November 02, 2018
Gardens on Tour 2013: Highland Terrace West Garden
May 15, 2013 I used to walk by this house every day while picking up my son from kindergarten, and each time I’d gape at the lush, shade garden fronting the charming cottage with the welcoming front porch, wondering what the rest of the place looked like. Twelve years later, …
Gardens on Tour 2013: Placid Place Garden
May 14, 2013 The homeowner-designed Placid Place Garden, located in north-central Austin’s Highland Village neighborhood, was the third we visited on the Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour last Saturday. While the overall design was too unstructured for my taste, I did admire several features, including this double-arbor entry gate into …
Gardens on Tour 2013: Westridge Drive Garden
May 14, 2013 The second garden I visited on the Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour last Saturday was, like the first, located in south Austin’s Barton Hills neighborhood. The contemporary home on Westridge Drive, which is embraced by a wood of native trees and understory plants (many invasive exotics have …
Gardens on Tour 2013: Kathy Cove Garden
May 13, 2013 Garden tour season in central Texas kicked off last Saturday with the annual Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour, which this year featured five Austin gardens in which native plants play a predominant role. I toured with three other bloggers — Cat from The Whimsical Gardener, Shirley from …
Sleepy screech owl
May 09, 2013 Over dinner on the deck last night, we watched Mama Screech Owl sitting in the door of her owl box, looking for all the world as if she needed another nap before dark. We think she has chicks in there, as she spends much of her time …
Happy about these garden blues
May 07, 2013 I’m singing the blues with majestic sage (Salvia guaranitica)… …with a blue bottle tree, purple skullcap (Scutellaria wrightii), and ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (Agave ovatifolia)… …with Texas bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis)… …and with more purple skullcap and bluebonnets, plus velvety mullein. Another view of the purple skullcap and mullein, …
Virtual book tour for Indoor Plant Decor, plus a Bonsai Tool Set Giveaway
May 06, 2013 My friends Kylee Baumle (Our Little Acre) and Jenny Peterson (J Peterson Garden Design) have co-authored a brand-new book called Indoor Plant Decor: The Design Stylebook for Houseplants. To celebrate and help publicize its release, I’m participating in their cyber book party. And you know what a …
Springtime visit to the Garden of Good and Evil
May 03, 2013 Last weekend Lori, a gardener in southwest Austin who blogs at The Gardener of Good and Evil, hosted a meet-up of local garden bloggers. It was my second visit. I’d seen her lovely garden three years ago and posted about it then. Lori loves roses, and in …
Gorgeous succulent bowl
May 01, 2013 Wow, check out this stunning succulent bowl! It was a gift from my friend Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden, put together by Vivero Growers Nursery, and I LOVE it! The colorful aeonium (please let it live through our hot, humid summers!), the teeny-tiny yellow sedum (?), the …
Honeybees spelunk in aloe flowers
April 30, 2013 The life of a garden is sometimes better revealed in close-up views. Take these honeybees, for example. They love the candelabra-like flowers of Aloe maculata, formerly A. saponaria. When the tubular blossoms open, bees converge to spelunk the depths. Completely hidden inside the tubes, the bees disappear …
Plant This: Spuria iris bloom at last
April 28, 2013 About 4 years after acquiring them, my spuria iris are blooming at last. Passalongs from Linda Lehmusvirta of Central Texas Gardener, who told me she received her divisions from author/designer Scott Ogden, these tall (about 3 feet), beardless irises would send up their slender leaves each winter, …
Screech owl in the April garden
April 26, 2013 Someone’s been watching me as I amble through the garden in the morning and evening. Whooo? I didn’t see him when I was dazzled by the variegated agaves and yuccas in the raised bed along the back of the house. I didn’t see him when I stopped …
Lucinda Hutson's purple cottage, cantina garden, and Viva Tequila!
April 24, 2013Lucinda Hutson’s festive home and garden in Austin My friend Lucinda Hutson invited me over to her purple cottage on Sunday to see her angel’s trumpets in bloom, plus all the rest of her exuberant, flowery garden. Lighting up her quiet Rosedale neighborhood street like a fiesta in …
Lucinda Hutson’s purple cottage, cantina garden, and Viva Tequila!
April 24, 2013Lucinda Hutson’s festive home and garden in AustinMy friend Lucinda Hutson invited me over to her purple cottage on Sunday to see her angel’s trumpets in bloom, plus all the rest of her exuberant, flowery garden. Lighting up her quiet Rosedale neighborhood street like a fiesta in full …
