Come hear a talk on making an urban wildlife oasis by Lisa Negri
March 20, 2025 Central Texas gardeners, join me (tickets on sale now) on Thursday, April 10th at 7:30 pm for a Garden Spark talk by Lisa Negri, the visionary owner of SummerHome Garden in Denver. I visited SummerHome last fall and was bowled over by its waterwise, native-plant beauty and by the concept ...
Fall at Denver Botanic Gardens: Entry and Water-Smart Garden
January 06, 2025 As much of the country, including Texas, tucks into flannels and wool socks to stay warm this week, let’s float back in time to the golden days of a Colorado autumn. In late September last year, I made two visits to Denver Botanic Gardens, one of my ...
A collector’s garden of rare palms and cactus
November 21, 2024 Amber and Jason Schoneman, owners of garden design biz Dwarf Palmetto Design, nurture a fascination with palms, cactus, and other low-water plants. Avid collectors, they know the provenance of every plant in their garden. They also propagate plants for their private plant sales. In short, they are ...
Cold-hardy cactus and more at plantsman Kelly Grummons’s garden
November 12, 2024 While in Denver this fall, I found Colorado gardeners to be warm and generous about sharing their creations and eager to make introductions to other gardeners they admire. That’s how I came to meet plantsman Kelly Grummons, co-owner of specialty nursery Prairie Storm Nursery. How, exactly? After ...
Heidi Harris’s Denver dry garden, inspired by David Salman, outshines any lawn
November 07, 2024 I love a good chain of inspiration, seeing how one gardener’s efforts can fire up the imagination and determination of another, and so on and so on. Heidi Harris, aka Denver Dry Garden, is a great example. She bought her home in Denver’s Regis/Berkeley neighborhood in 2018, ...
Boots on the ground in Mike Kintgen’s Denver garden
October 30, 2024 Cactus-planted boots in Mike’s garden I met Mike Kintgen, curator of the alpine collections at Denver Botanic Gardens and a super nice guy, when he came to Austin a few years ago. Mike must have a LOT of energy because he manages not only the large Rock ...
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 ...
Drive-By Gardens: Contemporary, lawn-gone front yard
June 12, 2024 I walked by this home in my northwest Austin ‘hood the other day and — bam! — the landscaping stopped me in my tracks. A silver-green planting of whale’s tongue agave, woolly stemodia, and grassy Lindheimer nolina (I think) makes a textural, deer-resistant welcome to this 1970s ...
Michael’s Plano Prairie Garden in spring
June 03, 2024 I’ve visited Michael McDowell’s garden — aka the Plano Prairie Garden — several times over the past decade (see here and here; it’ll also be featured in my forthcoming book). My visits have always been in the fall, when purple spires of gayfeather turn Michael’s prairie garden ...
Prairie wildflower oasis at Native Texas Park in Dallas
May 30, 2024 On a mid-May trip up to Dallas, I swung by the Laura W. Bush Native Texas Park just before sunset to see the big wildflower show I’d been hearing about this spring. I was not disappointed. Red-and-yellow firewheel, purple horsemint, rusty Mexican hat, and lilac American basketflower ...
Wildflowers, edibles, and hibiscus-munching tortoise at Teresa Garcia’s garden
May 17, 2024 A colorful patch of native Texas wildflowers greeted me in Teresa Garcia’s garden on the Inside Austin Gardens Tour last weekend. Ka-pow! Like Katie Bird Farm in my last post, Teresa’s garden is large (one acre) with extensive gardens, and located in southwest Austin. Let’s start our ...
Dry Climate Gardening book wins award!
March 13, 2024 Congrats to my friend Noelle Johnson, a horticulturist and landscape consultant in Phoenix, whose book Dry Climate Gardening has been named winner of a 2024 American Horticultural Society Award! Photo by Noelle Johnson from Dry Climate Gardening I reviewed Dry Climate Gardening last year and know what a ...
Rocking a dry garden at Chanticleer’s Gravel Garden
January 09, 2024 Every time I visit Chanticleer’s Gravel Garden, I get a familiar feeling. Many plants we grow in Central Texas appear in this Pennsylvania dry garden, and it’s fun to see them in a new context. Although the garden bristles with yuccas, agaves, and cactus and sways with ...
Orchids, silver garden, and living walls at Longwood Gardens conservatory
September 30, 2023 Feathery Acacia leprosa climbing the walls The first time I experienced the over-the-top plant showmanship that is Longwood Gardens was in 2016. I returned last week during the Philadelphia Area Fling, a 3.5-day garden tour hosted by Longwood’s conservatory manager, Karl Gercens. In honor of Karl, I ...
