What makes garden art effective?
February 25, 2020 Portals at Bella Madrona, Portland, Oregon If you like garden art but aren’t sure how to use it to greatest effect, you’ll want to attend my next Garden Spark talk. On Thursday, April 9th, Pat Webster, an artist and garden writer at Site & Insight, will present ...
Announcing 2020 Garden Spark speaker lineup
December 11, 2019 Season 4 of Garden Spark kicks off in January and brings 3 exciting speakers to design enthusiasts and keen gardeners in the Austin area. Local readers, will you be attending one of the talks this year? I hope so! Talks are held on Thursday evenings in Northwest ...
Thomas Rainer comes to Austin for Garden Spark
September 23, 2019 Thomas Rainer, a Washington, D.C.-based landscape architect and author of Planting in a Post-Wild World, came to Austin last week to give a terrific presentation for Garden Spark, the design-based speaker series I started 3 years ago. Sixty attendees — home gardeners, designers, horticulturists, landscape architects, and ...
Thomas Rainer to speak in Austin – tickets available
August 12, 2019 Photo by Rob Cardillo Garden design aficionados, take note! My second Garden Spark speaker of 2019 will be Thomas Rainer on Thursday, September 19, presenting “Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for More Resilient Landscapes.” Thomas is an internationally known speaker on ecological landscape design, and I’m thrilled ...
The Texas Wildflower interviews me about Garden Spark design talks
April 04, 2019 Are you into garden design or keen on learning more about it from the experts? Me too! That’s why I started the garden design speaker series Garden Spark. The April issue of e-magazine The Texas Wildflower shines a spotlight on the series and how it got started, ...
Announcing 2019 Garden Spark speaker lineup
January 01, 2019 Season 3 of Garden Spark kicks off in 2019 with 3 terrific speakers and a change of location, due to high demand, that will allow more people to attend! The new location is an event space in northwest Austin at Hwy 183 and MoPac, just minutes from ...
Garden Spark 2018 season concludes; 2019 season TBA soon!
October 22, 2018 Hey, garden friends! My 2018 season of Garden Spark talks concluded last Thursday with a terrific talk by designer/author Susan Morrison about small-garden design. Thanks to everyone who braved waterlogged Austin’s wet streets to attend! After Susan’s talk and booksigning (her latest book is The Less Is ...
2019 Garden Spark Schedule
October 03, 2018 Season 3 of Garden Spark kicks off in 2019 with 3 terrific speakers and a change of location, due to high demand, that will allow more people to attend! The new location is an event space in northwest Austin at Hwy 183 and MoPac, just minutes from ...
Garden Spark talk with Tom Spencer on Feb. 8 is sold out
January 12, 2018 People in the Austin area are hungry for garden design talks! I’m glad, because I’ve been hungry for such talks too. In fact, that’s why I launched Garden Spark last year. Last week I blogged here about the 2018 series and an upcoming Garden Spark talk with ...
Announcing 2018 Garden Spark speaker lineup
January 07, 2018 I’m delighted to announce an exciting speaker lineup for this year’s Garden Spark, a series of garden talks by top-notch design speakers hosted at my home. February 8: Tom Spencer presents “The Tao of Texas Gardening: Finding Balance in a Changing Climate” Description: Gardening in Texas is ...
Garden Spark talk with Karen Chapman is an early sell-out
July 17, 2017 When I launched the Garden Spark talk series six months ago, I was sure there was an unmet need in Austin for people who wanted to hear top-notch designers and authors speak about garden design. So far I’ve brought in landscape architect James deGrey David and designer/author ...
Garden Dialogues with John Fairey at Peckerwood
May 08, 2017 Heading east through pine country toward Hempstead, Texas, I arrived after a couple of hours on the road at Peckerwood Garden last Saturday. The draw, aside from a chance to see this beautiful 45-year-old garden again, was to hear its creator, John Fairey, talk about it in ...
Next Garden Spark talk is my own, includes book and garden tour
April 01, 2017 After hosting two other speakers this spring (Scott Ogden and James David), I’ve decided to offer a talk of my own for my fledgling Garden Spark series. On May 18, I’ll present “Water-Saving Gardens That Wow,” which will also include a signed copy of The Water-Saving Garden ...
Spring stroll at the Wildflower Center
February 27, 2017 After speaking at the Native Plant Society of Texas Spring Symposium, held at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center last Saturday (and a big thank-you to the organizers and wonderful audience members!), I strolled the gardens with my dad, who was visiting from North Carolina. The early ...
Garden Spark design talk with James deGrey David, and you’re invited!
February 08, 2017 Update 2/8/17: ***THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT. If you’d like to hear about future Garden Spark talks, please get on the mailing list. Send me an email and let me know you’d like to be added to the email list.*** Garden of James deGrey David and ...
Come hear my talk at the Wildflower Center on 2/25
January 10, 2017 On Saturday, February 25, I’ll be speaking at the day-long Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT) Spring Symposium at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. My talk is called Local Heroes: Designing with Native Plants for Water-Saving Gardens, and it’s about creating water-wise home ...
