Spring flowers and fab foliage a-popping
March 16, 2025 Late last week, while I was under the weather and holed up on the couch watching Wicked, winter turned into spring. Yesterday I woke up feeling like myself again and noticed a text from my neighbor, thanking me for the beauty of my Mexican plum, which stretches ...
Greensleeves Nursery featuring native plants opens in Pflugerville
March 14, 2025 Two weeks ago a new nursery specializing in native Texas plants opened in Pflugerville, just north of Austin. It’s called Greensleeves (cue the old English ballad), appropriate for a place wearing its love of native plants on its sleeve, so to speak. The owner, Willy Glenn, is ...
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: Perennial Walk and Romantic Gardens
January 12, 2025 With orange spines on its leaves and bright purple flowers, porcupine tomato (Solanum pyracanthos) looks like it’s from another planet. I spotted this one at Denver Botanic Gardens. This is Part 7 and my final post from my visit last September. Japanese anemone Crossroads Garden Let’s start ...
Fall at Denver Botanic Gardens: Pond, prairie garden, and Victorian garden
January 10, 2025 One of my favorite places within Denver Botanic Gardens‘ 24 acres is the naturalistic Gates Pond. Half-hidden in a back corner, the pond is bordered on one side by a prairie garden, on the other by a piney woodland bluff. This is Part 5 of my tour ...
Fall at Denver Botanic Gardens: Perennials, conifers, and Rock Alpine Garden
January 09, 2025 After exploring the Birds and Bees Walk at Denver Botanic Gardens, I found bees hard at work among fall-flowering asters and other perennials. This is Part 4 from my visit to DBG in late September. The asters were lit up in the strong morning sunlight. The bees ...
Fall at Denver Botanic Gardens: Steppe Garden, ornamental grasses, and woodland garden
January 07, 2025 The Steppe Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens delights with three large crevice planters on a stone plaza. They’re intricately constructed. The central one reminds me of a loaf of bread or those old-fashioned wooden puzzles that fit together in a certain way. Or maybe a wheel of ...
Fall at Denver Botanic Gardens: Entry and Water-Smart Garden
January 06, 2025 As much of the country, including Texas, tucks into flannels and wool socks to stay warm this week, let’s float back in time to the golden days of a Colorado autumn. In late September last year, I made two visits to Denver Botanic Gardens, one of my ...
Tobin Land Bridge gives wildlife and people safe passage
January 02, 2025 Before the Tobin Land Bridge was built in Phil Hardberger Park in San Antonio, deer, bobcats, coyotes, armadillos, and other four-legged wildlife had to dash Frogger-like across 6 lanes of traffic to access all 330 acres of habitat. Wurzbach Parkway kept people from exploring half the parkland ...
Exploring the Gardens on Spring Creek in fall
December 01, 2024 I always look for gardens to visit when I travel, and our fall trip up to Denver included quite a few. Happily I was able to squeeze in another during a day trip to Fort Collins, where we spent a couple hours at The Gardens on Spring ...
Beyond the fairway, and finding Harvey Penick, at Austin Country Club
November 26, 2024 Gardening connections can get you into places you might not otherwise see. Austin Country Club, a private golf club on Lake Austin, being a case in point. I don’t run in country club circles. But I enjoy meeting enthusiastic plant people eager to share what they’re working ...
Fall garden stroll at the Wildflower Center
November 18, 2024 Being able to visit a garden at the golden hour — just after sunrise or before sunset, when the light is soft and warm — is a garden photographer’s fervent wish. So I am grateful when a botanical garden offers early or late visiting hours. Austin’s Lady ...
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 ...
Boots on the ground in Mike Kintgen’s Denver garden
October 30, 2024 Cactus-planted boots in Mike’s garden I met Mike Kintgen, curator of the alpine collections at Denver Botanic Gardens and a super nice guy, when he came to Austin a few years ago. Mike must have a LOT of energy because he manages not only the large Rock ...
Falling for SummerHome Garden, Part 2
October 21, 2024 In my last post I shared the genesis of SummerHome Garden, a privately owned garden and public park in Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood. I visited in late September and spent a couple of hours early one morning taking pictures. The garden was so beautiful that I couldn’t ...
