The buzz at Kew: The Hive and its pollinator-attracting meadow
July 11, 2018 At London’s Kew Gardens last month, I explored the buzzed-about interactive art installation The Hive. Airily constructed of aluminum and towering nearly 56 feet high (which seems even higher atop a small hill), The Hive was created by artist Wolfgang Buttress for the 2015 Milan Expo. It ...
Flower power at Kew Gardens: Perennial borders and rose garden
July 10, 2018 My indulgent family and I took the Tube to Kew Gardens (officially, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) while in London last month. I could easily have spent the whole day there, but we had only about 4 or 5 hours, so I had to pick and choose among ...
Historic kitchen garden at Château de La Roche-Guyon
July 06, 2018 Our mid-June French château-visiting plan was foiled when we missed the last house tour at Château d’Ambleville (not that I minded, with that wonderful garden to explore). But like I said, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a castle in France. So we drove 15 minutes ...
Hedge fun: The Italian Renaissance garden of Château d’Ambleville
July 05, 2018 So many châteaux (manor houses, mostly, but also palaces and castles) litter the French countryside that today some can be purchased for a relative song. We were not looking to buy, however, but merely to visit a couple of châteaux in mid-June, after our tour of Monet’s ...
Waterlilies and roses at Monet’s garden in Giverny
July 01, 2018 Having admired his waterlily series at the Musée de l’Orangerie, we decided to visit French impressionist Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny while vacationing in Paris last month. Braving Paris traffic, we rented a car one Sunday morning and drove 50 miles northwest to Giverny, with plans to ...
Kirk Walden’s Hill Country garden atop Lake Austin
May 25, 2018 With this killer view of Lake Austin, many homeowners might have sodded a lawn, plunked a few pots of annuals around the pool, and called it done. But Kirk Walden, whose garden was the final stop on the recent Austin Garden Bloggers Fling tour (I photographed it ...
A little Palm Springs, a little New Orleans, all Texas in the garden of Curt Arnette
May 16, 2018 I’ve been after my friend Curt Arnette, landscape-architect owner of Sitio Design, to open his personal garden on tour for years. But because he likes to change things up at home (plus being busy with his work projects), he’s always said it wasn’t ready. Persistence pays off, ...
Post-Fling garden exploring with blogger friends
May 15, 2018 Having said goodbye to nearly 100 garden bloggers at Austin Garden Bloggers Fling, on Monday of last week I picked up 4 late-staying blogger friends — Loree Bohl of Danger Garden, Gerhard Bock of Succulents and More, Victoria Summerley of Tales from Awkward Hill, and Helen Johnstone ...
Glorious wildflowers and agaves in Jenny Stocker’s garden
April 20, 2018 Spring in Austin is glorious this year, and especially so in my friend Jenny Stocker’s garden. The Rock Rose blogger cultivates a gravel garden of mostly Texas native wildflowers and grasses sown among woody lilies like agave and yucca, accented with structural rockwork she and her husband, ...
Peggy Martin roses adorn stone garden shed
April 18, 2018 Ruthie Burrus used a pile of limestone rocks dug out of her garden to build a charming garden haus in her backyard. Adding antique doors, recycled windows, and metal roofing, she modeled the shed after the humble limestone structures constructed by German immigrants in the Texas Hill ...
Spring flowering in Jenny Stocker’s walled courtyard gardens
March 31, 2018 When I spotted this pool-garden view from inside the home of my friend Jenny Stocker, I nearly tripped over my feet to get outside and drink it in. Jenny, who blogs at Rock Rose, is the owner of an exquisite garden that she designed herself and maintains ...
Bluebonnets, buckeyes, and more in bloom at Wildflower Center gardens
March 25, 2018 Ahh, Texas bluebonnets! They’re turning Austin’s roadsides blue right now, and early ‘bonnets were in bloom last week at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I wish everyone could experience a good bluebonnet season at least once in their lives. California poppies were blooming too, their orange ...
Flowering trees and Athena the owl at the Wildflower Center
March 22, 2018 Texas mountain laurel, one of our finest native flowering trees Whether you’re hunkered under a blanket of snow or your gardening season is well underway, let’s pause to appreciate the beauty of spring-flowering trees and other gorgeous native plants at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center here ...
