Living on the edge in the Livingston Garden
September 11, 2024 I wish I knew how steep this garden is, and how many steps I climbed while exploring it. It’s a leg workout for sure. On the bonus day of the Puget Sound Fling in July, we visited Millie Livingston’s Seattle garden. At nearly 2 acres, the garden ...
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 ...
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 ...
Toad-henge sculpture is king of the hill in garden made for entertaining
August 05, 2024 Steep lots, rocks, lush plantings, and mountain views were a running theme at the Puget Sound Fling last month. The garden of Meagan Foley and Mac Gray fit right in thematically, but it also had us exclaiming wow as we walked around the house and spotted this ...
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 ...
From mill to Mill Fleurs, a garden of rare plants
November 09, 2023 I love a good play on words, and the garden of Barbara and Robert Tiffany employs two in its name. Mill Fleurs occupies the site where two old mills — from the 1700s! — perch along Tohickon Creek. Thirty years ago, the couple purchased the derelict structures, ...
Robert Bellamy’s upcycled Marfa garden
August 02, 2023 Last week I road-tripped 7 hours west to remote Marfa, a sleepy desert town in far West Texas that’s also, thanks to Donald Judd, an art mecca drawing visitors from all over the world. Quite a few Marfa lovers from Dallas, Houston, and Austin own second homes ...
Drive-By Gardens: Waterwise front yard on Castle Hill
July 11, 2023 Cruising through the Castle Hill area of Old West Austin recently, I spotted this beautiful 1910 home with a sky-blue door and modern landscaping. I hit the brakes for a closer look. The house sits atop a front yard terraced with Corten steel and board-formed concrete walls ...
Hotel Magdalena courtyard evokes Hill Country canyon
October 06, 2022 After an all-day meeting on South Congress recently, I strolled down Music Lane to Hotel Magdalena, a boutique hotel that opened in 2020. I’d been wanting to see the place since learning that Ten Eyck Landscape Architects did the landscaping and Lake|Flato Architects designed the hotel itself ...
Japanese-inspired garden of Linda Brazill and Mark Golbach, Part 2
July 08, 2022 In my last post I shared the Asian-style front garden of Linda Brazill and Mark Golbach, whose Madison, Wisconsin, garden of 28 years I toured on the recent Garden Bloggers Fling. (I first saw their garden back in 2010.) Today let me lead you on a tour ...
East meets Midwest in the garden of Linda Brazill and Mark Golbach, Part 1
July 06, 2022 Back in 2010, my husband traveled to Madison for the IRONMAN Wisconsin race (which he finished!), and I tagged along as cheerleader. Oh and also to see gardens. I was a big fan of the design-focused blog Each Little World by Linda Brazill and Mark Golbach and ...
Gravel garden at Chanticleer reminds me of Texas
February 21, 2022 Whether you love plants, exciting planting combos, design and gardening artistry, or overlooks and hideaways to sit and enjoy a beautiful garden, Chanticleer has it all. Located near Philadelphia, Chanticleer dubs itself “a pleasure garden,” and it’s been my favorite public garden since I first visited in ...
Autumn asters, garden rooms in Michael Gordon’s New Hampshire garden
November 29, 2021 Michael Gordon’s garden in early October is aster-licious Through phone interviews for magazine assignments, I’ve gotten to “know” many interesting gardeners around the country. One of these is Michael Gordon of Peterborough, New Hampshire, whose garden I wrote about for Country Gardens in 2019. An optometrist by ...
Betty Ford Alpine Gardens grows high in the Rockies
August 05, 2021 At 8,200 feet above sea level, Betty Ford Alpine Gardens in Vail, Colorado, claims bragging rights as the highest botanical garden in North America. It’s named, of course, in honor of the former first lady, who along with her husband, former President Gerald Ford, was a beloved ...
Drive-By Gardens: Lushly spiky gardens of Tarrytown
August 13, 2020 Forgetting about the closure of city parks in Austin due to Covid-19, my daughter and I tried to visit Mayfield Park in west Austin a couple of weeks ago. Finding the gates locked, we decided to make the best of it and drove around tony Tarrytown neighborhood ...
Hilltop getaway at Two Coves Garden: Austin Open Day tour
November 21, 2019 The last garden I visited on the Open Day tour sponsored by The Garden Conservancy was designed by B. Jane Gardens, and which B. has continued to maintain for the last three owners. Located off City Park Road, the Two Coves Drive Garden perches atop a hill ...
