November 02, 2018
Zilker Botanical Garden Conservancy created to revitalize Austin's botanical garden
March 17, 2017 For 23 years I’ve been a regular visitor at Zilker Botanical Garden, strolling its paths, picking my way across the Japanese garden’s moon bridge, watching the prehistoric garden grow into maturity. My children had a blast exploring its trails when they were younger, and I’ve enjoyed witnessing …
Zilker Botanical Garden Conservancy created to revitalize Austin’s botanical garden
March 17, 2017 For 23 years I’ve been a regular visitor at Zilker Botanical Garden, strolling its paths, picking my way across the Japanese garden’s moon bridge, watching the prehistoric garden grow into maturity. My children had a blast exploring its trails when they were younger, and I’ve enjoyed witnessing …
Marvelous maroons for March Foliage Follow-Up
March 16, 2017 One of my favorite spring-blooming shrubs for bright shade features raspberry flowers and maroon leaves. It’s Chinese fringeflower (Loropetalum chinense ‘Sizzling Pink’), and its richly colored foliage contrasts beautifully with blue-green paleleaf yucca (Y. pallida) in a purple pot. Variegated pittosporum ‘Cream de Mint’ adds shade-brightening foliage …
Read my article in Country Gardens about East Austin Succulents
March 12, 2017 If you like Austin’s thrift-store, anything-goes, fun-loving style, especially in gardening, check out my article about Eric Pedley’s nursery East Austin Succulents in the current issue of Country Gardens magazine (Spring 2017, pages 70-75). You can read all about Eric’s unique junk-store finds, LP-cooking adventures, and how …
Path, pipe planter, and palmetto
March 10, 2017 This vignette caught my eye in the lower garden as I was blowing a bazillion live oaks leaves (yes, it’s live oak leaf-drop season!): a culvert-pipe planted with squid agave, ‘Sizzling Pink’ loropetalum (I love that burgundy foliage), and a stepping-stone path leading up to the slabs …
Rainbow of ceramic succulents and flowers at Hill Country Water Gardens
March 09, 2017 Their Instagram feed was my undoing. On Monday one of my favorite local nurseries, Hill Country Water Gardens & Nursery in Cedar Park, posted a picture of new garden decor hitting their shelves, and I was up there the next day, poking through the display before they …
New flowers opening each day
March 08, 2017 Regular readers know that my shady, dry, deer-infested patch of dirt is not a flowerlicious garden. And yet even I have, oh, at least 6 or 7 flowers in bloom as spring kicks off here in Austin. Like this sweet, nodding Chinese ground orchid (Bletilla striata). I …
Exploring Mueller’s Southwest Greenway, public art, and Texas Farmers’ Market
March 05, 2017 A week ago, my dad and I popped over to east Austin’s Mueller neighborhood for a springtime stroll around the Southwest Greenway. They have some pretty big spiders in those parts! I love this sculpture, Arachnophillia by Houston artist Dixie Friend Gay, which stands 23 feet tall …
Bird’s-eye view of downtown Austin
March 04, 2017 This is as high as you can get above downtown Austin without flying. Yesterday evening we took in the view from the observation deck of The Austonian, the tallest residential building in Texas. At 55 floors up, the view (not to mention the elevator ride up there) …
New galvanized wall planters hold succulent cuttings
March 03, 2017 Spring fever has hit! For me, that manifests as refreshing my many pots of succulents, some of which have been inside all winter, others huddled against the house, and others (too big to move) left to weather as they will. If they took a winter hit, I’m …
Spring stroll at the Wildflower Center
February 27, 2017 After speaking at the Native Plant Society of Texas Spring Symposium, held at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center last Saturday (and a big thank-you to the organizers and wonderful audience members!), I strolled the gardens with my dad, who was visiting from North Carolina. The early …
Early flowerliciouness in Austin this spring
February 23, 2017 Purple oxalis flowers delicately echo its purple leaves Texas redbuds, Texas mountain laurel, spiderwort, and even some bluebonnets are surprising Austinites this spring with early blooming. I can usually count on sniffing the grape Kool-Aid-scented blossoms of Texas mountain laurel well into mid-March, but they may be …
Hell on wheels at Texas Roller Derby
February 20, 2017 Austin is where roller derby was reborn in the early 2000s, and it’s still a hot ticket, even on a Sunday night. My daughter and I attended last night’s Texas Roller Derby bout between the Rhinestone Cowgirls and the Holy Rollers. It had been 8 years (!) …
Sunshiny sedum and oh deer
February 19, 2017 The late-winter garden cut-back continues, but spring has sprung as far as pretty Palmer’s sedum is concerned. Honeybees have been busy among the flowers, although I managed to miss them in this closeup. While working in the lower garden, I heard a rustling in the greenbelt just …
