Playing around at Fortlandia at the Wildflower Center
November 20, 2024 Each fall, Fortlandia brings a new set of forts to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center for kids (and adults) to play on. This year the forts include a butterfly plane, a snake climbing structure, a human-sized ant farm, and a monster in a treasure chest. I ...
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 ...
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 ...
More faux bois at San Antonio River Walk and Witte Museum
June 14, 2024 I went on a faux bois safari in San Antonio in April, hunting down all the faux bois — locally known as trabajo rústico — that I could find in one day. And I found a LOT. Check out my faux bois post here. But there’s far ...
A tradition of faux bois, or trabajo rustico, in San Antonio
April 22, 2024 Faux bois palapa at Landa Library Last week I roadtripped to San Antonio to explore the city’s faux bois tradition, or trabajo rústico as it’s known locally. These functional works of art — mostly garden furniture but also planters, shade structures, bridges, and even bus stops — ...
Last chance to play at Fortlandia at Wildflower Center
January 28, 2024 Once a year, designers submit creative fort designs to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The winning forts become part of the garden’s annual Fortlandia event. For a few months, kids get to play on them — climbing, leaping, crawling, lounging, and chasing through them. I always ...
Gardens for adventure, art, and games at Paxson Hill Farm
November 22, 2023 Picking up my tour of Paxson Hill Farm — from the Philadelphia Area Fling in September — where I left off yesterday, let’s keep exploring! After emerging from the hobbit house hideaway, I followed the path uphill through another weeping-tree arch. The romance! Am I right? The ...
Children’s Adventure Garden at Dallas Arboretum
November 20, 2023 The Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden at Dallas Arboretum opened 10 years ago, but somehow I’d never visited until last month. Why? I guess because my kids had outgrown children’s gardens by the time it opened, and so it wasn’t on my radar despite many visits over ...
Jenny Rose Carey’s playful garden rooms at Northview, part 2
November 06, 2023 In my last post I showed you half of Jenny Rose Carey’s garden, Northview, which I toured during the Philadelphia Area Fling in September. Today I’ll show you the rest. Let’s start with her Fruits and Flowers Garden, where this Tin Man sculpture greeted me with open ...
Pumpkin season at the Dallas Arboretum
October 28, 2023 While in Dallas last week I visited the Dallas Arboretum to see their annual pumpkin extravaganza. The last time I’d seen it was pre-Covid. Autumn at the Arboretum I was surprised to find that Autumn at the Arboretum has been relocated from a shady grove near the ...
Italian Water Garden, trees, and treehouses at Longwood Gardens
October 02, 2023 One of my favorite picture books from my childhood is Marcia Brown’s Cinderella, which received a Caldecott Medal in 1955 for Brown’s enchanting illustrations. Jeweled ball gowns, romantic palace grounds, fairy godmother magic — it all came to sparkling life on the page. I haven’t paged through ...
Magical children’s garden and plant displays at Longwood’s conservatory
October 01, 2023 This is how happy you feel exploring Longwood Gardens on the first day of the Philadelphia Area Fling, an annual garden tour held in a different city each year for garden bloggers and Instagrammers and others publicly sharing about gardening online. Longwood’s conservatory manager, Karl Gercens, hosted ...
Exploring Fortlandia’s creative hideouts
December 21, 2022 Chrysaline fort Each fall through winter, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center entices kids and kids at heart to explore a handful of creative “forts” built by Austin landscape architects, architects, designers, and artists. It’s called Fortlandia, and I always go see it. This year, because the ...
Ann Munson’s woodland garden invites mystery and play
August 05, 2022 Woodland gardens aren’t show ponies of dazzling flower color. Their beauty shines through in subtler, shade-loving foliage plants, in dappled light glinting through leaves, in cool shadowed paths that gradually reveal tucked-away art and secret hideaways. Such is the garden of Ann Munson, which I toured on ...
Coleson Bruce’s crevice garden in spring flower
May 04, 2022 Two weeks ago Coleson Bruce invited me back to his garden to see it in spring flower. I’d first visited Coleson’s garden last fall — a garden unlike any other I’ve seen in Austin or even Texas. Colorado-style crevice gardens are unusual here, and Coleson’s is not ...
Wildflower Center abloom in early April
April 23, 2022 Claret cup cactus flowering at the top of the Wildflower Center tower I’m overdue for a visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center — and it’s only been two weeks since I was there! But a lot happens in April and May. What was blooming two ...
