Happy, colorful courtyards at The Lincoln Marfa
September 18, 2023 I stayed at The Lincoln, a boutique hotel of 14 “unique homes” at a century-old property, when I visited Marfa a couple weeks ago. A bright yellow door and orange cosmos flowers offered a cheerful welcome as I rolled my bag to Unit 7, passing a gigantic, ...
West Texas golden hour and sightseeing
September 16, 2023 I was back in West Texas a week ago to shoot gardens for my forthcoming book (due out spring 2025). Being up at sunrise and staying in gardens until after sunset meant I got to enjoy some beautiful skies every day. Lavender and mango sunsets were a ...
Summer pleasures: Barton Springs Pool and Lockhart art
September 07, 2023 I had reservations for a dip at Blue Hole swimming hole in Wimberley, Texas, just before Labor Day. But the drought has left little untouched in Texas this summer, and I soon received a cancellation notice. Blue Hole has closed for the rest of the season due ...
Native plants at Chihuahuan Desert Botanical Garden in West Texas
August 22, 2023 Cow’s tongue prickly pear and Mitre Peak While visiting far West Texas last month, a few people mentioned the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center and its botanical garden, located just outside of Fort Davis. So one morning my friend and I drove over from Marfa to check it ...
A good day in Badlands National Park
August 09, 2023 The Badlands. The Bruce Springsteen song pulses through my brain. We headed into Badlands National Park in southwestern South Dakota in early May during our RV road trip through the West. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the desolate beauty of the place appealed to me ...
Highway signs: Petroglyphs of Utah Hwy 279
July 28, 2023 On our national parks RV trip in May, we tried to decipher messages left long ago by native peoples along the Colorado River outside Moab, Utah. Today, Utah Highway 279 runs alongside these tablet-like sheer walls, with pull-outs where you can stop and look at the rock ...
Newspaper Rock petroglyphs: Mystery messages from the past
July 19, 2023 What’s black and white and red/read all over? Petroglyphs in the red-rock country of Utah! In early May, after leaving the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park, we stopped along Highway 211 to see Newspaper Rock, a state historic monument in southeastern Utah. A large, sloping rock ...
Desert in bloom at Red Hills Desert Garden, part 1
June 27, 2023 Utah. Red rock desert. Cactus and yuccas. When we set out in April in a rented RV to visit national parks out west, I expected hundred-mile vistas, arches, and canyons. What I didn’t expect was a flowery, beautifully designed garden of desert-appropriate plants. But thanks to a ...
Color-saturated homes on 2023 Tribeza Interiors Tour, Part 1
January 25, 2023 A pink front door and chromatic rug make a cheerful entry at Genie Norris’s house The quiet season for gardening makes the perfect season to focus on interiors — and to attend Austin’s annual Tribeza Interiors Tour. After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the tour resumed last Sunday, ...
Cynthia Deegan’s free-spirited, collected home and garden
November 01, 2022 The mossy green doors of Cynthia Deegan’s milagro-spangled garden gate opened to me again a week or so ago, when she generously invited me and Garden Spark speaker Teri Speight to come on over. What a treat to follow up our visit to Lucinda’s garden with Cynthia’s! ...
Day of the Dead in Lucinda’s colorful garden
October 27, 2022 Lucinda Hutson welcomed me and Teri Speight, my recent Garden Spark speaker, into her garden last week to see it decorated for Day of the Dead. This is a treat I look forward to all year. Lucinda’s garden and purple cottage always glow with color in October, ...
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 ...
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 ...
Green-roof prairie and fantasy gardens at Epic Systems, Part 2
July 30, 2022 The fanciful, theme-park landscaping and architectural design of Epic Systems‘ corporate campus made for a one-of-a-kind tour during the Madison Fling in June. While I’d read about Epic’s imaginative design, I had not heard about its ambitious efforts at sustainability. According to the company’s website: “Epic’s buildings ...
Constellations of clematis at Janet Aaberg Garden
July 17, 2022 Glorious clematis vines greeted us at nearly every garden we visited during the Madison Fling last month, but Janet Aaberg’s garden stepped it up a notch. Thirty-two different varieties of these starry-flowered vines grow in her garden, and every one appeared to be in full bloom. This ...
Spring in plant collector John Ignacio’s garden
May 13, 2022 Last October I had the pleasure of visiting John Ignacio’s northwest Austin garden, a treasure box of rare plants that John has collected (including on a plant-hunting expedition with the late John Fairey) and hybridized. I returned this April to see it at the beginning of the ...
