Cottage garden magic and art in sculptor Tom Ellison’s garden
May 20, 2014 In the one-more-reason-to-blog category, you meet the nicest people. A couple of years ago, while I was cruising the aisles at Barton Springs Nursery, Tom Ellison introduced himself as a Digging reader. We stayed in touch, and recently he let me know he’d started a website with information ...
Gardens on Tour 2014: Stratford Drive Garden
May 15, 2014 Naturalistic gardens can, I find, be hard to photograph unless they contain strong lines of hardscape (pathways to lead the eye, walls as backdrops, focal-point sculpture or plants, generous negative space to give visual relief, etc.). Gardens on Tour, sponsored by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, ...
Wildflowers and more in bloom at the Wildflower Center
April 15, 2014 For Garden Bloggers Bloom Day let’s go to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center here in Austin. I visited on Sunday with family who were in town, hoping to see some bluebonnets. We saw a lot more than that, including these beautiful pink flowers that resembled apple ...
Interview with Luci Baines Johnson about Wildflower Center's new Family Garden
March 19, 2014 Water feature with streams, pond, rocks, and grotto in the new children’s garden Some of you already know this story. In early 2000, while visiting the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center with my baby daughter and 3-year-old son, I unexpectedly met Lady Bird and her daughter Luci ...
Interview with Luci Baines Johnson about Wildflower Center’s new Family Garden
March 19, 2014 Water feature with streams, pond, rocks, and grotto in the new children’s garden Some of you already know this story. In early 2000, while visiting the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center with my baby daughter and 3-year-old son, I unexpectedly met Lady Bird and her daughter Luci ...
Winter berries, ghostly agaves, and early spring flowers at the Wildflower Center
March 06, 2014 I visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center yesterday for a media preview of the new children’s garden that will be opening in May (more to come soon), and I made a quick tour of the main gardens before heading out. All was quiet and still on ...
Tanzanian safari: Tent camp on the Serengeti, crocodiles, and soaring over volcanoes
January 14, 2014 We made several more game drives while visiting the western corridor of Serengeti National Park (June 2007), seeing many, many elephants — and I took so many photos of them that my family got elephant-fatigue when viewing them later. I’ll only show you a few, and not ...
Fall hike at St. Edward’s Park in northwest Austin
November 18, 2013 We’ve been hiking at St. Edward’s Park — more of a greenbelt trail, really — for 20 years, enjoying the reliable flow of Bull Creek, the treetop views from the bluff that follows the creek, and the park’s relative solitude, especially as compared to Barton Creek Greenbelt ...
Support Your Independent Nursery: The Natural Gardener GIVEAWAY
October 01, 2012Buddha says, Support your local nurseries. Each week in October, which is Support Your Independent Nursery Month, I am featuring one of my favorite Austin-area nurseries here at Digging. To make things even more interesting, I’m also hosting a giveaway every week—one from each nursery! This week I’m ...
Rocky Mountain National Park: Bear Lake, wildlife, and tundra
July 12, 2012 My family and I recently enjoyed a nearly two-week vacation in Colorado, and I’d love to share some photos from Rocky Mountain National Park, a favorite destination for this Texan looking to escape the heat for a little while. Bear Lake Trail is an easy hike around ...
Asheville Garden Bloggers Fling: Wamboldtopia, an artists’ garden
May 25, 2012 Skulls, skeletons, gravestone fragments, gargoyles, and other eerie tokens are tucked into nooks and crannies… …and dangle from the eaves throughout Wamboldtopia, an art-filled garden (or garden of art) and stonemason’s paradise located off Wamboldt Avenue in west Asheville. The Goth accents… …are countered by a slew ...
Canyons, river, and sky: Big Bend country (Days 2-3)
March 20, 2012 Following up on my overall impressions of Big Bend National Park, today I’ll take you on a tour of the sights. Our first morning we drove up into the Chisos Mountains to hike the Chisos Basin Loop Trail. At an elevation of 4,500 feet over the desert ...
Thankful for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center & native plants
November 26, 2011 Avoiding the Black Friday madness and taking advantage of a beautiful fall day in Austin, my family and I headed to the Wildflower Center for a post-lunch stroll yesterday. Since all the plants at the Wildflower Center are native to Texas, it’s illuminating to see what still ...
Thankful for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center & native plants
November 26, 2011 Avoiding the Black Friday madness and taking advantage of a beautiful fall day in Austin, my family and I headed to the Wildflower Center for a post-lunch stroll yesterday. Since all the plants at the Wildflower Center are native to Texas, it’s illuminating to see what still ...
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 ...
Walking on air at Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver
September 07, 2011 For vertigo-inducing views and a swing—and a bounce!—in your step, cross a gorge on a suspension bridge sometime. My family and I traipsed across this one, Capilano Suspension Bridge, last month while visiting Vancouver, British Columbia. Originally constructed in 1889 out of hemp and rebuilt with wire ...
