Bold leaves and light-catching grasses for Foliage Follow-Up
September 16, 2014 I’m giving Moby, my ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (A. ovatifolia), pride of place in today’s Foliage Follow-Up post. At nearly 7 feet across, he’s the star of the back garden in all seasons, but especially in late summer when the fall-blooming perennials haven’t really revved up yet. An ...
Agave spikes and potted succulents get me through summer
September 04, 2014 I feel we’re in the home stretch now, but even at its worst summer can’t wear these plants down. In sun, Queen Victoria agave (A. victoriae-reginae), with its pleated, white-edged leaves, just laughs at the Death Star. Agave stricta, which really needs a bigger pot, and Agave ...
Mid-century house inspires Palm Springs-style garden in Austin
September 01, 2014 Charlotte Warren, a photographer and former co-chair of the local Garden Conservancy tour, inherited a steeply sloping, west-facing zoysia lawn when she moved into her home in the hills of West Austin. Aside from requiring lots of water and regular mowing, the lawn offered zero privacy for ...
Waiting for autumn’s reviving touch
August 24, 2014 Whew! After writing 16 posts about Portland gardens, each containing scads of photos of summer-lush and richly blooming borders, I’m somehow ready for a return to my own Death Star-blasted garden. August is my least favorite gardening month here in Austin. I’m over the heat. I’m over ...
Love just around the bend at Bella Madrona: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 17, 2014 For our final tour on the Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland last month, our bus stopped on a rural highway and deposited us in a field with a few pieces of rusty farming equipment strewn about. Not sure what to expect, I walked through open gates adorned ...
Garden magic and whimsy at Floramagoria: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 13, 2014 As we entered the intriguingly named Floramagoria garden on the recent Portland Garden Bloggers Fling, thunder rumbled and raindrops pelted our group of 40 or so bloggers. The reasonable — and hungry — among us ran for the two covered pavilions with box lunches in hand. The ...
The Dancing Ladies Garden of Linda Ernst: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 11, 2014 Do you ever fantasize about another gardener living right next door? Linda Ernst and Joanne Fuller are living the fantasy. Aside from being friends and next-door neighbors, they both love to garden, and each tends a beautiful space linked by a friendly gate in back and a ...
The artful Fuller Garden: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 08, 2014 We were treated to two gardens for the price of one on the 3rd day of the Portland Garden Bloggers Fling last month. Friends, gardeners, and art collectors Joanne Fuller and Linda Ernst live next door to each other in a charming older neighborhood, with a friendly ...
Splendor in the grass at Rhone Street Gardens: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 07, 2014 The 3rd and final day of touring on the recent Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland, Oregon, dawned cool and misty — exactly what Portland should be, at least according to heat-shunning me. After two days of unusual heat, I was thrilled, even when it started to thunder ...
Checking out Chickadee Gardens: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 03, 2014 The Garden Bloggers Fling takes you to so many wonderful gardens that it would be understandable if you simply overloaded by the end of the day, unable to appreciate one more. Thankfully I find new gardens energizing, and when our bus pulled up at Portland blogger Tamara’s ...
JJ De Sousa’s bold garden digs: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
July 31, 2014 What’s black and white and red-orange all over? The stylishly mod yet playful garden of JJ De Sousa, that’s what. Owner of Digs Inside & Out home-and-garden shop, which I visited pre-Fling, JJ has an enviable talent for creating inviting, colorful garden rooms, perfect for entertaining, which ...
Portland Japanese Garden: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
July 25, 2014 The second day of the 7th annual Garden Bloggers Fling, held in Portland in mid-July, began in the renowned Portland Japanese Garden, often described as the most authentic of its kind outside of Japan. I had visited a few days earlier with my husband on a hot, ...
Westwind Farm Studio: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
July 23, 2014 Both buses filled with 80 hot, tired bloggers bumped into a lavender field at the end of the first touring day of the Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland, Oregon, in mid-July. I tiredly thought, “How nice, a lovely field of lavender.” But what I didn’t realize was ...
Old Germantown Gardens: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
July 20, 2014 The first private garden on the Portland Garden Bloggers Fling tour last weekend was, at 2 acres, large enough to accommodate our entire group of approximately 80 bloggers. Old Germantown Gardens, created over 23 years by Bruce Wakefield and Jerry Grossnickle, is a masterpiece of a garden ...
Joy Creek and Cistus Nurseries: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
July 19, 2014 After touring Lan Su Chinese Garden in downtown Portland, the two Fling buses headed out to scenic, agricultural Sauvie Island for our visits to two premier nurseries: Cistus and Joy Creek. Cistus is a plant lover’s mecca, with rare and interesting plants from all over the world, ...
Visit to Digs Inside & Out garden shop in Portland
July 18, 2014 When I heard that JJ De Sousa’s garden was on the itinerary for the Portland Garden Bloggers Fling, I excitedly planned a double-dose of her colorful, creative, offbeat style by arranging to visit her home-and-garden shop Digs Inside & Out. Located on trendy Alberta Street (where my ...
