Falling for the Folly Bowl, a garden amphitheater
October 07, 2015 Twelve years ago, Los Angeles garden designer Susanna Dadd and her husband, artist James Griffith, built a back-yard amphitheater in a ravine alongside their Altadena home. Dubbing it The Folly Bowl, they’ve been hosting free, or nearly free, public concerts each summer, choosing unique performers that will ...
Hillside oasis: the magical garden of Joy and Roland Feuer
October 04, 2015 While in Los Angeles recently for Garden Writers Association, I spent a day off-conference touring private gardens that Annette Gutierrez of Potted arranged for a small group of us. One of these was the garden of Joy and Roland Feuer, a welcoming and artistic couple who constructed ...
Late garden party at Kris Peterson’s ocean-view oasis
September 27, 2015 Kris Peterson, Los Angeles blogger at Late to the Garden Party, saw her blog title unexpectedly come true last week. Or rather, my friend Diana and I did. With flight complications, we arrived in L.A. four hours later than planned and were indeed late to the garden ...
Modern gravel garden sips water, amps up architecture
September 25, 2015 Succulent and cactus gardeners and fans of modern design, you’ll want to see this garden on the upcoming San Antonio Watersaver Landscape Tour on October 24. I recently enjoyed a preview visit, thanks to an invitation from Shirley of Rock-Oak-Deer and Heather of Xericstyle. This contemporary garden ...
Sedgey evergreen garden of Pat Mozersky for Foliage Follow-Up
September 16, 2015 Austin designer Mark Word (see my profile about him) designed this serene, green San Antonio garden that you can see on the upcoming Watersaver Landscape Tour on October 24. I got a preview last Friday thanks to Shirley of Rock-Oak-Deer. The garden belongs to Pat Mozersky, the ...
Dreamy green courtyard and water-saving garden in San Antonio
September 15, 2015 My friend Shirley of Rock-Oak-Deer in San Antonio recently uttered the magic words: Come see a few gardens! So last Friday I hopped in my car, drove south to the Alamo City, and met Shirley to tour three gardens. Two of the gardens will be on this ...
The Gardener of Good and Evil makes my garden look good
August 28, 2015 Water visually cools Pam’s back garden. Photo by Lori Daul. Although she claims both a halo and a pitchfork in her blog name, Lori Daul of The Gardener of Good and Evil is purely a force for good — or at least that’s what I believe after ...
Art and design intrigue in the garden of Syd Teague
June 01, 2015 Once a month the Austin garden bloggers gather at one of our gardens to socialize, talk plants and design, and do a plant swap. Last Saturday we met up in Rock Rose/Jenny Stocker’s garden, which despite a recent hailstorm and torrential rains was absolutely beautiful. But we ...
Feeling blue? This contemporary garden is designed for sunny relaxation
May 10, 2015 Recently I was invited to visit a brand-new contemporary garden designed by Fertile Ground Gardens. Co-owner and designer Alexa Villalobos gave me a tour, explaining that the two-tone, blue-painted house is a vacation home for Portland photographer Ray Hendricks. The interior of the new home is all ...
West Texas meets the Big Easy in the courtyard garden of Curt Arnette
May 04, 2015 Each time I visit the garden of landscape architect Curt Arnette in southwest Austin, I am absolutely agog over the front courtyard, which occupies a corner lot on a typical suburban street of nicely kept lawns and foundation shrubs. His garden stands out in the best way ...
The art-adorned, water-saving garden of Mireille Engel
April 24, 2015 Last week I had the pleasure of visiting a new garden, that of Mireille Engel, a French-speaking Swiss native turned Texan and longtime gardener, whose garden helper, Kathy Christian, introduced me and gave me a tour. Located in the Cuernavaca neighborhood and perched on the edge of ...
Going waterwise at Rollingwood City Hall
April 21, 2015 Putting their money where their mouth is, more and more cities that urge citizens to reduce their water usage are replacing thirsty lawns around courthouses and city halls with xeric landscaping. Rollingwood, a tiny city of around 500 homes just three miles from downtown and surrounded by ...
Palo verde paradise at Arizona State University Polytechnic campus
February 13, 2015 For all you snowbound readers up north or eager-beaver gardeners down south, you’ll find lots of floral sunshine in this post, which I’ve been holding onto since last spring. During my Phoenix visit last April, my friend Noelle, aka AZ Plant Lady, took me to some water-saving ...
Heather’s Xericstyle garden in San Antonio
October 27, 2014 Last week I roadtripped south with a few friends to see the gardens of our San Antonio blogger friends, Heather Ginsburg of Xericstyle and Shirley Fox of Rock-Oak-Deer, plus Shirley’s neighbor and gardening friend Melody. I posted about Shirley’s garden here. Today I’ll show you Heather’s garden ...
Nonirrigated native plant garden of Lee Clippard is a foliage lover’s dream
October 16, 2014 Earlier this month I visited the East Austin garden of Lee Clippard, blogger at The Grackle, and his partner, John. The first fall rains had just arrived, following a relatively mild summer, so their foliage-centric garden of native plants was looking lush and green. I’d never have ...
Xeriscape is not a zeroscape: Scottsdale Xeriscape Garden demonstrates the beauty of saving water
May 09, 2014 It’s a common mispronunciation, but it’s also a bit of a Freudian slip: saying “zeroscape” instead of “xeriscape.” To xeriscape is to design a garden that conserves water through the use of drought-tolerant plants grouped according to water needs, water-collection systems, mulch, non-wasteful irrigation, and other rather ...
