Diana’s hilly new garden
May 13, 2025 My friend Diana Kirby moved across town 6 years ago and has been making her new garden in very different conditions from her old one. Before, she had a large, level, suburban yard in southwest Austin, where she made extensive gardens in sun and shade. She often ...
Tank ponds and spring blooms in Lori’s garden
May 02, 2025 In mid-April I popped over to my friend Lori Daul‘s garden in South Austin, bringing with me a small posse of visiting garden writers and editors. Any excuse for another visit to Lori’s pond-a-licious garden! Her front-yard stock-tank pond was abloom with starry pink and yellow waterlilies ...
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 ...
Found-art sculpture, bejeweled gnome village in Tom’s garden, Part 2
April 27, 2025 In my last post I showed Tom Ellison’s front-yard cottage garden, which includes a large raised pond along with a majestic sycamore and flowering sweet peas, spuria iris, and pickerel weed. Now let’s step into the back garden to see the rest. Tom favors pops of red ...
Cottage garden charm in Tom’s Tarrytown garden, Part 1
April 25, 2025 Spring is when I get invited — or invite myself — into gardens all around Austin. It’s a rush to see as many as I can before summer and the Death Star arrive. Right now though, it’s sweetness and light! Especially in the charming cottage garden of ...
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 ...
Fall at Denver Botanic Gardens: Perennial Walk and Romantic Gardens
January 12, 2025 With orange spines on its leaves and bright purple flowers, porcupine tomato (Solanum pyracanthos) looks like it’s from another planet. I spotted this one at Denver Botanic Gardens. This is Part 7 and my final post from my visit last September. Japanese anemone Crossroads Garden Let’s start ...
Fall at Denver Botanic Gardens: Monet Pool, Japanese teahouse, and bonsai
January 11, 2025 The Monet Pool at Denver Botanic Gardens is the largest of several ponds at the garden. Dark-dyed water makes a mirrored surface, reflecting orange canna blossoms, reedy papyrus, and cloven waterlily pads. This is Part 6 of my tour from my visit in late September. Monet Pool ...
Lori’s blue fantasia garden
January 04, 2025 I popped over to my friend Lori Daul‘s house on Thursday, craving one more garden visit before the Arctic barrels down to Austin and brings our long growing season to an end. At Lori’s, fountains still trickle, ponds reflect sky, and plants sprawl luxuriantly. The garden echoes ...
Fall garden stroll at the Wildflower Center
November 18, 2024 Being able to visit a garden at the golden hour — just after sunrise or before sunset, when the light is soft and warm — is a garden photographer’s fervent wish. So I am grateful when a botanical garden offers early or late visiting hours. Austin’s Lady ...
Falling for SummerHome Garden, Part 2
October 21, 2024 In my last post I shared the genesis of SummerHome Garden, a privately owned garden and public park in Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood. I visited in late September and spent a couple of hours early one morning taking pictures. The garden was so beautiful that I couldn’t ...
Fall at SummerHome Garden, Part 1
October 19, 2024 When I told gardening friends I’d be in Denver in late September, many urged me to visit SummerHome Garden. It was already on my list. SummerHome has had glowing media attention since its creation in 2020, and I’d read about it in Visionary and Shrouded in Light ...
Julie Clark and Mae Sanchez’s desert-inspired garden
October 15, 2024 I wasn’t in town for the Leaf Landscape Tour on October 5th, and one garden I was sad to miss belongs to two talented gardeners and knowledgeable plantswomen, Julie Clark and Mae Sanchez. Julie is the owner of Stronger Than Dirt Gardens, a fine garden maintenance company ...
Gillian Mathews’ garden for outdoor lounging and dining
September 18, 2024 I’ve wanted to visit the Seattle garden of Gillian Mathews, former owner of Ravenna Gardens, since reading about it at Danger Garden and in the Seattle Times. Designed by Richard Hartlage of Land Morphology (whose personal garden I recently visited), its modern style, lush plantings, and original ...
Tiki-style pond and lush courtyard at the Galicic Garden
September 12, 2024 If you feel you’ve seen a lot of coverage of Washington gardens lately, it’s true. This is my 26th post about the Puget Sound Fling tour in July. While I have a few more posts about places I saw on my own, including Gillian Mathews’ garden, Seattle ...
Living on the edge in the Livingston Garden
September 11, 2024 I wish I knew how steep this garden is, and how many steps I climbed while exploring it. It’s a leg workout for sure. On the bonus day of the Puget Sound Fling in July, we visited Millie Livingston’s Seattle garden. At nearly 2 acres, the garden ...
