Spring swinging into the Wildflower Center
March 27, 2025 Two weekends in a row I spent a few hours at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, first to see what was in bloom and then to support the launch of horticulture director Andrea DeLong-Amaya’s new book, The Texas Native Plant Primer. Redbuds were in bloom two ...
Announcing…Gardens of Texas, my new book!
March 19, 2025 Drum roll, please. My new book has a title and a beautiful cover! Gardens of Texas: Visions of Resilience from the Lone Star State will be available on October 14th, just in time for the fall gardening season and holiday shopping! I am so excited to share ...
Read This: Bedrock, plus BOOK GIVEAWAY
February 20, 2025 Late one summer’s day in 2014, I fell into a dreamworld known as Bedrock Gardens. Set loose (with permission from the owners) to explore the 20-acre rural garden in Lee, New Hampshire, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. The garden was pure magic, by turns serene, whimsical, ...
Read This: A Natural History of Empty Lots
December 17, 2024 As a child growing up in small-town South Carolina, in an era before smartphones or computers, I spent long summer days and weekends exploring outdoors. My parents had bought a modest house in a new neighborhood still under construction — a wonderland for children free to occupy ...
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 ...
Fall garden stroll at the Wildflower Center
November 18, 2024 Being able to visit a garden at the golden hour — just after sunrise or before sunset, when the light is soft and warm — is a garden photographer’s fervent wish. So I am grateful when a botanical garden offers early or late visiting hours. Austin’s Lady ...
Jennifer Jewell’s Garden Spark talk sows seeds of garden inspiration
October 25, 2024 What an evening for the gardening community last night in Austin! I was so pleased to host Jennifer Jewell, the creator, writer, and host of acclaimed podcast Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden, as the kickoff speaker for Season 8 of ...
A little shopping at Ravenna Gardens in Seattle
September 13, 2024 I can’t buy the plants at Ravenna Gardens in Seattle — I mean, why torture them by bringing them home to Texas? — but I still love shopping there because of how beautifully they display plants, pots, and garden/home decor. I first visited during the Seattle Fling ...
Read This: Visionary: Gardens and Landscapes for Our Future
June 23, 2024 In 2019 I reviewed Australian photographer Claire Takacs‘s beautiful and engaging book Dreamscapes. I raved about it but felt compelled to add this critique: “My one complaint about the book is my usual one: coverage of U.S. gardens is limited exclusively to coastal states: the Pacific Northwest ...
Read This: Bird-Friendly Gardening
May 09, 2024 Part of the enjoyment of having a garden is watching the birds drawn to it. We put out birdfeeders, birdhouses, birdbaths, fountains, and ponds to bring them in. But what really attracts birds is plants — and I’m not talking about turf grass. Trees, shrubs, grasses, and ...
Read This: Garden Wonderland, plus BOOK GIVEAWAY
April 25, 2024 Update 5/1: This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to winner Michelle Derviss! We were both brand-new authors at Ten Speed Press when I met Leslie Bennett during the 2013 Fling tour, a connection that immediately felt like a sisterly bond. Leslie was highly regarded as a designer, ...
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 ...
Read This: Du Pont Gardens of the Brandywine Valley
February 29, 2024 At the Philadelphia Area Fling last September (click here for my posts about it), attendees were given a copy of new book Du Pont Gardens of the Brandywine Valley. The good folks at Longwood Gardens handed the books out as we boarded the buses after a lovely ...
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, ...
Birds and native thorn forest at Quinta Mazatlan
December 19, 2023 In early November, I drove 5 hours south to the Rio Grande Valley, land of citrus orchards and skinny-trunked palm trees. I was there for the final photo shoot for my upcoming book on Texas gardens (due out in 2025 with Timber Press). But I couldn’t leave ...
Homey fall garden at Brandywine Cottage
October 19, 2023 Tropical Storm Ophelia swept across the Philadelphia region during late September’s Philly Area Fling. But Flingers shall not be deterred! On we Flung in raincoats, ponchos, umbrellas, and waterproof shoes — or in sopping wet pants and socks. Our group arrived at plantsman and designer David L ...
