Transplanted from PNW, Nancy begins new garden in Austin

Transplanted from PNW, Nancy begins new garden in Austin

March 23, 2024 I was happy to visit the new garden of a new gardening friend a few days ago. Located in Austin’s Windsor Hills neighborhood, the garden represents a new beginning for its creator, Nancy Fortner (@gardeningwhileold). In 2021, to be near their daughter, Nancy and her late husband, ...
Michael Eason's desert garden retreat

Michael Eason’s desert garden retreat

August 14, 2023 While in West Texas a couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting designer and author Michael Eason‘s garden in Alpine. Michael had lined up some wonderful gardens for me to visit there, ones that he’d designed, but it was nice to see his own personal ...
Drive-By Gardens: Waterwise front yard on Castle Hill

Drive-By Gardens: Waterwise front yard on Castle Hill

July 11, 2023 Cruising through the Castle Hill area of Old West Austin recently, I spotted this beautiful 1910 home with a sky-blue door and modern landscaping. I hit the brakes for a closer look. The house sits atop a front yard terraced with Corten steel and board-formed concrete walls ...
Ann Munson's woodland garden invites mystery and play

Ann Munson’s woodland garden invites mystery and play

August 05, 2022 Woodland gardens aren’t show ponies of dazzling flower color. Their beauty shines through in subtler, shade-loving foliage plants, in dappled light glinting through leaves, in cool shadowed paths that gradually reveal tucked-away art and secret hideaways. Such is the garden of Ann Munson, which I toured on ...
Native prairie garden replaces half the lawn in the Grosz Garden

Native prairie garden replaces half the lawn in the Grosz Garden

July 14, 2022 A shoulder-high, prairie-style garden makes a graceful swoosh through the sunny backyard of Linda and Phil Grosz in Middleton, Wisconsin. As the second stop on the Madison Garden Bloggers Fling tour in June, it immediately grounded me in the Upper Midwest, land of the tallgrass prairie. Linda ...
East meets Midwest in the garden of Linda Brazill and Mark Golbach, Part 1

East meets Midwest in the garden of Linda Brazill and Mark Golbach, Part 1

July 06, 2022 Back in 2010, my husband traveled to Madison for the IRONMAN Wisconsin race (which he finished!), and I tagged along as cheerleader. Oh and also to see gardens. I was a big fan of the design-focused blog Each Little World by Linda Brazill and Mark Golbach and ...
Coleson Bruce's crevice garden in spring flower

Coleson Bruce’s crevice garden in spring flower

May 04, 2022 Two weeks ago Coleson Bruce invited me back to his garden to see it in spring flower. I’d first visited Coleson’s garden last fall — a garden unlike any other I’ve seen in Austin or even Texas. Colorado-style crevice gardens are unusual here, and Coleson’s is not ...
Garden design lessons from a Texas gravel garden

Garden design lessons from a Texas gravel garden

November 10, 2021 Blue grama grass and whale’s tongue agave I’m always inspired by Linda Peterson’s low-water gravel garden in San Antonio, which normally is studded with gigantic Weber agaves, sculptural prickly pears, rivers of starfish-shaped soap aloes, and strategic screening shrubs that soften fencing and create a green backdrop ...
Wildflowers, water features, and flying pigs add charm to no-lawn garden in Cedar Park

Wildflowers, water features, and flying pigs add charm to no-lawn garden in Cedar Park

June 10, 2021 Whenever I see a no-lawn, front-yard garden in suburbia, I know a daring and enthusiastic gardener lives there. Such is the case with Cedar Park homeowner Frances Fortanely, whose garden I had the pleasure of seeing last week. Pulling up to the curb, I was greeted by ...
Modern ranch garden embraces water collection and wildflowers in New Braunfels

Modern ranch garden embraces water collection and wildflowers in New Braunfels

May 17, 2021 Last spring Cody and Michelle Koehler finished their garden installation at their home in New Braunfels, Texas. Less than a year later, February’s epic freeze killed most of their large specimen plants, including Weber agaves, olive and palo verde trees, and toothless sotol. Like everyone else in ...
Cowboy pool, colorful outdoor living: Lorie and Michael Kinler's Fort Worth Garden

Cowboy pool, colorful outdoor living: Lorie and Michael Kinler’s Fort Worth Garden

March 05, 2021 Last fall, during a weekend trip to Dallas, I was invited to visit the Fort Worth garden of Lorie and Michael Kinler. The Kinlers are the design duo behind Redenta’s Landscape Design Kinler Landscape Architecture (renamed in 2022), formerly affiliated with Redenta’s Garden nursery in Dallas. A ...
Palms, agaves, and edibles in Peter Schaar Garden

Palms, agaves, and edibles in Peter Schaar Garden

October 27, 2020 I was happy to have the opportunity to see the garden of Peter Schaar in Dallas in early October. I know Peter as a palm and agave lover, a rose enthusiast (note the Texas Rose Rustler t-shirt), and an avid cook with a taste for growing herbs ...
Michael McDowell's front-yard prairie garden

Michael McDowell’s front-yard prairie garden

October 16, 2020 How can it have been 9 years since I first visited Michael McDowell’s front-yard prairie garden? Michael’s garden lives large in my memory, alight with morning sunlight and festive fall color (click for my 2011 tour), and it inspires daily via his blog Plano Prairie Garden and ...
Plant trials with style at Redenta's Landscape Design office garden

Plant trials with style at Redenta’s Landscape Design office garden

October 07, 2020 With beautiful fall weather on tap and the first of the Mexico-bound monarch butterflies reaching North Texas, last weekend seemed like the perfect time for a trip to Dallas-Fort Worth. So I reached out to a few gardeners there and mapped out a 2-day itinerary, and my ...
Drive-By Gardens: No-lawn front yards in South Austin

Drive-By Gardens: No-lawn front yards in South Austin

June 05, 2020 Driving through Bouldin and Zilker neighborhoods in South Austin, I cruise slowly to check out the diverse styles of architecture among the many, many remodeled homes. It’s just as interesting to see what people have chosen to plant in their front yards. Many have opted out of ...
Xeriscape in bloom at Wells Branch Community Garden

Xeriscape in bloom at Wells Branch Community Garden

May 14, 2020 Lemon-lime retama trees in bloom caught my eye recently as I drove by the Wells Branch Community Garden and its native xeriscape garden. Someone takes really good care of this waterwise garden, which dresses up the exterior of the walled community-garden plots. Until a few years ago ...