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 ...
Succulent and cactus container garden thrives under Death Star: August Foliage Follow-Up
August 16, 2014 Two months ago I acquired another steel pipe remnant and set it in the gravel garden by the front door. There it sat empty for nearly 8 weeks as I traveled and debated what to plant in it. Finally, taking my own advice not to plant anything ...
Drive-By Gardens: Lawn-gone curb appeal in Crestview, Brentwood and Allandale
June 27, 2014 Driving through the north-central Austin neighborhoods of Allandale, Brentwood, and Crestview yesterday, I noticed a number of face-lifted ranches and bungalows, freshened up with paint and/or reasonably sized additions and eye-catching, lawn-reducing landscaping. Let’s start this Drive-By with a charming, painted-brick ranch with a lime-green screen and ...
Gardens on Tour 2014: Tait Moring’s garden on Bee Caves Road
May 14, 2014 Here’s a garden I’ve shown you twice before, but I never get tired of touring it. Beautifully designed, inviting, with whimsical and personal vignettes, landscape architect Tait Moring‘s personal garden on Bee Caves Road has been previously featured on the Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour. (So were ...
New windows refresh house exterior
May 10, 2014 We continue to pick away at the dated and energy-inefficient features of our 1970s ranch. We’d put off replacing our paper-thin, single-pane, silver-aluminum windows — one with a BB-gun hole covered with a piece of Scotch tape — because of the expense. But now that it’s done, ...
Tecolote Hill garden happenings and a new fence
May 02, 2014 Winter’s chill finally gave way to spring, and then, suddenly, to summer. Several mid-90F days earlier this week thankfully didn’t fade ‘Etoile Violette’ clematis, growing on the lattice under the deck. But it did in the spuria iris, shown here in full bloom last week, before the ...
Visit to Desert Botanical Garden and Chihuly Exhibit: Archer House garden and Desert Living Trail
April 29, 2014 If you’re a birdwatcher, you really must visit Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. I arrived around 10 am on April 4th and saw more birds than I could identify, photograph, or count. Imagine an early morning visit, when all the birds are waking up! This dove ...
Living colorfully in Civano, Tucson’s green-home community
April 22, 2014 I made a quick visit to Tucson while in Arizona earlier this month, and one of my stops included the green, master-planned community of Civano on the southeast side of town. One of my favorite garden authors, Scott Calhoun, wrote about building his home and garden there ...
Desert retreat in Steve Martino-designed Quartz Mountain Garden
April 21, 2014 The second garden I visited with Phoenix landscape architect Steve Martino was familiar to me from a magazine or garden book I’d read. Peer recognition, including an ASLA design award in 2006, has also been bestowed on Steve’s design for this Paradise Valley, Arizona, home. It’s a ...
Drive-By Gardens: Aloes abloom in modern dry garden of Karen Lantz
April 03, 2014 ‘Blue Elf’ aloes, purple prickly pear, gold sedum, and smooth sotol and silver ponyfoot in the steel ring, with an Opuntia “tree” behind I’m hearing from many of you how much you enjoy my Drive-By Gardens posts, and so I’m pleased to offer a third this week ...
Drive-By Gardens: No-lawn flower garden at Houston Heights bungalow
March 31, 2014 We’d cruised down Peddie Street in the Houston Heights neighborhood to find the riotously colorful house and garden that locals had urged us to see. But Peddie offers a two-for-one special, and when we spotted this pretty garden across the street from the first one, we got ...
Fall Festival 2013 at Antique Rose Emporium: Arbors, labyrinth & garden shops
November 07, 2013 On a perfect fall day last Saturday at the Antique Rose Emporium near Brenham, Texas, after I’d given my Lawn Gone! talk, I strolled around for an hour taking pictures in the golden light of late afternoon. Felder Rushing, the final speaker of the day, was entertaining ...
Naples Botanical Garden: Gardens with Latitude
March 22, 2010 Over spring break we drove 3,200 miles (5,149 km) round-trip to Florida, with stops in Orlando, Miami, Everglades National Park, the Keys (all the way to Key West), and finally Naples to see the brand-new botanical garden there. Planted last August and opened to the public in ...
From eyesore to asset: New shed evokes fond memories
January 01, 2008 Many months after I set out to remodel my garden shed, its makeover is complete. Nearly. The frame around the new screen door still requires painting, but everything else is done, several months after starting this project. Isn’t it amazing how seemingly simple projects get dragged out? ...
Tour of Deborah Hornickel garden
October 26, 2006 A pear allee is the highlight of Hornickel’s garden Warm, accessible, personal, with striking plant choices and a Gardens-inspired feel, this Bryker Woods garden, located within walking distance of James David and Gary Peese’s famous garden shop, is Gardens on a budget. And I mean that as ...
Tour of Penelope Hobhouse-designed garden on Harris Boulevard
October 25, 2006 A belvedere “modeled after the music pavilion at Versailles,” according to the Open Days Directory. We garden tourists knew this would be the most opulent garden on the Open Days Austin tour. A feature in the newspaper that tantalized with lavish photos, and mentioned that the garden ...
