, first freeze
December 01, 2020 So long, ‘Grapes’ gomphrena. It’s been a grand fall. But with a first freeze of 29F predicted early this morning, I expect your button-like flowers will soon look pale and freeze-dried. Well, it was time, I guess. Sayonara, forsythia sage. You were absolutely beautiful for two solid ...
Fall flowers, foliage, and change-ups
November 11, 2020 Ah fall, how I love you. Even though our fall weather is comparable to summer in northerly regions (low to mid-80s F), and colorful foliage rarely occurs, it’s still my favorite season. After all, autumn is our second spring here in Texas, and fall perennials like Philippine ...
Michael McDowell’s front-yard prairie garden
October 16, 2020 How can it have been 9 years since I first visited Michael McDowell’s front-yard prairie garden? Michael’s garden lives large in my memory, alight with morning sunlight and festive fall color (click for my 2011 tour), and it inspires daily via his blog Plano Prairie Garden and ...
The garden of Redenta’s Garden owner Ruth Kinler
October 12, 2020 It was the colorful, modern Fermob furniture that first lured me into Redenta’s Garden, a beloved Dallas nursery “for the modern gardener.” (Click for my tour.) So when I visited the home garden of owner Ruth Kinler, I was happily unsurprised to see more of that fabulous ...
Houston Botanic Garden’s surprising cactus garden and more – part 2
September 25, 2020 During my inaugural visit to the brand-new Houston Botanic Garden last weekend, my eyes widened when I rounded a bend and saw this — a rocky garden of agave, yucca, and cactus. After all, this is Houston, city of sauna-like summers and 50 inches of annual rainfall ...
Tropicalesque Tanglewild, where bananas and palms grow big and bold
September 17, 2020 With the arrival of cooler weather it’s garden visiting season, and I’ve started calling on gardening friends who are willing to have me over for a socially distanced, masked, outdoor visit. How I love touring gardens! This week’s tour is at Tanglewild Gardens, a 1.7-acre garden in ...
Oxblood lilies cavort with agaves in Tom Ellison’s garden
September 10, 2020 A couple days ago, between rainstorms, I returned to Tom Ellison’s garden to see his crop of oxblood lilies (Rhodophiala bifida). Austin’s gardens, especially in older neighborhoods like Tom’s own Tarrytown, blaze with diminutive red flags after the first good rain of late summer. Although the oxblood ...
Potted succulents don’t ask for much (and that’s the way I like it)
August 10, 2020 Potted plants green up my patio, deck, and porch, and I often plunk them into garden beds as focal points. But being in Texas, mine aren’t packed with flowering annuals or perennials that require daily or twice-daily watering. Instead they showcase water-thrifty plants like succulents, cacti, even ...
Finger-pointing cacti at Saguaro National Park
August 07, 2020 If you’re feeling ticked off about the covid state of the world, Saguaro National Park might be the perfect place to go, since its namesake flora look like they’re giving the finger to the universe. Saguaro was the last park we visited during our family road trip ...
Otherworldly trees and rocks at Joshua Tree National Park
August 03, 2020 Oh hi! Let’s pop back into the national park road trip. From the central coast of California, back in late June, we headed home to Austin via a more southerly route than our outbound one. We zipped through Los Angeles — regretful that the pandemic prevented any ...
