Magical children’s garden and plant displays at Longwood’s conservatory
October 01, 2023 This is how happy you feel exploring Longwood Gardens on the first day of the Philadelphia Area Fling, an annual garden tour held in a different city each year for garden bloggers and Instagrammers and others publicly sharing about gardening online. Longwood’s conservatory manager, Karl Gercens, hosted ...
Orchids, silver garden, and living walls at Longwood Gardens conservatory
September 30, 2023 Feathery Acacia leprosa climbing the walls The first time I experienced the over-the-top plant showmanship that is Longwood Gardens was in 2016. I returned last week during the Philadelphia Area Fling, a 3.5-day garden tour hosted by Longwood’s conservatory manager, Karl Gercens. In honor of Karl, I ...
Early autumn at Hedgleigh Spring garden
September 29, 2023 At the Philadelphia Area Fling last week, after touring Belvidere, we visited another private garden in Swarthmore with a grand name, Hedgleigh Spring. Happily, the 2-acre garden on a pretty, tree-lined street is far more approachable than its name might suggest, although it does have the pedigree ...
Philadelphia Area Fling and Andrew Bunting’s Belvidere
September 28, 2023 A gravel garden in the front yard of Andrew Bunting’s Belvidere I spent all last week in the beautiful countryside around Philadelphia for the 14th annual Fling (formerly known as Garden Bloggers Fling), touring private and public gardens with around 100 other garden writers, bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, ...
Agaves by sun and blue moon
September 12, 2023 I’ve been out in West Texas again for a week, doing garden shoots for the forthcoming book. Meanwhile, here at home, as I’ve been waiting for the summer from hell to break, I’ve been admiring stalwart agaves. They look good by sun… …and blue moon. Here’s to ...
Running through Marathon, Texas
September 03, 2023 On the way home from a trip to far West Texas in late July, my friend and I swung through tiny Marathon, Texas, for lunch. Fifty miles east of Marfa and 50 miles north of Big Bend National Park, Marathon is known as the gateway to remote ...
Twilight in Cat’s garden
August 29, 2023 A late-summer evening in my friend Cat‘s canyon-side garden is serene and lovely, as twilight hides the summer scorch all Texans are seeing in our gardens right now. This blistering summer has taught us to be crepuscular, more active at twilight, like deer. Cat knows how to ...
Hot summer survivors and new book news
August 21, 2023 This summer, y’all. Am I right, my fellow Texas gardeners? But even with two months of surface-of-the-sun temps and zero rain, at least a few plants are happy. Like this pink-flowering mammillaria cactus that burst into silken bloom a few days after I gave it a deep ...
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 ...
Door greeters
July 31, 2023 During Austin’s infernal summer at least the porch plants are looking good. Coppertone sedum spilling out of a Pot Inc. hanging planter even matches the door color — Benjamin Moore “Wasabi”, if you’re curious. Most of these were grown from cuttings, like the Coppertone sedum, blue chalksticks, ...
Surviving the record-breaking heat
July 20, 2023 Heat waves are everywhere all at once right now, and Austin too is broiling in the hottest July on record, according to KXAN. That’s saying something because last summer was incredibly hot. I felt sure, after enduring Snowpocalypse, last summer’s oven-like temps, and then February’s Arbormageddon ice ...
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 ...
Summer garden moments
June 26, 2023 Texas summers always test me as a gardener. I dislike the heat and humidity and generally view summer as a holing-up season, a downtime to wait out, the way gardeners up north view winter. Except of course the weeds don’t stop growing during my downtime. But this ...
Plants and pots at Shades of Green nursery in San Antonio
June 22, 2023 Friends in San Antonio told me they like to shop at Shades of Green nursery, so when I was in town a few weeks ago I decided it was time for a visit. The place looks small from the outside, but as soon as I walked in, ...
