Last chance to play at Fortlandia at Wildflower Center

Last chance to play at Fortlandia at Wildflower Center

January 28, 2024 Once a year, designers submit creative fort designs to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The winning forts become part of the garden’s annual Fortlandia event. For a few months, kids get to play on them — climbing, leaping, crawling, lounging, and chasing through them. I always ...
Gardens for adventure, art, and games at Paxson Hill Farm

Gardens for adventure, art, and games at Paxson Hill Farm

November 22, 2023 Picking up my tour of Paxson Hill Farm — from the Philadelphia Area Fling in September — where I left off yesterday, let’s keep exploring! After emerging from the hobbit house hideaway, I followed the path uphill through another weeping-tree arch. The romance! Am I right? The ...
Children's Adventure Garden at Dallas Arboretum

Children’s Adventure Garden at Dallas Arboretum

November 20, 2023 The Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden at Dallas Arboretum opened 10 years ago, but somehow I’d never visited until last month. Why? I guess because my kids had outgrown children’s gardens by the time it opened, and so it wasn’t on my radar despite many visits over ...
Jenny Rose Carey's playful garden rooms at Northview, part 2

Jenny Rose Carey’s playful garden rooms at Northview, part 2

November 06, 2023 In my last post I showed you half of Jenny Rose Carey’s garden, Northview, which I toured during the Philadelphia Area Fling in September. Today I’ll show you the rest. Let’s start with her Fruits and Flowers Garden, where this Tin Man sculpture greeted me with open ...
Pumpkin season at the Dallas Arboretum

Pumpkin season at the Dallas Arboretum

October 28, 2023 While in Dallas last week I visited the Dallas Arboretum to see their annual pumpkin extravaganza. The last time I’d seen it was pre-Covid. Autumn at the Arboretum I was surprised to find that Autumn at the Arboretum has been relocated from a shady grove near the ...
Italian Water Garden, trees, and treehouses at Longwood Gardens

Italian Water Garden, trees, and treehouses at Longwood Gardens

October 02, 2023 One of my favorite picture books from my childhood is Marcia Brown’s Cinderella, which received a Caldecott Medal in 1955 for Brown’s enchanting illustrations. Jeweled ball gowns, romantic palace grounds, fairy godmother magic — it all came to sparkling life on the page. I haven’t paged through ...
Magical children's garden and plant displays at Longwood's conservatory

Magical children’s garden and plant displays at Longwood’s conservatory

October 01, 2023 This is how happy you feel exploring Longwood Gardens on the first day of the Philadelphia Area Fling, an annual garden tour held in a different city each year for garden bloggers and Instagrammers and others publicly sharing about gardening online. Longwood’s conservatory manager, Karl Gercens, hosted ...
Exploring Fortlandia's creative hideouts

Exploring Fortlandia’s creative hideouts

December 21, 2022 Chrysaline fort Each fall through winter, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center entices kids and kids at heart to explore a handful of creative “forts” built by Austin landscape architects, architects, designers, and artists. It’s called Fortlandia, and I always go see it. This year, because the ...
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 ...
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 ...
Wildflower Center abloom in early April

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 ...
Blue trees in Austin's Pease Park spotlight tree loss around the world

Blue trees in Austin’s Pease Park spotlight tree loss around the world

April 11, 2022 If you’ve visited Kingsbury Commons at Austin’s Pease Park lately, you may have encountered a startling and surprisingly beautiful sight: clusters of trees with Majorelle blue trunks and limbs. The Blue Trees is a temporary environmental art installation by New Zealand artist Konstantin Dimopoulos. It brings our ...
Autumn meadows and monarchs at Wildflower Center

Autumn meadows and monarchs at Wildflower Center

February 07, 2022 The Center’s iconic lookout tower, which doubles as a water-collecting cistern When Loree of Danger Garden came to Austin last October, we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on her last day. I was happy she got to see it a second time, particularly since her ...
Enchanted Woods and reflecting pool garden at Winterthur, part 2

Enchanted Woods and reflecting pool garden at Winterthur, part 2

February 03, 2022 Tulip Tree House, made from a hollow tulip poplar trunk Children’s gardens are popping up like toadstools at botanical gardens everywhere nowadays. And they’re a welcome addition, encouraging families to visit and giving children, who increasingly spend much of their time online, an opportunity to explore outdoors, ...
Fortlandia wrapping up at the Wildflower Center

Fortlandia wrapping up at the Wildflower Center

January 10, 2022 With Fortlandia ending soon at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, my daughter and I popped over last week to check out the annual installation of creative, nature-themed, designer-made forts. This year at least one of the forts is also lit up at night as part of ...
Trolls, grasses, and a storybook children's garden at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

Trolls, grasses, and a storybook children’s garden at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

November 03, 2021 We traveled north in early October to enjoy fall foliage in New Hampshire, stopping first in Maine for a couple of days. A garden on my must-see list: Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, a 300-acre public garden in Boothbay. Here’s part 2 of my visit; click here for ...
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