Native plant gardens rev up Austin City Hall
November 21, 2013 Overlooking Lady Bird Lake and backing up to the tall codominiums of downtown, Austin City Hall delights me every time I drive by. With an angular, contemporary exterior clad in copper and limestone and a front facade that steps down toward the lake, the building has a ...
Fall Festival 2013 at Antique Rose Emporium: Arbors, labyrinth & garden shops
November 07, 2013 On a perfect fall day last Saturday at the Antique Rose Emporium near Brenham, Texas, after I’d given my Lawn Gone! talk, I strolled around for an hour taking pictures in the golden light of late afternoon. Felder Rushing, the final speaker of the day, was entertaining ...
Fall Festival 2013 at Antique Rose Emporium: Beatrix Potter garden, bottle trees & cottage charm
November 06, 2013 After my talk at the Antique Rose Emporium near Brenham, Texas, last Saturday, I explored their display gardens again, enjoying the golden afternoon light and mild weather. The cottagey Beatrix Potter garden, enclosed by a purple picket fence, contains this charming seating area and whimsical features like ...
Fall Festival 2013 at Antique Rose Emporium: Country Girl mums, grasses, and chapel garden
November 05, 2013 What happens when you get a gorgeous fall day in Texas, with sunny, blue skies, a cool breeze, and every perennial in the garden flowering its head off? If the 25th Annual Fall Festival of Roses is going on, you set your own garden aside for the ...
Gorgeous gravel garden outshines former lawn in Lakewood garden
October 29, 2013 Whenever landscape architect Curt Arnette of Sitio Design invites me to see one of his gardens, I say, “I’ll be right there!” Last Saturday we toured a 1-year-old garden in the Lakewood neighborhood of West Austin that he designed and that his cousin John Gibson (of Gibson ...
Elegant, contemporary Westlake garden by Sitio Design
October 10, 2013 When you follow your same route day after day, it’s easy to miss out on some cool gardens in your hometown. Garden tours will introduce you to some. Taking photos for a friend’s design portfolio will introduce you to some very nice ones too. I had the ...
Red pagoda and maples in Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Tea Garden
August 14, 2013 My family and I spent a week in early July exploring San Francisco and surrounding coastal towns after the Garden Bloggers Fling. One sunny afternoon, after several hours spent at the fascinating California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, we strolled over to the Japanese Tea ...
Sculpture and found objects mingle in Marcia Donahue’s garden
August 13, 2013 Peering from the shadows of an exuberant, densely planted front yard, artist Marcia Donahue’s turbaned and hooded figures — exotic wood sprites? — give a sense of mystery to her Berkeley, California, garden. On July 1st, the day after the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling ended, I ...
Cocktail party at Flora Grubb Gardens: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
August 08, 2013 The San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling wrapped up on June 30 with a cocktail party at Flora Grubb Gardens, a chic garden center named for its owner — and, yes, that’s really her name. Flora is a rock-star nursery owner, her image and her garden style recommendations ...
Hillside magic in the Nichols Garden: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
August 06, 2013 Our 4th stop on the final day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was my absolute favorite of the Fling: the Ann Nichols Garden. Gorgeous plants, beautifully combined and meticulously maintained, adorn a series of intimate garden rooms on a hillside lot. A subtropical front garden ...
Fearless color in Keeyla Meadows Garden: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
August 01, 2013 Our 3rd stop on the final day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the garden of artist and garden designer Keeyla Meadows, a scene of riotous, exuberant color in both plants and structures. Keeyla is the author of Fearless Color Gardens, which I reviewed here ...
Golden views in the Dudan Garden: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 29, 2013 Our 2nd stop on the 3rd and final day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the Dudan Garden, a hilltop residence with a million-dollar view of golden hills and and an emerald valley. With such a view to enjoy, some might wonder why create a ...
Sculptural dry gardens at the Ruth Bancroft Garden: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 27, 2013 Our 1st stop on the 3rd and final day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek. It was about 100 degrees F in Walnut Creek that last week of June, but the heat and intense sunlight seemed appropriate for ...
California living in the Testa-Vought Garden: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 26, 2013 Our 5th stop on the 2nd day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the Bernard Trainor-designed Testa-Vought Garden in Palo Alto. Out front, a contemporary gravel garden greets you, but the real excitement begins when you enter a walled courtyard and begin discovering a series ...
Mementoes and memories in the garden of Rebecca Sweet: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 24, 2013 Our 4th stop on the 2nd day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the Los Altos garden of designer, author, and blogger Rebecca Sweet. I’ve admired her garden not only on her blog, Gossip in the Garden, but in magazines like Sunset, so I already ...
Old World beauty at Filoli: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 23, 2013 Our 3rd stop on the 2nd day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the old estate garden of Filoli. According to its website, Filoli is a “654–acre property, including the 36,000 square foot Georgian country house and spectacular 16–acre English Renaissance garden.” Despite the Texas-level ...
