Nancy Heckler’s hydrangea-colorful woodland garden
August 15, 2024 The acclaimed gardens Heronswood and Windcliff were on the agenda for Day 3 of the Puget Sound Fling, and I was excited to see them. But first we split up onto smaller buses that could manage the narrow road to Windcliff, and my bus headed to Nancy ...
Camille Paulsen’s Tahoma-flora garden
August 11, 2024 One of my favorite gardens on the Fling tour last month was that of Camille and Dirk Paulsen. As one of the co-planners of the Puget Sound Fling, Camille not only devoted a year of volunteer effort to bring Flingers to her region, but she managed to ...
A plant playground at the Risdahl-Pittman Garden
August 08, 2024 Susan and Guy Risdahl-Pittman described their Milton, Washington, garden at the Puget Sound Fling last month as an eclectic plant playground. It’s also a beautifully designed space with winding paths to explore and a naturalistic pond to enjoy, complete with birch log lying across it. I started ...
A taste of Italy in a Puget Sound garden
August 07, 2024 The first two private gardens on Day 2 of the Puget Sound Fling last month were neighbors, each gardening intensively but in very different styles. It was fun to explore the two gardens side-by-side and imagine the owners bonding over a shared love of plants. Let’s start ...
Hopping around Froggsong Gardens
August 03, 2024 Lunch on the first day of the Puget Sound Fling was held on beautiful Vashon Island at Froggsong Gardens, a private home with a 5-acre estate garden that can be rented out as a wedding/event venue. Needless to say, they were well set up to host 100 ...
Love letter to Puget Sound Fling, starting with Halstead-Robinson Garden
July 28, 2024 Every year since 2008, I’ve been lucky enough to attend the annual Garden Fling, a gathering of bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, and other gardeners on social media, held in a different city each year, where for 3-1/2 days we tour gardens, socialize, get a flavor for a new ...
Indulge an orange crush with Mexican flame vine
June 28, 2024 Last year I planted Mexican flame vine (Senecio confusus) at the base of the deck and impatiently waited all summer for it to do anything. And then, oh my gosh, it exploded in fall with pumpkin-orange flowers that drew in bees and butterflies like bears to honey ...
Contemporary re-use in landscaping at San Antonio’s Pearl
June 18, 2024 The old Pearl Brewery in San Antonio is today a shopping/dining complex along the River Walk, with green, landscaped public plazas. It’s called Pearl. We made time to poke around at Pearl during an April visit to the Alamo City. (Here’s Part 1 of that visit.) Historic ...
A no-fuss, downsized garden that still brings joy
May 14, 2024 I adored Colleen Jamison’s former garden, with its inviting patios, winding paths, charming decor, and custom gates and arbors built by her husband, Bruce. I blogged about that garden 11 years ago, as well as the median of her street that Colleen transformed into a community park ...
Blue magic in Lori Daul’s garden
April 27, 2024 I returned to one of my favorite Austin gardens last weekend, the South Austin garden of designer Lori Daul. It’s an oasis with, by our count, ten water features including multiple stock-tank ponds, birdbaths, and ground-level saucers tucked into groundcovers. The color blue unites everything, adding to ...
Circling back to my garden
April 24, 2024 I’ve been running around visiting gardens in Austin and beyond this spring, but every day I stop and breathe deep in my own garden, taking in the green freshness of the season. The Circle Garden view from the deck makes me particularly happy right now. Its graphic ...
Flowers of middle spring in my Austin garden
April 14, 2024 After Texas mountain laurels and plums have dropped their fragrant blossoms, after bluebonnets and other early wildflowers have gone to messy seed, but before heat-loving salvias and skullcap and Turk’s cap get going, we enter what I call middle spring in Central Texas. It’s lush and flowery, ...
Spring in full swing in my garden
April 03, 2024 What a great time of year this is in a Central Texas garden. The days have been comfortable but not hot. The humidity is low. We’ve had a little rain but also plenty of sun. And the plants are racing with new growth and flowers. They’re feeling ...
Crossvine, plum, and spiderwort at peak bloom
March 10, 2024 What’s making me happiest in my garden right now? Let me show you! My favorite plant this week is ‘Tangerine Beauty’ crossvine. Look at those crinkled, open-throated, mango-hued blossoms, singing spring for all they’re worth. A single vine has crept along the coyote fence at the back ...
A garden with your coffee at Cosmic Saltillo
February 24, 2024 For a few years, I’ve been wanting to visit Cosmic, a coffee shop and beer garden in South Austin, mainly for its garden-like landscaping (featured on Central Texas Gardener). But I just haven’t made it down there yet. Then last year, I heard about a new Cosmic ...
Falling into ruin at Chanticleer Garden
January 13, 2024 Chanticleer’s Ruin Garden has a fairy tale quality. It’s not an actual ruin but was built in 1999 on the site of one of the original houses on the property. Plants creep up crumbling walls and emerge from cracked paving, ghostly faces appear in pools of water, ...
