Late-winter mosey around the garden
January 31, 2025 The side garden — not the side with trash bins and potting bench but the far side, with a tree-hung chair half-hidden from the street — is a favorite destination of mine in winter. Tentacle-limbed live oaks gain even greater presence when the rest of the garden ...
Fall at Denver Botanic Gardens: Monet Pool, Japanese teahouse, and bonsai
January 11, 2025 The Monet Pool at Denver Botanic Gardens is the largest of several ponds at the garden. Dark-dyed water makes a mirrored surface, reflecting orange canna blossoms, reedy papyrus, and cloven waterlily pads. This is Part 6 of my tour from my visit in late September. Monet Pool ...
Cynthia’s home and garden with heart
November 14, 2024 Last month I visited my friend Cynthia Deegan’s home and garden, this time with Jennifer Jewell of Cultivating Place, who was in town to give a Garden Spark talk. I wanted Jennifer to meet Cynthia and see the soulful, joyful retreat she’s created at her Tarrytown bungalow with ...
Heidi Harris’s Denver dry garden, inspired by David Salman, outshines any lawn
November 07, 2024 I love a good chain of inspiration, seeing how one gardener’s efforts can fire up the imagination and determination of another, and so on and so on. Heidi Harris, aka Denver Dry Garden, is a great example. She bought her home in Denver’s Regis/Berkeley neighborhood in 2018, ...
Sculpted berms at Bouldin Castle inspired by land art and Kauai
November 04, 2024 If you’ve ever driven past Bouldin Castle in South Austin, you probably hit the brakes and craned your neck for a second look. Crenellated towers, a windowed turret, layered limestone, and wattle made of shaggy cedar posts give this former Catholic church — built in 1940 and ...
Playfulness and planters in the garden of Richard Hartlage
September 06, 2024 One garden I was eager to see during the Puget Sound Fling (on the bonus day in Seattle) was that of Richard Hartlage, head of design firm Land Morphology. I interviewed Richard years ago for an article in Garden Design and follow his work. To my delight, ...
Taming a hillside with terraces and sculpture in Bonnie Berk’s garden
September 03, 2024 Steep lots make gardening — or even just mowing — a challenge unless you figure out a way to create safe, usable spaces. Seattle gardener Bonnie Berk installed terracing to tame her intimidatingly steep front yard, adding large sculptures to entice visitors uphill. I visited her garden ...
Winding my way through Windcliff, part 1
August 25, 2024 Seeing Windcliff, the private garden of plantsman Dan Hinkley and architect Robert Jones, was a huge draw on the Puget Sound Fling tour. I read and reviewed Dan’s book Windcliff a couple years ago and hoped I might be able to visit the garden one day. And ...
Nancy Heckler’s hydrangea-colorful woodland garden
August 15, 2024 The acclaimed gardens Heronswood and Windcliff were on the agenda for Day 3 of the Puget Sound Fling, and I was excited to see them. But first we split up onto smaller buses that could manage the narrow road to Windcliff, and my bus headed to Nancy ...
Camille Paulsen’s Tahoma-flora garden
August 11, 2024 One of my favorite gardens on the Fling tour last month was that of Camille and Dirk Paulsen. As one of the co-planners of the Puget Sound Fling, Camille not only devoted a year of volunteer effort to bring Flingers to her region, but she managed to ...
A woodland art collector’s garden on Vashon Island
August 02, 2024 While touring the Carhart Garden at the Puget Sound Fling last month, I met one of the owners, Mary Carhart, who upon learning I was from Texas enthusiastically told me that she is from Texas too. Decades ago, she and husband Whit moved to Washington for work ...
Evening stroll around the garden
July 18, 2024 Last week we had a surprise rain shower — what joy! Afterward I walked through the garden, imagining the plants were feeling the joy too. In the side garden, the string lights on the fence came on as daylight faded away. Golden thryallis makes a bushy, flowering ...
Front-yard gardens and free spirits in Houston’s Heights
June 21, 2024 During a walk through the Heights neighborhood in north Houston last month, amid the derecho cleanup I saw cheerful cottage gardens in bloom. I snapped a few of my favorites, starting with this pistachio-green bungalow. Olive-green Vego planters — I’m going to have some in my next ...
Michael’s Plano Prairie Garden in spring
June 03, 2024 I’ve visited Michael McDowell’s garden — aka the Plano Prairie Garden — several times over the past decade (see here and here; it’ll also be featured in my forthcoming book). My visits have always been in the fall, when purple spires of gayfeather turn Michael’s prairie garden ...
The eclectic, welcoming garden of Suzy Renz
June 02, 2024 I road-tripped up to Dallas in mid-May because…more garden tours! Dallas master gardener Suzy Renz had alerted me to the Dallas County Master Gardener Association Tour on May 18th, on which her garden was featured, and Michael McDowell had clued me into the White Rock East Garden ...
Modern country charm, vintage signs at Katie Bird Farm
May 15, 2024 Chickens and donkeys and ducks, oh my! Katie Bird Farm has it all, plus gardens galore and a modern farmhouse and swimming pool on 3 acres in southwest Austin — all of it decorated with vintage signs and repurposed farm equipment. Owners Julie Nelson and Kay Angermann ...
