October blooms brighten my garden
October! It’s the best month of the year, providing sweet relief from a Texas summer with cooler weather and rain and bringing the garden back to life.… Read More
Native plants at Chihuahuan Desert Botanical Garden in West Texas
The 18-acre botanical garden at Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center in Fort Davis, TX, showcases native Chihuahuan Desert plants.… Read More
Flowering trees and more unfurling
Yesterday the Mexican plum burst into full bloom, transforming itself from bare twigs to fluffy white flowers seemingly overnight.… Read More
Native plants and Hill Country style at Paula Stone’s Fredericksburg garden
A tour of Paula Stone’s native plant gardens and Gilbriar Gazebo wedding venue in picturesque Fredericksburg, Texas.… Read More
Hot summer garden before it got super hot
The garden in mid-May and early June, when yuccas and coneflowers were blooming and everything was still fresh and not heat-stressed. … Read More
At the Wildflower Center with Jennifer Jewell
Jennifer Jewell and I visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in early May, when the late-spring wildflowers were in party mode.… Read More
Gathering spaces in Ruthie Burrus Garden, part 2
Ruthie Burrus divided her long, shallow backyard into welcoming and charming hangout areas for family and friends. This is Part 2 of my tour.… Read More
Exploring reimagined Waterloo Park in downtown Austin
Waterloo Park in downtown Austin has reopened after a 10-year redesign and flood-mitigation project. I’m down for it! Here’s a tour.… Read More
A week of bloom spikes and rain
The garden responds to a week of rain with a profusion of growth and towering bloom spikes on yucca, aloe, and sotol.… Read More
Modern ranch garden embraces water collection and wildflowers in New Braunfels
Cody and Michelle Koehler made a contemporary ranch garden around their New Braunfels home, complete with water collection and wildflowers.… Read More
Xeriscape in bloom at Wells Branch Community Garden
Lemon-lime retama trees in bloom caught my eye recently as I drove by the Wells Branch Community Garden and its native xeriscape.… Read More
Hilltop pollinator garden of Ruthie Burrus: Austin Open Day tour
Having visited Ruthie Burrus’s garden before, I knew it would be one of my favorites on the Austin Open Days tour in November, sponsored by The Garden Conservancy. Let’s start with the entry garden, where a concrete trough softened by ferns gently trickles.… Read More
Chinoiserie enchantment at Chandor Gardens, part 2
Given 3-1/2 acres of cow pasture, it turns out you can do quite a lot with it. Douglas Chandor created an English-Chinese garden in his North Texas cow pasture in the 1930s through early 1950s. … Read More
Chandor Gardens, née White Shadows, a hidden gem in North Texas, part 1
White Shadows — the name evokes romance and mystery — seems wholly appropriate for the dappled-shade garden surrounding a pale-gray house in the small Texas town of Weatherford, 30 miles west of Fort Worth.… Read More