Perot Museum of Nature and Science plaza, frogs, and rooftop garden
October 06, 2014 Over the weekend we traveled to Dallas to visit our son at college and do a little sightseeing in Big D. We’d stared curiously at this Borg-like building from the highway through downtown Dallas on several previous visits, and this time we finally had a chance to ...
A fanciful journey through art-filled Bedrock Gardens, part 1
September 19, 2014 Acres of poison ivy and scrub brush had overrun the old dairy farm in Lee, New Hampshire, when Jill Nooney and her husband, Bob Munger, purchased it in 1980. Undaunted, the couple began a decades-long process of clearing weeds and making planting beds, eventually creating a 20-acre ...
Native plant gardens rev up Austin City Hall
November 21, 2013 Overlooking Lady Bird Lake and backing up to the tall codominiums of downtown, Austin City Hall delights me every time I drive by. With an angular, contemporary exterior clad in copper and limestone and a front facade that steps down toward the lake, the building has a ...
Gorgeous gravel garden outshines former lawn in Lakewood garden
October 29, 2013 Whenever landscape architect Curt Arnette of Sitio Design invites me to see one of his gardens, I say, “I’ll be right there!” Last Saturday we toured a 1-year-old garden in the Lakewood neighborhood of West Austin that he designed and that his cousin John Gibson (of Gibson ...
Visit to Lotusland, part 4: Rear terrace, parterre & lemon arbor
June 08, 2013 Around back of the main house at Santa Barbara’s Lotusland, you find a Spanish-style courtyard with curlicue wrought-iron gates, pink stuccoed walls, and verdigris cafe seating. A Moorish tiled fountain and rill, on axis with the gate, make a cooling focal point. The tile work makes me ...
Spring color and edibles at San Antonio Botanical Garden
March 18, 2013 Two weekends ago my family and I kicked off spring break with a fun day trip to San Antonio and a visit to San Antonio Botanical Garden. We were greeted with a crayon box of annual color in these containers just inside the entry. Geraniums, nasturtiums, pansies, ...
Southwestern plants, French style & tropical verve in the garden of Curt Arnette
June 12, 2012 Landscape architect Curt Arnette, of Sitio Design, is one of the best and yet most modest garden makers you’ll meet in Austin. Back when I was a newbie gardener, breaking ground at our first house in Austin, he and his wife Melisa were our across-the-street neighbors. What ...
Austin Open Days Tour 2010: David-Peese garden
October 22, 2010 Like a contemporary fairy-tale cottage, the home of James David and Gary Peese is glimpsed through the embrace of the surrounding garden: a fascinating, wow-inducing, richly planted—and richly hardscaped—yet intimate and surprisingly unpretentious garden. This was my final stop on last Saturday’s Open Days garden tour. James ...
Digging photo in Fresh Home magazine
June 19, 2010 If you happen to pick up the Summer 2010 issue of Fresh Home magazine, and if you happen to turn to page 79 as you read the article “The Magic of Motion”… …you’ll see one of my photographs, an image of a rill and pool from Chanticleer ...
Three more gardens from Open Days Austin
October 13, 2008 When Annie and I visited the gardens on the Open Days Austin tour two weekends ago, I was bowled over by Stone Palms and Fatal Flower, where the hand of the owners was plainly visible in the creativity of design and plant choices. Two more gardens on ...
A visit to Chanticleer: Hydrangeas & House Garden
July 21, 2008 I’m sure something shines brightly every month that Chanticleer is open (April through October). But I felt fortunate to see the hydrangeas in full bloom since I rarely see one in Austin. I can never decide whether I prefer the pink or the blue. The lacecaps are ...
Tour of Penelope Hobhouse-designed garden on Harris Boulevard
October 25, 2006 A belvedere “modeled after the music pavilion at Versailles,” according to the Open Days Directory. We garden tourists knew this would be the most opulent garden on the Open Days Austin tour. A feature in the newspaper that tantalized with lavish photos, and mentioned that the garden ...
Tour of David-Peese garden
October 23, 2006 Entry garden. A gravel path flows around this sunny, graveled berm. It literally stopped me in my tracks as I gazed at the intriguing plant combinations. “Does this make me look fat?” I heard Gary Peese ask someone, fussing with his shirt as the Open Days tour ...
