Garden tours 2006

November 27, 2006 Smooch! On Sunday afternoon we drove downtown, parked under MoPac, and walked the 3-mile loop around Town Lake. Reds, oranges, yellows—the trees along the lake blazed with color. Well, they blazed by Austin’s standards. It was a gorgeous day—about 79 degrees and partly cloudy—and we strolled along, ...

November 25, 2006 Camellia in bloom at Bayou Bend After not one but two Thanksgiving feasts—Thursday with my husband’s family, Friday with mine—it was time to give thanks for nature’s beauty and feast our eyes instead of our bellies. So before we left Houston today we took a stroll at ...

October 28, 2006 Colorful, xeric perennials contrasted beautifully with an Italian cypress allee. My last garden of the day, Stone House Vineyard required the biggest time commitment. At about 2 pm I took the 40-minute drive out to Spicewood, on Lake Travis. Compared to the crowded, in-town gardens, only a ...

October 27, 2006 Low, curving walls set the front garden apart, with a spiraling design that draws you in. Colorful perennials and informal designs had been scarce on the Open Days Austin tour up until this point. Green, formal gardens ruled the day with clipped boxwoods, allees, precise runnels, and ...

October 26, 2006 A pear allee is the highlight of Hornickel’s garden Warm, accessible, personal, with striking plant choices and a Gardens-inspired feel, this Bryker Woods garden, located within walking distance of James David and Gary Peese’s famous garden shop, is Gardens on a budget. And I mean that as ...

October 25, 2006 A belvedere “modeled after the music pavilion at Versailles,” according to the Open Days Directory. We garden tourists knew this would be the most opulent garden on the Open Days Austin tour. A feature in the newspaper that tantalized with lavish photos, and mentioned that the garden ...

October 24, 2006 Entering James Arth’s garden from the street, you step onto a small lawn punctuated by a “chess pawn” (similar to one in my own garden’s border). Visiting this central Austin garden right after the David-Peese garden was a big change, but its spare geometry rendered in limestone ...

October 23, 2006 Entry garden. A gravel path flows around this sunny, graveled berm. It literally stopped me in my tracks as I gazed at the intriguing plant combinations. “Does this make me look fat?” I heard Gary Peese ask someone, fussing with his shirt as the Open Days tour ...

October 22, 2006 The Garden Conservancy held its Open Days garden tour here in Austin yesterday. I spent six hours touring six gardens and had a terrific time. The gardens were gorgeous, inspiring, and yet, with one exception, accessible, meaning you felt you could borrow ideas for plant combinations, decor, ...

June 28, 2006 Angel and deer sculpture While Laguna Gloria’s formal gardens enjoy the view of Lake Austin and get all the glory with weddings and galas that are held there, the informal garden has its own attractions. Amid the junipers and live oaks, you can find peacocks from nearby ...

June 27, 2006 Water lily at Laguna Gloria Today I visited the grounds of Laguna Gloria. Once the home of Clara Driscoll, “Savior of the Alamo” (she raised money in 1903 to keep the Alamo from being destroyed to make way for a hotel), nowadays Laguna Gloria is home to ...

June 03, 2006 I’ve been away for a week in Tulsa, Oklahoma, visiting my mom. We spent several pleasant (mosquito-free!) afternoons in her cottage garden brimming with hollyhocks. Crowded around her purple garden shed, towering more than 6 feet tall, with flowers as broad as salad plates, Mom’s hollyhocks bloom ...

May 13, 2006 Today my sister-in-law and I went on the LBJ Wildflower Center–sponsored garden tour—Gardens on Tour 2006. Two of the gardens were particularly spectacular: one that the homeowners had designed and installed themselves (photo above), and one that complemented an over-the-top, fanciful, Mayan-inspired mansion, complete with personal observatory, ...