Fields of bluebonnet dreams
April 12, 2022 It’s peak bluebonnet season in Central Texas! And while the consensus is that bluebonnets are paltry this spring because of ongoing drought, even a poor year is a good year where bluebonnets are concerned. Seeing bonnie blue flowers mingling with orange-red Indian paintbrush, how can you feel ...
Autumn meadows and monarchs at Wildflower Center
February 07, 2022 The Center’s iconic lookout tower, which doubles as a water-collecting cistern When Loree of Danger Garden came to Austin last October, we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on her last day. I was happy she got to see it a second time, particularly since her ...
Neighbors save 11 acres from condo development, create a public nature park
January 27, 2022 As Texas’s population soars, many communities are feeling the growing pains of rapid development. Here in booming Austin that manifests as condos, condos, condos and traffic, traffic, traffic. But smaller towns also feel the pinch, not least in terms of lost green space. In Horseshoe Bay, a ...
Water feature magic in Lori Daul’s garden
January 24, 2022 My friend Lori Daul‘s garden in South Austin has evolved, over the many years I’ve visited, from a sunny, romantic space filled with roses to a shadier yet still lush paradise where bold blue agaves and black elephant ears get equal billing, where dry gardens meet water ...
A Texas-style crevice garden – and neighborly collaboration – brings midcentury Austin home to vibrant life
January 18, 2022 At the end of October, when Loree of Danger Garden was in town for her Garden Spark talk, we finagled an invitation to the tropicalesque garden of John Ignacio. John in turn introduced us to his friend and neighbor Coleson Bruce, who kindly allowed a couple of ...
Anemones and autumn memories in Cat’s garden
January 12, 2022 Back in late October, when Loree of Danger Garden was visiting, Cat Jones invited us over for a garden visit. Her lipstick-pink anemones, a passalong from Rock Rose‘s Jenny Stocker (who’s since departed Austin for Arizona), were blooming. We both adore these fall flowers, which Jenny kindly ...
New Year’s Eve hike at McKinney Falls
January 01, 2022 Upper Falls pool at McKinney Falls State Park As the second year of the pandemic sputtered to a sour end, with covid rates skyrocketing yet again, I turned to nature for a spirit-soothing New Year’s Eve hike with my family. Around noon we arrived at McKinney Falls ...
Yucca and palm fantasyland at John Fairey Garden
December 17, 2021 I’d been to The John Fairey Garden (formerly Peckerwood Garden) a half-dozen times before my late-October visit with Loree Bohl of Danger Garden, who was in town to give a Garden Spark talk. Frustratingly, I’d never toured the dry garden, though I’d glimpse its bristling yuccas and ...
A plant-collector’s jungle garden of palms, sotol, and more
December 14, 2021 Like a Mayan ruin — except not crumbling and with a fresh coat of white paint — John Ignacio’s house near Bull Creek in northwest Austin stands amid a jungle-evoking garden of palms, bamboo, and other bold foliage. I’d been introduced to John by a mutual friend, ...
A collected home with heart at Via Libre garden
December 03, 2021 Known in Abilene for their extensive gardens, designer and artist Cynthia Williams Deegan and her husband, Bobby, picked up and moved to Austin in 2013 to be near their children and grandchildren. Austin has grown more enchanting as a result. As I’ve written previously, Cynthia and Bobby ...
The yellow glow of late fall
December 02, 2021 Cool, blue-sky weather has me spending more time in the garden, having friends over, and tinkering with planting beds. It’s kind of glowing out there. Why? Yellow is the color of fall in my garden, starting with the wonderful forsythia sage (Salvia madrensis), which lights up the ...
Meeting up with “Gays Who Garden” Andrew and Jared
November 15, 2021 I can’t remember when I started following @gayswhogarden on Instagram, but their alliterative, cheeky, and decidedly out username caught my eye, as did their beautiful images of soft-petaled roses, colorful Texas wildflowers, and glowing dahlias (in Austin — how??). We started chatting online, and in due course ...
Garden design lessons from a Texas gravel garden
November 10, 2021 Blue grama grass and whale’s tongue agave I’m always inspired by Linda Peterson’s low-water gravel garden in San Antonio, which normally is studded with gigantic Weber agaves, sculptural prickly pears, rivers of starfish-shaped soap aloes, and strategic screening shrubs that soften fencing and create a green backdrop ...
Lucinda Hutson’s colorful Day of the Dead garden
October 25, 2021 Austin author Lucinda Hutson‘s garden blazes with color every day of the year. But come October, for Day of the Dead, she kicks it up a big notch. Yellow and orange marigolds glow from every pot, mingling with hibiscus, coral vine, and roses in sherbet hues, all ...
Going batty at Bracken Cave, where 20 million bats take flight
September 14, 2021 Austin is justifiably proud of the 1.5-million-strong bat colony that roosts under downtown’s Congress Avenue Bridge. I’ve watched the nightly emergence from the bridge as the bats take flight many times over the years. But when I heard that nearby Bracken Cave contains 15 to 20 million ...
Exploring reimagined Waterloo Park in downtown Austin
August 30, 2021 Shade trees are precious in a hot climate, 200-year-old heritage live oaks even more so. As Waterloo Park in downtown Austin emerges from a massive, 10-year redesign and overhaul, two grand old live oaks on the west side of the park greet visitors as if lovingly presented ...
