After the corn maze at Chatfield Farms
October 26, 2024 A cornfield maze tempted us, right after arriving in Colorado, to trek out to Chatfield Farms, a native plant refuge and working farm that’s part of Denver Botanic Gardens. It was the end of September, and fall was in the air. After the corn maze (fun for ...
Falling for SummerHome Garden, Part 2
October 21, 2024 In my last post I shared the genesis of SummerHome Garden, a privately owned garden and public park in Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood. I visited in late September and spent a couple of hours early one morning taking pictures. The garden was so beautiful that I couldn’t ...
Fall at SummerHome Garden, Part 1
October 19, 2024 When I told gardening friends I’d be in Denver in late September, many urged me to visit SummerHome Garden. It was already on my list. SummerHome has had glowing media attention since its creation in 2020, and I’d read about it in Visionary and Shrouded in Light ...
Julie Clark and Mae Sanchez’s desert-inspired garden
October 15, 2024 I wasn’t in town for the Leaf Landscape Tour on October 5th, and one garden I was sad to miss belongs to two talented gardeners and knowledgeable plantswomen, Julie Clark and Mae Sanchez. Julie is the owner of Stronger Than Dirt Gardens, a fine garden maintenance company ...
A peek at Lauren Springer’s undaunted garden
October 09, 2024 I got the jump on fall by spending two weeks in Denver in late September/early October. And an excellent decision it was, too, with aspens yellow as butter in the mountains and gardens sparkling with flowering grasses. Case in point: plantswoman Lauren Springer’s personal garden on the ...
Through the looking glass at Chihuly Garden and Glass
October 03, 2024 When I flew up to Seattle in July for the Puget Sound Fling, I spent one morning at Chihuly Garden and Glass, a celebratory display of the glass art and sculpture of Dale Chihuly. A native son of Tacoma, Washington, Chihuly is the most famous glass artist ...
Gillian Mathews’ garden for outdoor lounging and dining
September 18, 2024 I’ve wanted to visit the Seattle garden of Gillian Mathews, former owner of Ravenna Gardens, since reading about it at Danger Garden and in the Seattle Times. Designed by Richard Hartlage of Land Morphology (whose personal garden I recently visited), its modern style, lush plantings, and original ...
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 ...
The elegant Pepper Garden with a water view
September 07, 2024 By lunchtime, we’d already visited four gardens on the bonus Seattle day of the Puget Sound Fling. Three more to go! Our next stop was an elegant home right on Lake Washington, with welcoming owners Vangie and Daniel Pepper. Let’s start in the back garden and work ...
Playfulness and planters in the garden of Richard Hartlage
September 06, 2024 One garden I was eager to see during the Puget Sound Fling (on the bonus day in Seattle) was that of Richard Hartlage, head of design firm Land Morphology. I interviewed Richard years ago for an article in Garden Design and follow his work. To my delight, ...
Floating on an evergreen cloud in the garden of Tanya Bednarski
September 04, 2024 When two neighbors go all-in on their gardens, it makes for great street energy. Such is the case with two of the gardens on the Puget Sound Fling‘s bonus day in Seattle. Last time I showed you Bonnie Berk’s terraced hillside garden. Today let’s explore 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 ...
More exuberance at the Sparler-Schouten Garden, part 2
September 01, 2024 There was too much garden goodness and exuberance to contain in one post about Daniel Sparler and Jeff Schouten’s Garden of Exuberant Refuge, which I visited on the Puget Sound Fling. Here’s Part 1, if you missed it. Today, Part 2 starts on the back patio of ...
Exploring the Garden of Exuberant Refuge, part 1
August 30, 2024 If there was one garden that really spoke to my own sensibilities at the Puget Sound Fling last month, it was the Garden of Exuberant Refuge, the happy creation of Daniel Sparler and Jeff Schouten in Seattle. Colorful, quirky, irreverent, playful, and rewarding to the observant visitor, ...
Exploring Dan Hinkley’s Windcliff, part 2
August 27, 2024 Agapanthus and grasses When you’ve read about a garden and then visit in person for the first time, it can feel both strangely familiar and a little disorienting. As you walk around, you recognize certain features — plants, art, viewpoints — but you also don’t really know ...
Winding my way through Windcliff, part 1
August 25, 2024 Seeing Windcliff, the private garden of plantsman Dan Hinkley and architect Robert Jones, was a huge draw on the Puget Sound Fling tour. I read and reviewed Dan’s book Windcliff a couple years ago and hoped I might be able to visit the garden one day. And ...
