Autumn light and a morning garden stroll
September 24, 2013 October has arrived early in Austin. Since Saturday we’ve all been thrilling to temperatures in the 80s and low 90sF, with a dry, northerly breeze. While those temps may sound summery to some of my readers — those who do not live and garden under the Death ...
Mementoes and memories in the garden of Rebecca Sweet: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 24, 2013 Our 4th stop on the 2nd day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the Los Altos garden of designer, author, and blogger Rebecca Sweet. I’ve admired her garden not only on her blog, Gossip in the Garden, but in magazines like Sunset, so I already ...
Garden presents
January 10, 2013 I don’t think I ever mentioned last October that I received a fabulous red Circle Pot from my fabulous sister and sister-in-law. Sis had told me to expect a package and to keep my mitts off it until my birthday because it wouldn’t be wrapped. When the ...
Plant This: Blonde Ambition grama
December 02, 2012 Does the ubiquitous, blonde-maned Mexican feathergrass have a worthy rival at last? I’m beginning to think so. ‘Blonde Ambition’ grama (Bouteloua gracilis ‘Blonde Ambition’), a statuesque cultivar of our native blue grama, is a bunching, blue-green grass that grows to about 12 inches tall and wide. In ...
Buttery trees signal fall, at last
November 28, 2012 Even though it was in the mid-80s F just a couple of days ago, it’s chilly today, and the suddenly yellow leaves of the Mexican buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa), visible from my kitchen window, tell me the trees believe autumn is finally here. I couldn’t resist including another ...
Inside Austin Gardens Tour 2012: Jennifer and David Phillips Garden
October 13, 2012 One of the gardens on our sneak preview of the upcoming Inside Austin Gardens Tour, hosted by the Travis County Master Gardeners, was a newly constructed 5-star green home on a caliche-rugged property in West Austin. The design of the house was appealing (one blogger pointed out ...
Ponds and patios are made for lazy summer days
August 09, 2012 OK, so my days haven’t been too lazy. I have been working on my book, after all. But as summer winds down (by the school calendar, not by any actual cooling from the 100sF), I’ve given myself the gift of some unscheduled leisure time so that I ...
Twin fawns in the neighborhood
July 21, 2012 Each evening, two spotted fawns lounge or browse in my neighbors’ front lawns at the end of my street. Sometimes a slightly older fawn, still young enough to be spotted, joins them. Their mother leaves them to go browsing for dinner among neighborhood shrubs, and the fawns ...
Garden delights with the Whimsical Gardener
April 26, 2012 My friend and fellow blogger Catherine of The Whimsical Gardener invited me to lunch in her garden yesterday, which was abloom with fragrant star jasmine, glowing white abutilon, and these shell-pink ‘Colorado’ water lilies in her stock-tank pond. Catherine recently moved her 4-foot-diameter tank from a focal-point ...
Foliage fantasia in Portland’s Danger Garden
August 04, 2011 I’m baaack! Did you miss me? If you thought I’d gone AWOL from Austin’s summer from hell, well, you were right. I left early for the Garden Bloggers Fling last month, flying into Portland, Oregon, on July 20 in order to meet blogger friend, foliage fiend, and ...
Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve: Healing "the sorriest piece of land"
February 27, 2011 Chaperone duty during my kids’ school field trips over the years has taken me to some interesting places. But last Monday it got me in on a private tour of the esteemed Selah, Bamberger Ranch, a privately owned nature preserve of 5,500 acres in the Texas Hill ...
Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve: Healing “the sorriest piece of land”
February 27, 2011 Chaperone duty during my kids’ school field trips over the years has taken me to some interesting places. But last Monday it got me in on a private tour of the esteemed Selah, Bamberger Ranch, a privately owned nature preserve of 5,500 acres in the Texas Hill ...
Visit to Lost Valley Gardens
November 04, 2010 A couple of weeks ago, blogging friends Carol Janov and Ron Bomer invited me to visit their country garden and organic farm outside of Dripping Springs, Texas. I met Carol and Ron in April 2008, at the first Garden Bloggers Spring Fling in Austin, and I’ve been ...
Sneak preview of Gardens on Tour 2010: Reynosa Drive garden
May 04, 2010 One of my favorite Austin garden tours occurs this Saturday, May 8: Gardens on Tour, produced by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I’m pleased to offer you a sneak preview of one of the gardens on the tour, the Reynosa Drive garden, which I’m particularly fond ...
Amsterdam in bloom
July 17, 2007 Traveling home from Tanzania, my dad and I stopped for two nights in Amsterdam to have a look around, as we were passing through and neither of us had been to the Netherlands before. What a change from dusty, dry-season Tanzania. Surrounded by water and picturesquely built ...
Mom's hollyhocks
June 03, 2006 I’ve been away for a week in Tulsa, Oklahoma, visiting my mom. We spent several pleasant (mosquito-free!) afternoons in her cottage garden brimming with hollyhocks. Crowded around her purple garden shed, towering more than 6 feet tall, with flowers as broad as salad plates, Mom’s hollyhocks bloom ...
