Edibles

June 29, 2017 Attending Garden Bloggers Fling is always a whirlwind of garden touring and socializing with other bloggers. I come home with ideas bouncing around in my head, as well as a sense of new connections made and friendships renewed — not to mention hundreds of photos to sort ...

April 08, 2017 Seven years after the shuttering of Gardens, a boutique nursery and home-and-garden shop on W. 35th Street, Central Austin has a new contender for the high-end gardening market: Thompson+Hanson, an Austin branch of the longtime T+H in Houston’s River Oaks. Austin’s Thompson+Hanson is located just off W ...

March 05, 2017 A week ago, my dad and I popped over to east Austin’s Mueller neighborhood for a springtime stroll around the Southwest Greenway. They have some pretty big spiders in those parts! I love this sculpture, Arachnophillia by Houston artist Dixie Friend Gay, which stands 23 feet tall ...

November 25, 2016 We spent Thanksgiving in the mixed-use, urban-infill, sustainably-designed Mueller neighborhood in east Austin, where my in-laws hosted us in their lovely new home. As always when we visit, I’m impressed by the park spaces and community amenities available to Mueller residents, and I fantasize about moving into ...

November 08, 2016 On Saturday my mom and I drove out to Brenham, Texas, for the Antique Rose Emporium‘s Fall Festival of Roses, where I was one of the day’s speakers. A gray sky spit rain on us during the 2-hour drive, but it held off as we strolled around ...

November 08, 2016 On Saturday my mom and I drove out to Brenham, Texas, for the Antique Rose Emporium‘s Fall Festival of Roses, where I was one of the day’s speakers. A gray sky spit rain on us during the 2-hour drive, but it held off as we strolled around ...

November 01, 2016 My friend Lucinda Hutson celebrates Dia de los Muertos like no one else I know. Her colorful, Mexican-inspired home and garden in the Rosedale neighborhood of central Austin grows even more vibrant for Day of the Dead, and inside she stages elaborate table displays and beautiful altars ...

August 24, 2016 Our western road trip earlier this month took us through Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of the oldest cities in the U.S. and the oldest capital city in the country (dating to 1607). The compact historic district is a walkable several blocks of terracotta-colored adobe and adobe-style ...

August 22, 2016 Two weeks ago today we drove west on a spontaneously planned, cutting-it-close-with-the-first-day-of-school, two-week road trip through West Texas, northern New Mexico, and western Colorado. One of our early stops was Santa Fe, New Mexico, a beautiful old city we once regularly visited but hadn’t seen in 16 ...

July 31, 2016 Our tour buses took us out of Minneapolis on the last day of the recent Garden Bloggers Fling — an annual event with 60+ garden bloggers touring Minneapolis this year — through St. Paul and on into charming Afton, Minnesota, where we visited nursery and gift shop ...

July 24, 2016 I’m dubbing this summer Escape to the North. In the space of two months I’ve made three trips to the northern, cooler half of the U.S., starting with the Philadelphia area; then Providence, Rhode Island; and finally Minneapolis, where the 9th annual Garden Bloggers Fling was held ...

July 12, 2016 During our full day at Chanticleer Garden in the Philadelphia area last month, Diana and I left for lunch around 1:30 pm and returned two hours later with full bellies plus a picnic dinner stashed in our bags. On Friday nights in the summer, the garden stays ...

June 05, 2016 A homestead garden in the city? You bet! I’ll show you the productive garden of Adam Voorhes and Robin Finlay — a commercial- and editorial-photography team (and married couple) known as The Voorhes — in the Summer 2016 issue of Austin Home, which you can find on ...

April 08, 2016 Many times over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Lucinda Hutson‘s purple cottage in the Rosedale neighborhood of central Austin. It’s always a riot of flowers and festive decor. On Tuesday I stopped by to visit again and am so glad I did. Butter-yellow blossoms ...

December 21, 2015 Lucinda Hutson‘s purple cottage in the Rosedale neighborhood of central Austin is a wonderland of Mexican folk art, colorful furnishings, and brightly painted walls. I had the pleasure of re-visiting last Friday, and brought along new friend Paula Panich, a Los Angeles writer and teacher of garden ...

December 21, 2015 Lucinda Hutson‘s purple cottage in the Rosedale neighborhood of central Austin is a wonderland of Mexican folk art, colorful furnishings, and brightly painted walls. I had the pleasure of re-visiting last Friday, and brought along new friend Paula Panich, a Los Angeles writer and teacher of garden ...