Mexico City: Bosque de Chapultepec botanical garden and more
April 05, 2020 One morning during our stay in Mexico City we explored the city’s “lungs”, the Bosque de Chapultepec, or Chapultepec Forest. At 1,695 acres, it’s one of the largest city parks in the Western Hemisphere. Chapultepec means “grasshopper hill” in the Aztec language, and in fact the park ...
Mexico City: Frida Kahlo’s Blue House and garden
March 23, 2020 Bird of paradise flower at Frida Kahlo’s Blue House Before the scope of the coronavirus crisis had crystallized, my husband, daughter, foreign exchange-student daughter, and I made an early spring-break trip to Mexico City. Had we known how fast the situation would escalate at home, I don’t ...
Japanese garden and prehistoric garden at Zilker Botanical Garden
March 02, 2020 Visiting the Japanese garden at Zilker Botanical Garden last week, I noticed all kinds of changes for the better at our perennially underfunded city garden. In the upper level of the Taniguchi Japanese Garden, pruning of perimeter trees has opened up a nice view of our ever-growing ...
Getting rid of a good thing: Saying goodbye to the stock-tank pond
February 11, 2020 The emptied-out stock tank is rolled out of the garden. Goodbye, pond! Photo courtesy of Lori Daul. I’m consciously unponding*, and people are freaking out — friends, family members, attendees at a recent Garden Spark talk, and even our young exchange student. By freaking out I really ...
Winter stroll at Zilker Botanical Garden
January 23, 2020 In need of a garden fix a couple of weeks ago, I stopped by Zilker Botanical Garden with my daughter, looking forward to strolling around the gardens for 45 minutes or so. I was surprised when the gate attendant told me admission for two Austin-resident adults is ...
Autumn hike at Hamilton Pool grotto
December 14, 2019 Hamilton Pool called my name last month, and I answered by scheduling a visit through the state’s reservation page. Yes, Hamilton Pool Preserve is so heavily visited nowadays that the county park system requires a reservation to visit on weekends, and every day in warmer months. Is ...
Red and yellow autumn foliage in my garden
November 30, 2019 Fall color in Austin was surprisingly good this year, including the show put on by the ornamental trees in my own garden, like the species Japanese maple (Acer palmatum). Most years it goes rusty red in mid-December, coordinating with the red Christmas balls I hang from an ...
Colorful fall at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
November 13, 2019 Before the big freeze I squeezed in a short visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, unintentionally joining throngs of families streaming in to explore Fortlandia on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I’d intended to photograph both the flowering gardens and Fortlandia but decided to save the ...
Chinoiserie enchantment at Chandor Gardens, part 2
October 31, 2019 Given 3-1/2 acres of cow pasture in North Texas, it turns out you can do quite a lot with it. Continuing with my mid-October visit to Weatherford’s Chandor Gardens (click for part 1 of my visit), here’s more of the romantic English-Chinese garden that portraitist Douglas Chandor ...
Chandor Gardens, née White Shadows, a hidden gem in North Texas, part 1
October 29, 2019 White Shadows — the name evokes romance and mystery — seems wholly appropriate for the dappled-shade garden surrounding a pale-gray house in the small Texas town of Weatherford, 30 miles west of Fort Worth. Here, in a series of alternately elegant and rustic garden rooms, you’ll find ...
End-of-summer garden
October 02, 2019 Austin is eager to bid a less-than-fond farewell to summer after a record-breaking hot and dry September. I can already see a change in the light, and my garden got a bit of rain last week. With any luck, by next week temperatures will finally drop 10 ...
A peaceful morning in Cat’s garden
September 28, 2019 A week ago in my friend Cat Jones’s garden, I found my attention divided between her new canyon-side stock-tank pond topped with a glorious flowering crinum and the rolling green canyon vista itself. For a few minutes, the crinum won out, and I exclaimed jealously over the ...
Beneficial insects love a stock-tank pond too
September 24, 2019 A small water garden helps me endure a Texas summer that stretches well into October. The plinking and burbling of water, jewel-bright and pastel water lilies, and lush green lily pads all make the glaring Death Star (i.e., the Texas sun) less oppressive. Coral-pink ‘Colorado’ water lily ...
Pond plants aren’t sick of summer (but I am)
September 04, 2019 One thing I love about having a stock-tank pond is the visual cooling it provides, a little oasis in my Texas garden during our long, broiling summer. Pond plants like waterlilies never get crispy looking because they’re growing neck deep in cool water. Who wouldn’t want to ...
Via Libre, a free-spirited garden along the freeway
July 25, 2019 Moss green doors sparkle with tin milagros — an inviting gateway into a garden courtyard. Many people wouldn’t consider buying a house sandwiched between MoPac expressway, a multi-lane highway with freight trains chugging down the center median, and its neighborhood feeder road. But Cynthia Williams Deegan and ...
Keith Funk’s front-yard oasis: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 22, 2019 The last private garden on the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling tour (June 2019) belongs to Keith and Retha Funk of Centennial, Colorado. When they bought their house in 2011, they inherited some lovely trees but also a tired landscape of overgrown shrubs and too much lawn. Their ...
