November 02, 2018
New blue tuteur doubles as bee B&B
August 02, 2015 The sea of green that is my deer-resistant sedge lawn and grassy borders now has a welcome shot of color. When I heard that TerraTrellis, a woman-owned, original-garden-art studio in Los Angeles, was running an online sale, I splurged on their Akoris Jr. tuteur with a bee …
Ducking around in Memphis
August 01, 2015 Our last stop on our cultural tour of the South (a family road trip in mid-July that began in Austin and included New Orleans, Atlanta, and Charlotte, North Carolina) was Memphis, Tennessee — Home of the Blues and the Birthplace of Rock-and-Roll. We spent two nights at …
Munro Lights at Atlanta Botanical Garden, and a whale of a show at Georgia Aquarium
July 31, 2015 Earth Goddess, Atlanta Botanical Garden After we left New Orleans, we drove to Atlanta, Georgia, arriving in time for a Sunday evening visit to Atlanta Botanical Garden to see a special art exhibit, Bruce Munro: Light in the Garden. Seeing a garden in late afternoon and at …
It’s not hard to enjoy the Big Easy
July 29, 2015 If you want to feel that you’ve traveled to a foreign city without leaving the country, visit New Orleans and stay in the historic French Quarter. We made the 8-hour drive from Austin a couple of weeks ago — our first stop on a family road trip …
Plant This: Turk’s cap
July 21, 2015 Death Star-adapted plants tend to be small-leaved and airy, the better to retain precious water. But our native Turk’s cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) defies that expectation with vaguely heart-shaped leaves the size of a napkin scrounged out of your car’s glove box, and just as crinkled …
I heart foliage! July Foliage Follow-Up
July 16, 2015 This month for Foliage Follow-Up I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve — well, on my garden anyway. This is one of my favorite combos in the front garden right now: feathery, chartreuse bamboo muhly grass (Muhlenbergia dumosa); spiky, star-shaped ‘Burgundy Ice’ dyckia; and lace-textured white skullcap …
Read This: Garden Design magazine
July 14, 2015 Little did I know when the Garden Bloggers Fling kicked off in 2008 with 37 attendees that a few years later the publisher of one of the most respected gardening magazines in the U.S. would be a regular Fling attendee. Garden Design publisher Jim Peterson (pictured above …
Candy lily crush
July 13, 2015 I’m sweet on you, candy lily (xPardancanda norrisii)! I’ve had this iris hybrid for a year, and it’s sweetening my summer garden with a daily unfurling of freckled flowers. The candy lilies in my front garden bloom better than those in the back thanks to a bit …
Mexican oregano and a tall, dark, handsome partner
July 10, 2015 Each year I replant a purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum) next to the Mexican oregano (Poliomintha longiflora) in the streetside garden. I love the rich color echo between the Mexican oregano’s lilac flowers and the grass’s dark leaves, which look good late-spring through fall and even, bleached …
Fawn and games
July 08, 2015 All this week we’ve had twin fawns hiding in various spots in the front garden while Mom eats the neighbors’ gardens browses all day. Yesterday I surprised them — or rather they surprised me and Cosmo. As Cosmo nosed around and suddenly sniffed them out, they startled …
Lively formality in the garden of Deborah Hornickel
July 06, 2015 If you admired the beautiful details of James David’s grand Rollingwood garden, which I had the privilege of visiting last spring, you may have wondered what a smaller, more economically built garden of his might look like. And I’m here to show you, thanks to James’s longtime …
Crocosmia crush
July 03, 2015 When I visited my friend Melody’s lovely San Antonio garden last fall, she gave me a division of a crocosmia. I was surprised to learn that crocosmia grows in central Texas, having seen it thriving in cool-summer gardens in Portland and Seattle. This isn’t the showy ‘Lucifer’, …
Digging receives two Garden Writers Association awards!
July 02, 2015 I’m really excited to announce that I’ve received two Silver Awards of Achievement for garden writing in the 2015 Garden Writers Association Media Awards Program (GWA is now GardenComm). One award is for the category Blog-Writing. The judges, in making their decision, specifically considered three of my …
Fling wrap-up at Toronto Botanical Garden: Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling
July 01, 2015 Wherever I travel, I enjoy visiting local botanical gardens. So I was happy to see that Toronto Botanical Garden would be our final stop — including a catered dinner — on the recent Garden Bloggers Fling in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Upon arrival we 70 garden bloggers were …
