Visit to Big Red Sun's reopened boutique nursery in Austin

Visit to Big Red Sun’s reopened boutique nursery in Austin

November 10, 2011 Like a go-go dancer at a small-town prom, Big Red Sun‘s theatrical streetside display garden stood out from the crowd of surrounding businesses at its original location on E. Cesar Chavez. Its gift shop—jammed with garden books, hip furniture, clothes, jewelry, and home decor—was as enticing as ...
Edible wall! Cinderblock wall vegetable garden wows at Big Red Sun

Edible wall! Cinderblock wall vegetable garden wows at Big Red Sun

November 08, 2011 The cinderblock wall planter idea just keeps getting bigger and better. At Big Red Sun‘s recently reopened boutique nursery in east Austin, I spotted this edible wall planted in artistically stacked concrete blocks—a riff, perhaps, on the succulent wall at Potted that inspired my own succulent wall? ...
The winners of the Barton Springs Nursery giveaways are...

The winners of the Barton Springs Nursery giveaways are…

October 27, 2011 Thank you to everyone who left a comment to be entered into my two giveaways from Barton Springs Nursery, my favorite nursery in Austin. Digging is one of eight Austin garden blogs paired with eight local nurseries participating in the Austin Nurseries Giveaway. It’s all part of ...
Support Your Independent Nursery Month & Giveaway -- last day to enter!

Support Your Independent Nursery Month & Giveaway — last day to enter!

October 26, 2011 It’s Support Your Independent Nursery Month! Each Wednesday in October I’ve posted about one of my favorite independent garden centers in the Austin area, including Barton Springs Nursery (where I photographed the chalkboard pictured above!), The Natural Gardener, and The Great Outdoors. Today I’m shining a spotlight ...
Support Your Independent Nursery Month: The Great Outdoors

Support Your Independent Nursery Month: The Great Outdoors

October 19, 2011It’s Support Your Independent Nursery month! Each Wednesday in October I’m posting about one of my favorite independent garden centers in the Austin area. Today I’m shining a spotlight on The Great Outdoors, located just south of the hip strip known as SoCo on South Congress Avenue. (This ...
Austin Nurseries Giveaway: Barton Springs Nursery

Austin Nurseries Giveaway: Barton Springs Nursery

October 16, 2011 I’m thrilled to announce that as part of Support Your Independent Nursery Month, eight local nurseries are partnering with Austin garden bloggers for a giveaway blogathon! Prizes from locally owned nurseries around town are being offered in random drawings on eight Austin garden blogs, and all you ...
Support Your Independent Nursery Month: The Natural Gardener

Support Your Independent Nursery Month: The Natural Gardener

October 12, 2011 It’s Support Your Independent Nursery month! Each Wednesday in October I’m posting about one of my favorite independent garden centers in the Austin area. Today I’m shining a spotlight on The Natural Gardener, located at 8648 Old Bee Cave Road, just past the “Y” in Oak Hill ...
Support Your Independent Nursery Month: Barton Springs Nursery

Support Your Independent Nursery Month: Barton Springs Nursery

October 05, 2011 It’s Support Your Independent Nursery month! Each Wednesday in October I’m posting about one of my favorite independent garden centers in the Austin area. Today I’m shining a spotlight on Barton Springs Nursery, located on Bee Caves Road between MoPac and Highway 360. BSN is a great ...
October is Support Your Independent Nursery Month!

October is Support Your Independent Nursery Month!

September 28, 2011 Dear Austin gardeners and bloggers everywhere, I hereby declare October to be Support Your Independent Nursery Month. Fall is our best planting time in the South, and even though the U.S. recession and Texas drought drag on, we gardeners must get our fix after the long, hot ...
Visit to Dragonfly Farms Nursery, & goodbye Seattle Fling

Visit to Dragonfly Farms Nursery, & goodbye Seattle Fling

August 20, 2011 The final event of last month’s Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling was an afternoon visit to Dragonfly Farms Nursery—“Where Abnormality is the Normality!”—in Kingston, WA, and a fun happy hour on the lawn. Dragonfly Farms offers not only an enticing selection of plants for sale but beautiful and ...
Nursery tour: Ravenna Gardens in Seattle, a color explosion

Nursery tour: Ravenna Gardens in Seattle, a color explosion

August 10, 2011 What could top off a day of garden touring at the Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling? A happy hour, complete with swag bags, at stylish urban nursery/garden shop Ravenna Gardens. Located in an upscale outdoor mall just a couple of blocks from our hotel in the University District, ...
Portland nursery visits: Joy Creek & Cistus

Portland nursery visits: Joy Creek & Cistus

August 05, 2011 Joy Creek Nursery While visiting Portland before the Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling, I was treated to nursery visits with Loree of Danger Garden. Fresh out of sun-baked, drought-stricken Austin, and plunked amid the lush greens—and chartreuse and burgundy—of Portland’s landscape, I’m ashamed to say I moaned and ...
Nursery tour: Green 'n Growing

Nursery tour: Green ‘n Growing

July 05, 2011 Austin area gardeners are fortunate to have a number of good independent nurseries, run by people who know our plants and local growing conditions, at which to shop. (Click on Nurseries in my sidebar for more info about and photo tours of those I frequent.) Now I ...
Visit to Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Shade & bog gardens

Visit to Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Shade & bog gardens

June 22, 2011 Juniper Level Botanic Garden, a 5-acre display garden at Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, N.C., is roughly divided in two parts: the sunny, newer gardens surrounding owner Tony Avent’s house, and the shady, older gardens surrounding the house in which the business is run. In this post ...
Visit to Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Hardy tropicals & pond gardens

Visit to Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Hardy tropicals & pond gardens

June 21, 2011 Not everyone loves agaves as much as I do, I realize (shaking my head in astonishment). For you, then, these flowery images from the Juniper Level Botanic Garden at Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, N.C., which I visited two weeks ago. Pictured above is an orange dahlia, ...
Visit to Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Southwestern garden & agave collection

Visit to Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Southwestern garden & agave collection

June 20, 2011 Is a southwestern garden what you expect to see when you visit the Raleigh, North Carolina, display gardens of online nursery Plant Delights? Do you expect to see cholla cactus in bloom? Or how about a ghostly ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (Agave ovatifolia)? You do if you’ve spent ...