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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
A curbside garden for pollinators and all-year interest
April 06, 2024 Yellow sulphur butterflies flitted among zexmenia (Wedelia hispida) flowers last evening in this curbside garden in Austin’s Tarrytown neighborhood. Yellow on yellow! Honeybees joined the pollinator party too. Behind all the activity, an architectural whale’s tongue agave (Agave ovatifolia) made a powder-blue backdrop. What a beauty of ...
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 ...
Pruned-up prickly pear is living sculpture
October 21, 2023 I spotted this pruned-up prickly pear at a friend’s place, framed by Texas sotols, with a bench in front to sit and enjoy it. Simple pleasures! __________________________ Digging Deeper Tour several Austin gardens on Saturday, November 4, on the Garden Conservancy’s Open Day tour for Travis County ...
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 ...
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 ...
Hot summer survivors and new book news
August 21, 2023 This summer, y’all. Am I right, my fellow Texas gardeners? But even with two months of surface-of-the-sun temps and zero rain, at least a few plants are happy. Like this pink-flowering mammillaria cactus that burst into silken bloom a few days after I gave it a deep ...
Michael Eason’s desert garden retreat
August 14, 2023 While in West Texas a couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting designer and author Michael Eason‘s garden in Alpine. Michael had lined up some wonderful gardens for me to visit there, ones that he’d designed, but it was nice to see his own personal ...
A healing garden in West Texas
August 08, 2023 A week ago I had the pleasure of visiting a lovely garden in Alpine, located in far West Texas, 400 miles west of Austin. Owner Susan Wallens showed me around and told me how the garden came to be. Susan’s husband, Mike, is the vicar of St ...
Marfa’s masses of sotols at John Chamberlain Building
August 06, 2023 I spotted a sotol convention while I was in Marfa in far West Texas last week. The spherical, toothy plants — I think these are Texas sotol (Dasylirion texanum) — are growing in a long grid in front of the Chinati Foundation’s John Chamberlain Building on the ...
Marfa love affair
August 05, 2023 Last week I made my first real visit to Marfa, the tiny (population 1,750) and improbable art mecca in far West Texas. I’d passed through Marfa once before, at the tail end of a spring break trip to drought-bleached Big Bend with small children, and I confess ...
Surviving the record-breaking heat
July 20, 2023 Heat waves are everywhere all at once right now, and Austin too is broiling in the hottest July on record, according to KXAN. That’s saying something because last summer was incredibly hot. I felt sure, after enduring Snowpocalypse, last summer’s oven-like temps, and then February’s Arbormageddon ice ...
