October evening stroll on South Congress Avenue
October 31, 2015 I had dinner on Austin’s iconic South Congress Avenue on Wednesday evening and afterward took a leisurely stroll to people-watch and window-shop. Honky-tonk music from Guero’s Oak Garden filled the cool evening air, people were smiling, and the street had a festive yet laid-back vibe that made ...
Evening photo shoot at The Huntington Gardens: GWA Pasadena
October 29, 2015 The Huntington gardens near Los Angeles have, for years, been on my wish list of botanical gardens to visit. So I was thrilled to see an afternoon visit and after-hours photoshoot offered on the itinerary of the Garden Writers Association symposium on September 20. Unfortunately, it was ...
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 ...
Playful plant-lover’s garden of LA designer Dustin Gimbel
September 28, 2015 Concrete orb shish-kabobs in Dustin’s garden The Death Star was blasting mercilessly when I visited designer Dustin Gimbel’s garden in Long Beach, CA, last week — not at all in the mellow, sunny-L.A. way I’d been led to expect. But perhaps Diana and I are fated to ...
Colorful LA garden of Potted maven Annette Gutierrez
September 25, 2015 I was in Los Angeles/Pasadena last weekend for the annual Garden Writers Association symposium, and boy oh boy, do I have some cool gardens to show you! Not all were on the GWA tours, which were limited to 3 private gardens and one public garden (the fabulous ...
It’s not hard to enjoy the Big Easy
July 29, 2015 If you want to feel that you’ve traveled to a foreign city without leaving the country, visit New Orleans and stay in the historic French Quarter. We made the 8-hour drive from Austin a couple of weeks ago — our first stop on a family road trip ...
Farewell visit to James David’s Austin garden, part 1
May 19, 2015 James and Gary’s entry garden, a gravel garden featuring agaves, aloes, succulents, and other dry-adapted plants from around the world After 36 years devoted to creating an extravagantly plant-rich, terraced, one-of-a-kind garden on two acres in Austin’s Rollingwood neighborhood, landscape architect James David and his partner Gary ...
Rock Rose garden abloom before the hailstorm
April 27, 2015 Two weeks ago my friend Jenny Stocker, blogger at Rock Rose and gardener extraordinaire, offered me a division of a water iris for my pond. When I arrived, mid-morning on a sunny, warm day, Jenny gave me a tour and then kindly set me loose to wander ...
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 ...
Gorgeous weeds and walls at the Wildflower Center
March 19, 2015 With a hat tip to Phoenix landscape architect Steve Martino, who coined the phrase “weeds and walls” to describe his design style — planting native plants for toughness and building walls for structure — here are some of the beautiful weeds and walls at Austin’s own native-plant ...
Melody’s romantic garden of passalong plants in San Antonio
October 28, 2014 Last year Shirley of Rock-Oak-Deer blogged about the garden of her neighbor Melody. I had met Melody at talks I gave in San Antonio and Brenham, so I read about her garden with particular interest. And I was thrilled when Shirley and Melody arranged for me and ...
Visit to Wave Hill in New York City, Part 2
October 22, 2014 Wave Hill, an estate garden in the Bronx in New York City, which I visited on October 11, was romantically blowsy in the Pergola, Elliptical, and Flower Gardens near the entry. But it got a bit bolder, even Hollywood, in the Aquatic and Monocot Gardens. These two ...
Visit to Wave Hill, a Hudson River estate garden in New York City
October 20, 2014 I traveled to New York City with my daughter on October 10 to see public gardens. On Saturday, our first full day in New York, a chilly rain didn’t keep us from visiting Wave Hill, a 28-acre estate garden in the Bronx with a million-dollar view of ...
The High Line park in NYC, a skyline promenade, part 2
October 19, 2014 At the end of Part 1 of my post about visiting the High Line in New York City last weekend, we’d just entered Chelsea Market Passage. After the dimness of the passageway, you exit into bright sunlight on the aptly named Sun Deck. Wooden lounge chairs resembling ...
Up on the High Line, a skyline promenade
October 19, 2014 Have you ever flown across the country to see one garden? I did last weekend. Rapturous articles and blog posts about the High Line, New York City’s garden-park conversion of an abandoned elevated rail line through the city’s old Meatpacking District, had seduced me for 5 years ...
Monarchs flutter into Dallas Arboretum on fall migration
October 09, 2014 We weren’t the only visitors to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden last Sunday. Aside from all the human visitors, hundreds of monarch butterflies arrived on the north wind blowing into Texas and settled into the garden for a rest stop. I understand their fall migration is ...
