Tree of Life, architecture, and jazz in New Orleans New Year
January 11, 2020 We rang in the new year in New Orleans, the U.S. city at the top of our Italian exchange student’s list of places to see, after New York and San Francisco. NOLA is only a 7-1/2-hour drive (with no stops) from Austin, so we rented an Airbnb, ...
Sculpture worth visiting at Rice University
December 07, 2019 Rice University is my alma mater, and if the weather’s nice when I’m in Houston I’ll often take a walk around campus. It’s not all for nostalgia’s sake, though. Rather, Rice has really upped its sculpture game in recent years, and much of it is open to ...
Modern-rustic dining patio at Texas French Bread
December 04, 2019 All you really need for a garden, as Phoenix landscape architect Steve Martino says, are a tree, a chair, a wall, and a little water. The rustic-modern patio at Texas French Bread reminded me of this when I stopped by for lunch yesterday. Designed by Christy Ten ...
Hilltop getaway at Two Coves Garden: Austin Open Day tour
November 21, 2019 The last garden I visited on the Open Day tour sponsored by The Garden Conservancy was designed by B. Jane Gardens, and which B. has continued to maintain for the last three owners. Located off City Park Road, the Two Coves Drive Garden perches atop a hill ...
A city park floating on air: Klyde Warren Park in Dallas
November 03, 2019 A remarkable green space floats overhead, literally flashing before your eyes as you commute or pass through downtown Dallas. Built above 3 blocks of the Woodall Rodgers Freeway, Klyde Warren Park is a remarkable green roof that has become a beloved public park. Traffic flows beneath the ...
Chinoiserie enchantment at Chandor Gardens, part 2
October 31, 2019 Given 3-1/2 acres of cow pasture in North Texas, it turns out you can do quite a lot with it. Continuing with my mid-October visit to Weatherford’s Chandor Gardens (click for part 1 of my visit), here’s more of the romantic English-Chinese garden that portraitist Douglas Chandor ...
Chandor Gardens, née White Shadows, a hidden gem in North Texas, part 1
October 29, 2019 White Shadows — the name evokes romance and mystery — seems wholly appropriate for the dappled-shade garden surrounding a pale-gray house in the small Texas town of Weatherford, 30 miles west of Fort Worth. Here, in a series of alternately elegant and rustic garden rooms, you’ll find ...
Sunny southern France vacation, part 2
August 22, 2019 Dodging the heat waves that plagued France this summer, my husband and I day-tripped through Provence for 5 days in late July after meeting up with our daughter following her study abroad program (she did not manage to dodge the heat waves). In my last post I ...
Via Libre, a free-spirited garden along the freeway
July 25, 2019 Moss green doors sparkle with tin milagros — an inviting gateway into a garden courtyard. Many people wouldn’t consider buying a house sandwiched between MoPac expressway, a multi-lane highway with freight trains chugging down the center median, and its neighborhood feeder road. But Cynthia Deegan and her ...
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 ...
Steppe garden, foxtail lilies, and sculpture at Denver Botanic Gardens: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 16, 2019 All 80+ bloggers had lunch under a pavilion at Denver Botanic Gardens on Day 3 of the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling (June 2019), and then we were set loose for about an hour. One hour is not enough time to see DBG, of course. One day hardly ...
A garden for relaxing with friends: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 14, 2019 Kicking off the 3rd day of the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling in, yes, Denver, we toured an inviting patio garden designed for relaxing with family and friends. The owners, Kirsten and Scott Hamling, had set up a long table for Father’s Day brunch. Lucky invitees! A cheerful ...
Party under the willow tree in Judy Seaborn’s garden: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 13, 2019 Grandmother Willow offers sage advice in Pocahontas. Old Man Willow terrorizes the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings. The Whomping Willow bashes the unwary and guards a secret passageway in the Harry Potter series. Why does the willow figure so prominently in our cultural mythology? Perhaps ...
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 ...
Bowled over by Linda Boley’s garden: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 07, 2019 A copper tree, its muscular branches devoid of leaves, stands as an organic sculpture in the Boulder, Colorado, rock garden of Linda Boley. The painted Japanese lilac caught my eye as soon as our bus arrived during the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling tour (June 2019). It signaled ...
Strouse Garden gazes toward the Rockies: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 01, 2019 It’s hard to compete with a grand view of the Rocky Mountains. And why would you? TLC Gardens instead created space-defining, bird-sheltering, pollinator-friendly beds around the Lafayette, Colorado, home of Jim and Laura Strouse, which I toured on Day 2 of the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling (June ...
