I’m on Cultivating Place talking about growing community, coping with climate change, and my fave plants
September 04, 2022 This week I’m on the acclaimed podcast Cultivating Place: Natural History & the Human Impulse to Garden, talking with host Jennifer Jewell about building a gardening community, how I got into gardening, my Garden Spark speaker series, gardening in the challenging conditions of Central Texas, coping with ...
From the vault: Leaving your garden to strangers
December 11, 2021 Our first house back in 1992 This essay first appeared at Digging in May of 2008. I came across it yesterday and decided to republish, with a few small alterations, for newer readers. If it resonates with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments ...
I’m interviewed in Boston Globe about Texas gardening and blogging
April 25, 2016 “When Spotlight won Best Picture,” I asked the Boston Globe reporter the day after the Oscars, “did you celebrate?” Heather Ciras was interviewing me for a non-investigative story (thank goodness) about gardening and blogging. The night before, I’d been happy to see my favorite movie of 2015 ...
Read This: The New Southern Living Garden Book
May 29, 2015 The New Southern Living Garden Book South by Southwest (SXSW) is not only the name of Austin’s famous music/film/interactive festival, but it also happens to be descriptive of our gardening culture. Here, the South meets the Southwest, with the Balcones Fault roughly delineating the division. Deep clay ...
What kind of gardening do YOU block on social media?
January 02, 2015 I bet we all do it without even thinking about it. But it wasn’t until I read Elizabeth Licata’s post on Garden Rant this week, “2015: the year of the do-nothing garden,” that I’d heard it voiced so baldly. She was vowing to take it easier in ...
Golden pomegranate is pretty wonderful for fall color
December 05, 2014 I know many of you have mentally moved on to Christmas. But Austin’s fall color comes late, and the golden leaves of my ‘Wonderful’ pomegranate keep catching my eye through the window while I try to work. So naturally, instead of closing the blind so as to ...
Lawn Gone! giveaway and my guest post at Garden Rant
August 15, 2013 “Lawns are for kids, right? After all, they need that big, green carpet to enjoy the outdoors. Would it be an exaggeration to say it borders on neglect not to keep a lawn for your children or grandchildren to play on?” So begins my guest post today ...
Tom Spencer’s Tao of Texas gardening
September 17, 2012 As fall dances toward us, bearing cooler temperatures and gentle rains, we Texas gardeners have before us our easiest gardening season, with almost six months to get plants established (if we plant now) before the heat of summer returns. Still, last year, with its 90 days of ...
Read This: The Undaunted Garden, 2nd edition
July 07, 2012 In 1994 my husband and I bought our first home in Austin, and I wanted to make a garden. Along the driveway a large, triangular bed, outlined by flat pieces of limestone, had already been carved out of the lawn by the previous owners. By the time ...
Houston Open Days Garden Tour 2012: A gentle critique and plea for diversity
March 30, 2012 Houston, where are your creative, cutting-edge gardens? You’ve got traditional estate gardening down: azaleas, boxwood hedges, enormous lawns, extensive terracing, the whole bit. But where are your native gardens, your contemporary gardens, and most important, your gardeners’ gardens? Last weekend I traveled to Houston for the Garden ...
Gardening is a dialogue: Reading Joe Eck’s Elements of Garden Design
February 13, 2012 I just finished reading Elements of Garden Design by Joe Eck, a delightful series of essays on the theory and practice of garden design. It’s a wonderful book for beginners and experienced gardeners alike, and should be read while curled up on the couch during these last ...
No rain, no watering: Imagining a drier future for Austin & its landscaping industry
November 18, 2011 Photo courtesy of Lee Clippard Are we brave enough to look the worst-case scenario in the eye? Let’s lay it out: the rains don’t return this winter, at least not sufficiently to ease our exceptional drought, and next summer Austin enters Stage 3 watering restrictions, in which ...
The long view: Reflections on Austin’s drought
September 17, 2011 The approach of autumn is a hopeful time for the central Texas gardener. It means we’ve survived another long, hot summer and can enjoy being outdoors again. It means time for the rains to return to revitalize the summer-weary garden, replenish our aquifers and lakes, and offer ...
Read This: How to Steal Like an Artist
April 20, 2011 It may seem like I’m taking a break from garden writing to tell you about two Austinites whose websites are inspiring me this week, but there’s a connection. You’ll see. First is Austin Kleon, author/artist of the book Newspaper Blackout. His inspiring and yet practical post How ...
In which I meet the new owners of my former garden
January 25, 2011 Since selling our former home last summer, I’ve avoided driving down our old street, fearing to see what the new owners might have done with my old garden. At best I worried it might be neglected. At worst I expected to see a water-guzzling St. Augustine lawn ...
A Call to Shovels! In Search of the Gen-X Garden
July 26, 2010 A guest post by Scott Calhoun Over the past year, I’ve been traveling around the interior West, speaking to gardening groups, and as I scan my audiences, I’ve become worried that the demographics of gardening do not bode well for the future of America’s favorite pastime. I ...
