Hellstrip

July 09, 2014 I don’t know what people called the strip of grass between street and sidewalk before Lauren Springer Ogden coined the term “hellstrip” to describe it. But it can surely be hellish to maintain, drying to a crisp in hot climates, contaminated with road salt in northern climates, ...

June 27, 2014 Driving through the north-central Austin neighborhoods of Allandale, Brentwood, and Crestview yesterday, I noticed a number of face-lifted ranches and bungalows, freshened up with paint and/or reasonably sized additions and eye-catching, lawn-reducing landscaping. Let’s start this Drive-By with a charming, painted-brick ranch with a lime-green screen and ...

October 06, 2013 Driving through southwest Austin’s Travis Country neighborhood last week, on a tip from a regular reader (thanks, Charlene!), I spotted this terraced, lawn-gone garden. The front yard slants like a ski slope right down to the front porch, and I imagine the owners struggled with drainage issues ...

April 09, 2012 After last summer’s heat and drought, many local readers, I suspect, are ripping out burned-up lawn along the street and replacing it with drought-tolerant plants and hardscaping. That’s what I did a year ago with my own curbside lawn, putting in a decomposed-granite parking strip edged with ...

March 02, 2012 Care to take a garden stroll with me? Spring has sprung in Austin. The earliest sign, the Texas mountain laurels, are already past peak. But in my garden the mountain laurels aren’t big enough to really flower, and the early show is at knee level. Case in ...

January 27, 2012 I’ve got it bad. This new garden bed—which isn’t even mine but my neighbor’s—is calling my name. Today was beautiful, sunny, and 70 degrees, and I did make one run to the nursery, but I didn’t plant a thing. My book manuscript is due in 5 days, ...

October 21, 2011 Sometimes you just luck into a great garden visit. Last weekend my family and I drove up to Dallas for the state fair, staying overnight at my father-in-law’s house in Richardson, a northern suburb. The day we left Austin I realized that we would be staying very ...

September 21, 2011 Now that the promise of fall is in the air (yeah, it’s only going to be 96 F today in Austin), you might be thinking about that dead strip of lawn along the street and what to do about it. How about ripping out your “hell strip” ...

July 14, 2010 Exuberantly planted front-yard gardens, colorful window boxes, lush container plantings, shady nooks, garden art, and Crayola-hued houses make the Cottage District in Buffalo, New York, a delight to explore. It’s one of the most popular neighborhoods to tour during Garden Walk, which begins in two weeks. Lucky ...

December 08, 2007 I spotted this beautiful curbside garden at a house near St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and had to stop to admire it. While my own garden is cottage style, with a combination of drought-tolerant natives and tough cottage favorites, I find myself drawn more and more to this ...

September 19, 2006 Damianita foliage coming back after drought Why am I showing you a brown, twiggy, half-dead looking plant? Because I’m thrilled to see sprigs of greenery sprouting from those dead-looking twigs. Interplanted with Mexican feathergrass, damianita lines the hell-strip of my yard along the curb. It’s a tough, ...

June 09, 2006 Whale’s Tongue agave Since August arrived early, I’ve been griping about the heat—like it doesn’t do this every year. There have been maybe two relatively cool, rainy summers since I moved to Austin 12 years ago, but let’s face it: this is not a hospitable climate from ...