Lucinda Hutson’s colorful Day of the Dead garden
October 25, 2021 Austin author Lucinda Hutson‘s garden blazes with color every day of the year. But come October, for Day of the Dead, she kicks it up a big notch. Yellow and orange marigolds glow from every pot, mingling with hibiscus, coral vine, and roses in sherbet hues, all ...
Remembering Dred Scott on Juneteenth at Gateway Arch in St. Louis
June 19, 2021 Today is Juneteenth, our newest national holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery. Short for June 19th, Juneteenth has long been celebrated by African American communities in Texas. On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Texas were finally told, two months after the Civil War had ended, ...
Wrapping up socially distant 2020 with drive-through Trail of Lights
January 01, 2021 What is Austin’s 56th annual Trail of Lights without the people? Without the experience of walking among brilliantly illuminated trees with throngs of other Austinites, some boosting little kids up on their shoulders, some wearing Santa hats, some stopping to take selfies, all chattering and laughing? Let’s ...
Dazzling holiday lights in Johnson City and Austin
December 24, 2019 For dazzle and shine and small-town Christmas spirit, there’s no better place than Johnson City, Texas, about an hour west of Austin, and the headquarters of Pedernales Electric Co-op, where a grove of live oak trees is annually transformed into a nebula of twinkle lights. It’s a ...
Day of the Dead at Lucinda Hutson’s casita and garden
November 04, 2019 In early November each year, Austin writer Lucinda Hutson celebrates Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday for remembering and honoring deceased loved ones. Decorating her Rosedale home — her purple casita, as she calls it — and Mexican-style garden with colorful flowers, food, tequila bottles, skeleton ...
Celebrating life at Dia de los Muertos parade
November 01, 2019 For more than a decade I’ve attended Austin’s annual Day of the Dead parade, Viva la Vida, which this year took place on October 26. For newcomers, Day of the Dead is easily confused with Halloween because of all the skull imagery and skeleton face paint. But ...
Happy Halloween!
October 31, 2019 Succulent skeleton at Vivero Growers It’s Halloween, and I hope you have a fun-filled… Halloween display at a neighbor’s house …or rockin’… Spooky clowns at Leaf Landscape Supply (north location) …or downright scary night, as your heart desires. B00! __________________________ Digging Deeper Come learn about gardening and ...
Peanuts gang at Dallas Arboretum pumpkin patch
October 22, 2019 Oh, good grief! It’s the Great Pumpkin, and Dallas Arboretum has invited us all to join Linus, Charlie Brown, and the Peanuts gang in the most sincere pumpkin patch to be found. Well, at least the most crowded. We visited during the Texas-OU weekend, not for the ...
Joy to the Weird: Austin’s 37th and 35th Street Christmas lights
December 25, 2018 Merry Christmas, Joy to the Weird, and festive holiday greetings to you from Austin! Last night, on Christmas Eve, my family and I joined curious throngs of people walking and cruising along W. 37th Street, with a jog down Home Lane and over to W. 35th Street, ...
Moonstruck and aglow at Wildflower Center’s Luminations
December 10, 2018 Under a fingernail sliver of moon, we strolled quiet garden paths illuminated with hundreds of glowing luminarias, ultraviolet uplighting on trees, and the occasional white moon light at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center last night. The annual holiday event runs for four nights, but following two ...
Deer, egrets, and aloes and a happy Thanksgiving to you
November 22, 2018 The buck stops here. And here and here and, well, everywhere in my neighborhood in autumn. On our daily stroll, the dog and I walk a gauntlet of edgy male deer standing vigil near groups of does. It’s rutting season, and bucks like this one are not ...
Dia de los Muertos in Lucinda Hutson’s festive home and garden
November 05, 2018 As a native of border city El Paso and a veteran traveler throughout Mexico, Lucinda Hutson has long embraced Mexican culture and traditions like Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. She recently hosted a small gathering in honor of the holiday, which is a ...
Eerie and occult Wilde Collection in Houston
October 31, 2018 On this spookiest of days, when ghosts and evil spirits walk among the living, it seems appropriate to share with you an eerie shop that my daughter and I stumbled upon in Houston — The Wilde Collection. Occult, odd, and mysterious items, artfully arranged on shelves and ...
Second star to the right and straight on to the pumpkin patch at Dallas Arboretum
October 02, 2018 Join Wendy, the Lost Boys, and Tinkerbell in Neverland this fall at Dallas Arboretum’s magical Pumpkin Village. This year’s theme is “The Adventures in Neverland,” and it marks the 13th year of the garden’s creative display of thousands of colorful pumpkins, gourds, and squash. I sprinkled myself ...
Bloggers soaked up Austin at Garden Bloggers Fling
May 11, 2018 For 11 years I’ve traveled to cities around North America to attend Garden Bloggers Fling, and I’ve helped organize two Flings held in Austin — in and again last weekend. Normally I take hundreds of pictures of the gardens I visit. (Go to Categories in my sidebar ...
The twinkliest town in the Hill Country
December 22, 2017 If you want to see trees made of light and a charmingly illuminated main square, go visit Johnson City, a small town of 2,000 residents, located about an hour west of Austin. Every December they turn their town into a beautiful spectacle of light — called Lights ...
