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
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 ...
Kinder Land Bridge restores coastal prairie and unites Houston’s Memorial Park
May 04, 2023 Kinder Land Bridge as seen from Memorial Drive Houston’s Memorial Park, a 1,500-acre urban green space, has for years been sliced and diced by busy roadways, keeping people and wildlife from safe access to all parts of the park. Compounding this design flaw, the heavily wooded park ...
Last of the bluebonnets in Ruthie’s garden
April 14, 2023 Whenever there’s a chance to show more bluebonnets, before they’re gone, show more bluebonnets. I spotted these in Ruthie Burrus’s garden last week. Her spring garden is always a vision, but the last of the bluebonnets, mingling here with pink evening primrose, are what I’m thinking of ...
Fields awash in Texas bluebonnets and other wildflowers
March 25, 2023 Galvanized by swaths of bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) coloring Austin’s urban roadsides, I drove east on Thursday morning to wander the dirt roads of Industry, a town of around 273 people. There I found farmsteads in rolling fields of denim blue. The bluebonnets are showing off this spring, ...
Crossvine trumpeting spring’s arrival
March 12, 2023 Of all the vines that grow well with little care in Central Texas, ‘Tangerine Beauty’ crossvine (Bignonia capreolata ‘Tangerine Beauty’) may be my favorite. This spring-flowering beauty blushes with abundant orange blossoms with golden centers, and the vine is semi-evergreen in winter too. It has always bloomed, even ...
Native plant landscaping at ACC Highland Campus, the new home of Central Texas Gardener
October 26, 2022 Teri Speight doing a Central Texas Gardener studio taping Last week, when author Teri Speight was in Austin to give a Garden Spark talk, I accompanied her to a taping at the new Central Texas Gardener studio at Austin PBS. Producer Linda Lehmusvirta had announced CTG’s move ...
Native plants and Hill Country style at Paula Stone’s Fredericksburg garden
October 25, 2022 Two Fridays ago a couple of friends and I drove out to Fredericksburg, a charming town in the Texas Hill Country, founded in the mid-1800s by German immigrants and built out of native limestone block, pressed-tin ceilings, and galvanized roofs. We’d been invited to visit by Paula ...
Hotel Magdalena courtyard evokes Hill Country canyon
October 06, 2022 After an all-day meeting on South Congress recently, I strolled down Music Lane to Hotel Magdalena, a boutique hotel that opened in 2020. I’d been wanting to see the place since learning that Ten Eyck Landscape Architects did the landscaping and Lake|Flato Architects designed the hotel itself ...
Have we outlasted the heat-wave summer?
August 31, 2022 What a summer this has been for Austin. Hot as Hades, rainless and parched for months and months. And then, finally, flooding rains in mid-August drenched parts of the city — I got 4.75 inches over a few days, although friends in South and West Austin got ...
I’m writing for Wildflower on 40th anniversary of Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
August 22, 2022 If you’re a member of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, you’ll soon find the Fall 2022 magazine Wildflower in your mailbox. I hope you’ll take the time to read two articles I wrote, including the cover story celebrating the Wildflower Center’s 40th anniversary and ...
Green-roof prairie and fantasy gardens at Epic Systems, Part 2
July 30, 2022 The fanciful, theme-park landscaping and architectural design of Epic Systems‘ corporate campus made for a one-of-a-kind tour during the Madison Fling in June. While I’d read about Epic’s imaginative design, I had not heard about its ambitious efforts at sustainability. According to the company’s website: “Epic’s buildings ...
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 ...
At the Wildflower Center with Jennifer Jewell
June 04, 2022 When Jennifer Jewell of Cultivating Place came to Austin a month ago, we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center together. I enjoy showing visitors around our state botanical garden, planted exclusively with native Texas plants. In early May, the late-spring wildflowers were in party mode. Wildflowers ...
Plant This: Eve’s necklace for spring flowers that bees love
May 12, 2022 Eve’s necklace may not be widely known among gardeners. But bees and other nectaring insects sure know it and love it. Formerly called Sophora affinis, now Styphnolobium affine, this small deciduous tree with lacy foliage occurs naturally in well-drained limestone (i.e., alkaline) soils in North and Central ...
Wildflower Center abloom in early April
April 23, 2022 Claret cup cactus flowering at the top of the Wildflower Center tower I’m overdue for a visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center — and it’s only been two weeks since I was there! But a lot happens in April and May. What was blooming two ...
