A limestone entry walk with agaves and yucca
January 28, 2025 A front garden with a limestone entry walk and terracing caught my eye in Austin’s Tarrytown neighborhood last weekend. Whale’s tongue agaves, both in-ground and potted, and a shaggy-trunked beaked yucca say hello as you arrive, drawing you toward the steps and inner garden of sedge, giant ...
Fall at Denver Botanic Gardens: Perennial Walk and Romantic Gardens
January 12, 2025 With orange spines on its leaves and bright purple flowers, porcupine tomato (Solanum pyracanthos) looks like it’s from another planet. I spotted this one at Denver Botanic Gardens. This is Part 7 and my final post from my visit last September. Japanese anemone Crossroads Garden Let’s start ...
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 ...
Lori’s blue fantasia garden
January 04, 2025 I popped over to my friend Lori Daul‘s house on Thursday, craving one more garden visit before the Arctic barrels down to Austin and brings our long growing season to an end. At Lori’s, fountains still trickle, ponds reflect sky, and plants sprawl luxuriantly. The garden echoes ...
Beyond the fairway, and finding Harvey Penick, at Austin Country Club
November 26, 2024 Gardening connections can get you into places you might not otherwise see. Austin Country Club, a private golf club on Lake Austin, being a case in point. I don’t run in country club circles. But I enjoy meeting enthusiastic plant people eager to share what they’re working ...
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 ...
After the corn maze at Chatfield Farms
October 26, 2024 A cornfield maze tempted us, right after arriving in Colorado, to trek out to Chatfield Farms, a native plant refuge and working farm that’s part of Denver Botanic Gardens. It was the end of September, and fall was in the air. After the corn maze (fun for ...
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 ...
Gillian Mathews’ garden for outdoor lounging and dining
September 18, 2024 I’ve wanted to visit the Seattle garden of Gillian Mathews, former owner of Ravenna Gardens, since reading about it at Danger Garden and in the Seattle Times. Designed by Richard Hartlage of Land Morphology (whose personal garden I recently visited), its modern style, lush plantings, and original ...
Early taste of fall so I’m back in the garden
September 10, 2024 The weather gods gave Austin a month-early taste of fall over the past few days. Summer returns this week, but wow, what a delight it’s been to step outside in the morning to temps in the low 60s with low humidity! All day yesterday I tidied up ...
Playfulness and planters in the garden of Richard Hartlage
September 06, 2024 One garden I was eager to see during the Puget Sound Fling (on the bonus day in Seattle) was that of Richard Hartlage, head of design firm Land Morphology. I interviewed Richard years ago for an article in Garden Design and follow his work. To my delight, ...
Hanging on in the late summer garden
August 28, 2024 August can’t end soon enough for my crispy Texas garden and my own crispy self. But we had a little reprieve in the form of a cloudburst that dropped a quarter inch of rain a couple days ago. Temps have dropped below 100 F too. What is ...
