November 02, 2018
The buzz at Kew: The Hive and its pollinator-attracting meadow
July 11, 2018 At London’s Kew Gardens last month, I explored the buzzed-about interactive art installation The Hive. Airily constructed of aluminum and towering nearly 56 feet high (which seems even higher atop a small hill), The Hive was created by artist Wolfgang Buttress for the 2015 Milan Expo. It …
Flower power at Kew Gardens: Perennial borders and rose garden
July 10, 2018 My indulgent family and I took the Tube to Kew Gardens (officially, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) while in London last month. I could easily have spent the whole day there, but we had only about 4 or 5 hours, so I had to pick and choose among …
Roses, swans, and ravens: Rambling in London’s parks and Tower of London
July 08, 2018 We arrived in London in mid-June, where we stayed two nights and spent our days eating fish and chips and Indian food, sightseeing, and rambling in London’s excellent parks. (We also visited the magnificent Kew Gardens, which I’ll share in my next post.) London’s public parks made …
Historic kitchen garden at Château de La Roche-Guyon
July 06, 2018 Our mid-June French château-visiting plan was foiled when we missed the last house tour at Château d’Ambleville (not that I minded, with that wonderful garden to explore). But like I said, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a castle in France. So we drove 15 minutes …
Hedge fun: The Italian Renaissance garden of Château d’Ambleville
July 05, 2018 So many châteaux (manor houses, mostly, but also palaces and castles) litter the French countryside that today some can be purchased for a relative song. We were not looking to buy, however, but merely to visit a couple of châteaux in mid-June, after our tour of Monet’s …
Waterlilies and roses at Monet’s garden in Giverny
July 01, 2018 Having admired his waterlily series at the Musée de l’Orangerie, we decided to visit French impressionist Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny while vacationing in Paris last month. Braving Paris traffic, we rented a car one Sunday morning and drove 50 miles northwest to Giverny, with plans to …
Paris parks, pigeons, and masterpieces
June 28, 2018 After Venice earlier this June, we spent 5 nights in Paris, a city I hadn’t seen in 29 years. It is as beautiful and vibrant as I remembered. My husband took these twilight images from the top of the Arc de Triomphe, looking out over the city …
The romance of Venice
June 24, 2018 You can hardly believe a city like this really exists, its gelato-hued, wedding-cake buildings perched at the edge of watery streets… …boats zipping past instead of cars… …the ancient house facades and narrow alleys suffused with a romantic decay. Speaking of gelato On June 3rd we flew …
Read my article and see B. Jane’s Austin garden in Garden Design magazine
June 22, 2018 When you pick up a copy of the Summer 2018 issue of Garden Design magazine — even better, subscribe to this no-ads, in-depth-writing, photo-rich quarterly magazine — you’ll find 144 pages of gardening goodness, including two articles I’d like to draw your attention to. “Into the Woods” …
Yellow flowering prickly pear glows like sunshine
June 06, 2018 Hot weather and sunshine bring out the beauty of prickly pear (Opuntia) flowers. This gigantic spineless prickly pear growing in a neighbor’s yard stands about 6-1/2 feet tall, and it’s covered with butter-yellow flowers. The toughest plants seem to have the most splendid flowers. I welcome your …
Fawning over this new baby in the garden
May 31, 2018 As my daughter pulled the trash bin out to the driveway yesterday, bumping it along the stepping-stone path, she nearly stepped on a newborn fawn who was trying hard to remain unseen. He or she lay half concealed amid the variegated flax lily lining the path, a …
Early summer color coming on
May 28, 2018 Mexican oregano, vitex, and ‘Vertigo’ pennisetum harmonize in shades of purple. Since the Austin Garden Bloggers Fling tour in early May, when 92 bloggers trooped through my garden, a purple explosion has occurred. So many plants are in full bloom now that weren’t then, and that pains …
Kirk Walden’s Hill Country garden atop Lake Austin
May 25, 2018 With this killer view of Lake Austin, many homeowners might have sodded a lawn, plunked a few pots of annuals around the pool, and called it done. But Kirk Walden, whose garden was the final stop on the recent Austin Garden Bloggers Fling tour (I photographed it …
Bloom spikes!
May 19, 2018 This is the bloom-spikiest spring I can remember in Austin. All over town, agaves, sotols, aloes, hesperaloes, mangaves, manfredas, and yuccas are sending up flowering wands or blooming candelabras. My own garden is no exception, but the spikes I’m most excited by are towering over two Texas …
