An exuberant, upcycled, scrap-art garden: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 21, 2019 Colorful stucco walls! Upcycled metal garden art! Octopus planters! Agaves (atop caged columns) and alliums and poppies! Amusing vignettes! As soon as we stepped off the bus at Denver Garden Bloggers Fling (June 2019), I knew this garden would be one of my tour favorites. Who could ...
Children’s Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 17, 2019 Part of the Mordecai Children’s Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens, which I visited during the Denver Fling (June 2019), sits atop a parking garage, making it one very large rooftop garden. A pretty alpine garden, including this crevice garden, greets you as you enter, and it surprised ...
Crevice garden, Japanese garden, and more sculpture at Denver Botanic Gardens: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 16, 2019 Continuing with my visit to Denver Botanic Gardens during the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling (June 2019), here is my favorite installation in the ongoing Human | Nature exhibit: Lights by Steinunn Thorarinsdottir. Five impassive, rough-hewn figures stand amid the grasses of the Plains Garden. Small holes punched ...
A fusion of nature and art in Scott Deemer’s garden: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 11, 2019 A “designer showpiece” garden conveys a grand gesture, expensive hardscaping, and maybe not much in the way of plants. At the home garden of Scott Deemer in Niwot, Colorado, a grand-gesture fireplace and beautifully designed hardscaping create a wow moment as soon as you step onto the ...
TatTopia garden embraces stonework and sustainability: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 09, 2019 When the construction dust settled at Tatiana Maxwell’s new energy-wise home, studio, and guest house in Boulder, Colorado, in 2010, the yard was just an expanse of bare dirt. Her first thought was to build an English-style cottage garden. But after brainstorming with stonemason artist Thea Alvin ...
Jan Devore Garden under the pines: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
June 27, 2019 The first private garden on the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling tour (June 2019) was located in Fort Collins, about an hour north of Denver. From the street, cottage garden favorites greeted us. Owner Jan Devore planted the small front garden with Rosa glauca and purple irises — ...
Cactus blooms, round two
May 23, 2019 Summer is here in Texas, and the heat is on, with temps in the 90s all this week. While I’ll miss cooler temps, the collection of cacti on the deck loves it, blooming in unison for the second time this month. Satin flowers of pumpkin orange and ...
Cat’s pollinator garden with a canyon view
May 16, 2019 Three years ago my friend Cat Jones (check out her IG and blog) and her husband, Derrick, newly empty nesters, sold their house and Cat’s lovely garden and moved to a different home in their Steiner Ranch neighborhood, not to downsize but — fellow gardeners, can you ...
Cactus bloom for my garden class
May 05, 2019 Just 8 hours before my garden class/tour began (the first Garden Spark Tour, a new offering from Garden Spark), the sky was falling in parts of Austin, dumping up to 7 inches of rain in just a few hours and washing out low-water crossings. Thankfully, here in ...
Spring is abloom in shades of pink and turquoise
May 01, 2019 I haven’t done a photo tour of my own garden in a while, so let’s go, starting with a new planting of Gulf Coast penstemon (Penstemon tenuis) and winecup (Callirhoe involucrata), both Texas natives. Along with an artichoke — I’ve always wanted to try one — they’re ...
Spring flowers and foliage at Dallas Arboretum
April 25, 2019 At Dallas Arboretum last week, masses of foxgloves were blooming throughout the gardens. Hot pink is lovely… …but I like even better these lilac and mauve foxgloves planted under gnarled vitex trees. Pretty from any angle Honeybees enjoy the freckled flowers too. We stopped in A Woman’s ...
Woodland tapestry: Jay Sifford’s garden of foliage, art, and light
April 18, 2019 During a family visit to Charlotte, North Carolina, last weekend, I took the opportunity to visit the garden of designer Jay Sifford, an online friend who graciously offered up his morning for a visit. When thunderstorms rumbled all morning, we pushed it to early afternoon. I arrived ...
Spring marvels and cleanup
April 17, 2019 April unfurls new marvels to appreciate each day, like the glaucous berries of ‘Marvel’ mahonia that appeared after its yellow flowers faded in late winter. I’ve been trialing ‘Marvel’ mahonia from Southern Living Plant Collection since fall 2017. A handsome evergreen, it’s thriving in a tall container ...
Feeling the blues – happy blues – in Lori Daul’s garden
April 02, 2019 Visiting the garden of Lori Daul, aka The Gardener of Good and Evil, on a cool spring afternoon gives me a case of the blues. But the blues are moody only in hue, not in spirit! Lushly planted with Texas-tough plants, her suburban South Austin garden is ...
Spring evening at home
March 28, 2019 This has been the most beautiful week of spring, with soft, warm days, cool breezes, and wildflowers galore, including a patch of Texas bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) in my gravel front walk. Orange creamsicle flowers on gray globemallow (Sphaeralcea incana) Pink cascade on the weeping ‘Traveller’ redbud (Cercis ...
Family Garden and berry-bright possumhaws at Wildflower Center
February 11, 2019 Continuing with my recent visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, let’s explore the Family Garden and see how it looks in late winter. Again, possumhaw holly (Ilex decidua) berries blaze bright red, alongside early blossoms of coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens). The galvanized steel cylinder is ...
