Meeting artist Julie Speed at her Marfa studio
August 10, 2023 Marfa is an oasis for minimalist art in West Texas, despite the town’s tiny size (population 1,750) and remoteness from, well, just about anywhere. A friend and I road-tripped there two weeks ago, and instead of pilgrimaging to see Donald Judd’s minimalist concrete boxes (maybe next time), ...
A healing garden in West Texas
August 08, 2023 A week ago I had the pleasure of visiting a lovely garden in Alpine, located in far West Texas, 400 miles west of Austin. Owner Susan Wallens showed me around and told me how the garden came to be. Susan’s husband, Mike, is the vicar of St ...
Marfa love affair
August 05, 2023 Last week I made my first real visit to Marfa, the tiny (population 1,750) and improbable art mecca in far West Texas. I’d passed through Marfa once before, at the tail end of a spring break trip to drought-bleached Big Bend with small children, and I confess ...
Robert Bellamy’s upcycled Marfa garden
August 02, 2023 Last week I road-tripped 7 hours west to remote Marfa, a sleepy desert town in far West Texas that’s also, thanks to Donald Judd, an art mecca drawing visitors from all over the world. Quite a few Marfa lovers from Dallas, Houston, and Austin own second homes ...
Drive-By Gardens: Waterwise front yard on Castle Hill
July 11, 2023 Cruising through the Castle Hill area of Old West Austin recently, I spotted this beautiful 1910 home with a sky-blue door and modern landscaping. I hit the brakes for a closer look. The house sits atop a front yard terraced with Corten steel and board-formed concrete walls ...
Drive-By Garden: Waterwise front yard and patio
June 30, 2023 Driving around the Delwood neighborhood in East Austin last week I spotted this attractive waterwise front yard. A huge crape myrtle shades one side of the midcentury-style home, sheltering a small patio beneath its branches. On the sunny side, Mexican feathergrass, giant hesperaloe, firecracker fern, and fall ...
Springtime at Red Hills Desert Garden, part 2
June 29, 2023 I squeezed in a visit to St. George, Utah’s Red Hills Desert Garden during our big RV trip, and this is part 2 of my coverage. (Click here for part 1.) In late April, the waterwise public garden dazzled with colorful desert flowers, and I wandered for ...
Desert in bloom at Red Hills Desert Garden, part 1
June 27, 2023 Utah. Red rock desert. Cactus and yuccas. When we set out in April in a rented RV to visit national parks out west, I expected hundred-mile vistas, arches, and canyons. What I didn’t expect was a flowery, beautifully designed garden of desert-appropriate plants. But thanks to a ...
Waterfalls, wildlife, and wonder at Zion National Park
June 21, 2023 Utah and its wealth of national parks drew us west on our 5-week RV trip this spring. Zion National Park in southwestern Utah sparkles as one of its crown jewels. For anyone wishing to beat the heat in canyon country, April is prime visiting season. We arrived ...
Fields awash in Texas bluebonnets and other wildflowers
March 25, 2023 Galvanized by swaths of bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) coloring Austin’s urban roadsides, I drove east on Thursday morning to wander the dirt roads of Industry, a town of around 273 people. There I found farmsteads in rolling fields of denim blue. The bluebonnets are showing off this spring, ...
Organic sculptures by Steve Tobin at Houston Botanic Garden
February 22, 2023 When I fled to Houston during Austin’s ice storm aftermath earlier this February, I made a visit with family to Houston Botanic Garden. Even in Zone 9 Houston, winter had not spared palms, grasses, and many other plants. Still, an art exhibit by Steve Tobin called Intertwined: ...
Enjoying fall color and a mellow garden
December 07, 2022 By the time I hang red Christmas balls from the agave’s spines, the Japanese maple finally blushes red too. Fall comes late to Central Texas, but I’ll take it, even at Christmastime. Last week was peak color for the Acer palmatum. Today, shriveled tan leaves cling to ...
Bandelier cliff dwellings, Valles Caldera, and epic New Mexico scenery
November 13, 2022 In early September, at the end of our trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, we drove out to Bandelier National Monument. We’d last explored its ancient cliff dwellings and pueblo ruin two decades earlier, and we wanted to hike and see it again. Bandelier National Monument We ...
Cynthia Deegan’s free-spirited, collected home and garden
November 01, 2022 The mossy green doors of Cynthia Deegan’s milagro-spangled garden gate opened to me again a week or so ago, when she generously invited me and Garden Spark speaker Teri Speight to come on over. What a treat to follow up our visit to Lucinda’s garden with Cynthia’s! ...
Native plants and Hill Country style at Paula Stone’s Fredericksburg garden
October 25, 2022 Two Fridays ago a couple of friends and I drove out to Fredericksburg, a charming town in the Texas Hill Country, founded in the mid-1800s by German immigrants and built out of native limestone block, pressed-tin ceilings, and galvanized roofs. We’d been invited to visit by Paula ...
Mellow-yellowing into fall, but the garden still has bite
October 10, 2022 October rolls around, mellowing out the Texas garden. At last, it’s a pleasure to be outside again, noticing how the moonlight-yellow variegation on the whale’s tongue agave glows in the afternoon light. The weather is gentler. But the garden still has bite, as shown in serrated leaves ...
