Welcome to Austin
February 10, 2008 Do you picture cowboys, cattle, and cactus when you think about Austin, Texas? If so, consider instead how we Austinites see our hometown: Live Music Capital of the World and home to PBS’s long-running “Austin City Limits” concert series. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willie Nelson, the Chicks, Spoon, ...
Merry Christmas from Zilker Park!
December 24, 2007 Last night the family trooped down to Zilker Park for the Trail of Lights. My favorite tree in Austin, this majestic pecan, was encrusted from trunk to twigs with thousands of colored bulbs—a magical vision! Other trees glowed beautifully too. We also took turns spinning under the ...
Zilker Botanical Garden: Isamu Taniguchi Japanese Garden
November 02, 2007 Aside from the new-ish Hartman Prehistoric Garden, my favorite section of Zilker Botanical Garden is the venerable Taniguchi Japanese Garden. Created as a labor of love and opened in 1969, . . . the Garden was built by Mr. Taniguchi when he was seventy years old. Working ...
Chicago Botanic Garden: Japanese Garden & Bonsai Collection
October 17, 2007 One of my garden goals is to learn more about Japanese gardens, ideally through a trip to Japan. (Have you noticed that I like to travel?) Last spring I was inspired by Tom Spencer’s beautiful garden photos from Japan. Despite my appreciation for their quiet, reflective beauty, ...
Visit to San Antonio Botanical Garden
September 06, 2007 At summer’s end, Pride of Barbados ( Caesalpinia pulcherrima) steals the show at the entrance to the Botanical Garden, paired with butterfly weed and a tall ornamental grass. On a business trip in San Antonio last week, I lucked into an hour to spare before I needed ...
Going batty at Austin Batfest 2007
September 01, 2007 Night Wing bat sculpture at Congress Avenue and Barton Springs Road I went a little batty this evening. Actually, the whole family did. We dressed up in our batty best (notice the earrings?) and went downtown to the 3rd annual Batfest, a street festival/live-music/bat-watching party held entirely ...
Rain garden in action
March 13, 2007 Water flowing from the gutter into a rain barrel. The overflow spills into the wet-weather stream (dry creek), laid with New Mexico river rock, and is funneled into the rain garden. With all the talk about 10-year droughts at The Throbbing Thumb, Bill Lane’s Victoria, Australia, blog, ...
Old South at Bayou Bend
November 25, 2006 Camellia in bloom at Bayou Bend After not one but two Thanksgiving feasts—Thursday with my husband’s family, Friday with mine—it was time to give thanks for nature’s beauty and feast our eyes instead of our bellies. So before we left Houston today we took a stroll at ...
Rain gardens
June 23, 2006 Nursing my garden through Austin’s arid summers, I tend to go a little ga-ga over things like rain barrels, rain chains, and just rain in general. Now I’m excited about rain gardens. I have one, actually, but didn’t even know it until yesterday, when I picked up ...
