Early spring blooms and Athena the owl at Wildflower Center
March 20, 2021 When they’re offered, I take advantage of late-admission hours to gardens. The light is better for photography in the early evening, and you have a better chance of seeing wildlife. On Thursday our local native-plant botanical garden, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, stayed open late, and ...
Early spring in Hyde Park cottage garden
February 09, 2021 Spring has arrived early at this sweet cottage garden in Austin’s Hyde Park neighborhood. I was passing by on Sunday when the dark-pink roses rambling along a picket fence caught my eye. A sunburst-shaped wheeler’s sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri) and clipped germander bush (Teucrium fruticans) add pretty foliage ...
Native Texas Park: Rediscovering a lost prairie at George W. Bush Presidential Library
October 23, 2020 Blackland prairie, a sash of Texas grassland across the center of the state, running southwest from the Oklahoma border to San Antonio, is the most endangered ecosystem in the U.S., with less than 1% remaining, according to Austin environmental designer John Hart Asher in a Wildflower article ...
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 ...
Otherworldly trees and rocks at Joshua Tree National Park
August 03, 2020 Oh hi! Let’s pop back into the national park road trip. From the central coast of California, back in late June, we headed home to Austin via a more southerly route than our outbound one. We zipped through Los Angeles — regretful that the pandemic prevented any ...
Wildflowers and birding at Montaña de Oro State Park
July 24, 2020 We detoured to San Luis Obispo after Yosemite National Park (click here for the how and why of our socially distanced road trip in June) in order to see our niece, who attends college there. To be safe, we met up outdoors at Spooner’s Cove in scenic ...
Wildflowers and wildlife in Yosemite meadow
July 21, 2020 Milkweed and a monarch butterfly in Cook’s Meadow While the sheer cliffs and towering waterfalls of Yosemite National Park tend to get all the attention, Cook’s Meadow in the valley is also beautiful. During our June visit (click here for how we pulled off our socially distanced ...
Wildflowers and waterfalls at Kings Canyon National Park
July 12, 2020 Eriodictyon parryi, or poodle dog bush When you visit Sequoia National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, you get two parks for the price of one. Kings Canyon National Park abuts Sequoia’s northern edge, and the parks are managed together; one admission gets you into both. It’s ...
Bears and giant trees at Sequoia National Park
July 08, 2020 After detouring to visit the Grand Canyon in Arizona (see our route in my previous post), we continued westward through California’s sere Mojave Desert. At last the land rose and formed the Golden State’s crinkled, tawny hills, stubbled with spreading, olive-green live oaks. By mid-afternoon we’d reached ...
San Antonio Botanical Garden reopening, part 1
May 19, 2020 After a month and a half self-isolating at home, I was craving a garden visit when I got the news that both the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and San Antonio Botanical Garden were opening back up at limited capacity. I immediately went online and secured tickets ...
Wildflower fiesta at Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
May 11, 2020 Bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and other early wildflowers bloomed in solitude this spring at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, which closed in mid-March due to the pandemic and Austin’s shelter-in-place order. Happily, the gardens reopened last weekend to members, who must reserve in advance a specific arrival ...
April visit to Antique Rose Emporium garden
May 10, 2020 In early April I took a wildflower-hunting drive through the country east of Austin. I ended up driving out to Brenham and past The Antique Rose Emporium, which was open to visitors, so I stopped for a quick tour of the gardens, socially distanced of course. The ...
Wildflowers for an Easter quarantine
April 12, 2020 This Easter Sunday, we can’t join family and friends around the table or at church. We’re worried about big stuff like losing jobs and getting sick, as well as smaller stuff like finding flour and toilet paper at the grocery store. We’re missing springtime rituals like buying ...
Killdeer in the bluebonnets
March 25, 2020 Before Austin’s shelter-in-place (i.e., stay-at-home) order went out yesterday, I grabbed my camera and hopped in the car with our Italian high-school exchange student to find a nice field of bluebonnets a friend had told me about. We soon located a denim-blue field of dreams. As it ...
Autumn hike at Hamilton Pool grotto
December 14, 2019 Hamilton Pool called my name last month, and I answered by scheduling a visit through the state’s reservation page. Yes, Hamilton Pool Preserve is so heavily visited nowadays that the county park system requires a reservation to visit on weekends, and every day in warmer months. Is ...
Colorful fall at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
November 13, 2019 Before the big freeze I squeezed in a short visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, unintentionally joining throngs of families streaming in to explore Fortlandia on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I’d intended to photograph both the flowering gardens and Fortlandia but decided to save the ...
