Agaves, salvias, and wildflowers going strong
May 22, 2025 Early summer is a good time in the garden, with late wildflowers in bloom and foliage still fresh and green. I’ve mostly been standing under the owl tree lately, but I do walk around to see what’s new in the garden too. Let’s start in the Circle ...
Garden flowers as summer arrives
May 19, 2025 My eyes have been trained on the trees lately, as I scan for our screech owl family at all hours. But the garden catches my eye too as it transitions to early summer flowering. Here are a few recent photos from garden amblings. That’s purple skullcap in ...
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 ...
Lawn-free prairie garden of Native Son’s Danny Bravens
May 07, 2025 This spring, Danny Bravens, owner of Native Son Gardens, gave a Garden Spark presentation about replacing traditional thirsty turf with low-water, densely planted, native prairie plants — the kind of transformational work he does every day for homeowners (and for schools through the nonprofit Plant Community). The ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Spring is coming around
February 26, 2025 What a change from a week or two ago. It was a sunny 82 F today in Austin — fully spring-like and more like late March than late February. I wouldn’t say the garden is leaping into spring though. After all, we just experienced a deep freeze ...
Exposed limestone and winter foliage in my garden
February 11, 2025 The exposed limestone slabs in the lower garden have always been one of the most remarked on features of my garden. New visitors often ask me if I brought them in. After all, moving limestone boulders around is a big part of landscape design here. We love ...
Late-winter mosey around the garden
January 31, 2025 The side garden — not the side with trash bins and potting bench but the far side, with a tree-hung chair half-hidden from the street — is a favorite destination of mine in winter. Tentacle-limbed live oaks gain even greater presence when the rest of the garden ...
A limestone entry walk with agaves and yucca
January 28, 2025 A front garden with a limestone entry walk and terracing caught my eye in Austin’s Tarrytown neighborhood last weekend. Whale’s tongue agaves, both in-ground and potted, and a shaggy-trunked beaked yucca say hello as you arrive, drawing you toward the steps and inner garden of sedge, giant ...
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: Entry and Water-Smart Garden
January 06, 2025 As much of the country, including Texas, tucks into flannels and wool socks to stay warm this week, let’s float back in time to the golden days of a Colorado autumn. In late September last year, I made two visits to Denver Botanic Gardens, one of my ...
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 ...
Beyond the fairway, and finding Harvey Penick, at Austin Country Club
November 26, 2024 Gardening connections can get you into places you might not otherwise see. Austin Country Club, a private golf club on Lake Austin, being a case in point. I don’t run in country club circles. But I enjoy meeting enthusiastic plant people eager to share what they’re working ...
