Athena the great horned owl nesting again at the Wildflower Center
April 28, 2025 A great horned owl has been nesting at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center for 15 years, laying usually two eggs each spring in a planter niche high on a wall, sheltered by a spiny Wheeler’s sotol. See her up there on the right, under the blue-green ...
Hopping over to Ruthie’s hilltop garden
April 14, 2025 Last week, I hopped over to Ruthie Burrus’s garden in the Rollingwood neighborhood for a spring visit. Ruthie kindly opened her garden to me and my out-of-town guest Lisa Negri of SummerHome Garden. As always, the gardens surrounding Ruthie’s hilltop home enchant with a textural mix of ...
Wildflower safari east to Independence
April 13, 2025 The wildflower reporters I follow — and my own eyes — say this is a poor year for Texas bluebonnets and other spring wildflowers, especially from Austin west into the Hill Country. Our ongoing drought kept seedlings from germinating last fall, and there hasn’t been much rain ...
Read This: The Texas Native Plant Primer
April 09, 2025 Texans love native plants. Our state flower is the beloved bluebonnet, a Texas native wildflower. Our official state botanic garden is the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, planted exclusively with native species from across Texas. Many of our independent nurseries — like Green Sleeves in Pflugerville, Pollinatives ...
Not feeling cross about crossvine in bloom, and more!
March 31, 2025 When it goes, it goes. Ka-boom! An explosion of orange trailing along the coyote fence. ‘Tangerine Beauty’ crossvine is one of my favorite vines for spring color. It’s native, semi-evergreen, attractive to pollinators, vigorous but not invasive (unlike similar-looking trumpet vine — avoid!), and tough as nails ...
Spring flowers and fab foliage a-popping
March 16, 2025 Late last week, while I was under the weather and holed up on the couch watching Wicked, winter turned into spring. Yesterday I woke up feeling like myself again and noticed a text from my neighbor, thanking me for the beauty of my Mexican plum, which stretches ...
Greensleeves Nursery featuring native plants opens in Pflugerville
March 14, 2025 Two weeks ago a new nursery specializing in native Texas plants opened in Pflugerville, just north of Austin. It’s called Greensleeves (cue the old English ballad), appropriate for a place wearing its love of native plants on its sleeve, so to speak. The owner, Willy Glenn, is ...
Hanging on in the late summer garden
August 28, 2024 August can’t end soon enough for my crispy Texas garden and my own crispy self. But we had a little reprieve in the form of a cloudburst that dropped a quarter inch of rain a couple days ago. Temps have dropped below 100 F too. What is ...
Drive-By Gardens: Contemporary, lawn-gone front yard
June 12, 2024 I walked by this home in my northwest Austin ‘hood the other day and — bam! — the landscaping stopped me in my tracks. A silver-green planting of whale’s tongue agave, woolly stemodia, and grassy Lindheimer nolina (I think) makes a textural, deer-resistant welcome to this 1970s ...
Michael’s Plano Prairie Garden in spring
June 03, 2024 I’ve visited Michael McDowell’s garden — aka the Plano Prairie Garden — several times over the past decade (see here and here; it’ll also be featured in my forthcoming book). My visits have always been in the fall, when purple spires of gayfeather turn Michael’s prairie garden ...
Prairie wildflower oasis at Native Texas Park in Dallas
May 30, 2024 On a mid-May trip up to Dallas, I swung by the Laura W. Bush Native Texas Park just before sunset to see the big wildflower show I’d been hearing about this spring. I was not disappointed. Red-and-yellow firewheel, purple horsemint, rusty Mexican hat, and lilac American basketflower ...
“It’s what was here”: A prairie garden grows near downtown Austin
May 01, 2024 You wouldn’t expect to find a huge prairie garden here — the backyard of a private home so close to downtown Austin that blue-glass skyscrapers peek over the treetops. Owner Colin Corgan bought a historic 1880s house in the Travis Heights neighborhood a few years ago and ...
Bluebonnets in the neighborhood
April 04, 2024 While on a neighborhood stroll last week, I spotted a bodacious bevy of bluebonnets at a Bevo-loving neighbor’s house. Ka-pow! A few pink bluebonnets mingled with the standard blues. A glorious sight — thanks, neighbor! I welcome your comments. Please scroll to the end of this post ...
Spring in full swing in my garden
April 03, 2024 What a great time of year this is in a Central Texas garden. The days have been comfortable but not hot. The humidity is low. We’ve had a little rain but also plenty of sun. And the plants are racing with new growth and flowers. They’re feeling ...
Willow City Loop wows with Texas wildflowers
March 29, 2024 I headed west to the Hill Country on Wednesday on a THIRD wildflower safari, cruising the Willow City Loop between Fredericksburg and Llano. This famously scenic, 13-mile ranch road winds through rugged canyons and over rocky hilltops offering spectacular views, with low-water crossings and free-range cattle to ...
More Texas wildflower joy near Independence
March 26, 2024 Bluebonnets are popping off in Texas this spring, so much so that I made time for a second wildflower safari last Friday, heading east through farm country toward Independence. I shared Part 1 of that drive yesterday. Today, here’s Part 2. The rolling fields, farms, and ranches ...
