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 ...
Going batty at Bracken Cave, where 20 million bats take flight
September 14, 2021 Austin is justifiably proud of the 1.5-million-strong bat colony that roosts under downtown’s Congress Avenue Bridge. I’ve watched the nightly emergence from the bridge as the bats take flight many times over the years. But when I heard that nearby Bracken Cave contains 15 to 20 million ...
Tour of P. Allen Smith’s Moss Mountain Farm: Terrace Garden and Sister Oak
July 07, 2021 After St. Louis, Mom and I headed back to Texas via Little Rock, Arkansas. On the morning of June 17th, we wound our way into the hills northwest of the city and joined 80 others with a reservation for lunch and a tour of Moss Mountain Farm, ...
Beneficial insects love a stock-tank pond too
September 24, 2019 A small water garden helps me endure a Texas summer that stretches well into October. The plinking and burbling of water, jewel-bright and pastel water lilies, and lush green lily pads all make the glaring Death Star (i.e., the Texas sun) less oppressive. Coral-pink ‘Colorado’ water lily ...
An exuberant, upcycled, scrap-art garden: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 21, 2019 Colorful stucco walls! Upcycled metal garden art! Octopus planters! Agaves (atop caged columns) and alliums and poppies! Amusing vignettes! As soon as we stepped off the bus at Denver Garden Bloggers Fling (June 2019), I knew this garden would be one of my tour favorites. Who could ...
Children’s Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 17, 2019 Part of the Mordecai Children’s Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens, which I visited during the Denver Fling (June 2019), sits atop a parking garage, making it one very large rooftop garden. A pretty alpine garden, including this crevice garden, greets you as you enter, and it surprised ...
Spring is abloom in shades of pink and turquoise
May 01, 2019 I haven’t done a photo tour of my own garden in a while, so let’s go, starting with a new planting of Gulf Coast penstemon (Penstemon tenuis) and winecup (Callirhoe involucrata), both Texas natives. Along with an artichoke — I’ve always wanted to try one — they’re ...
New leaves coming up, old leaves coming down
March 16, 2018 Spring looks a lot like fall in my garden, as this photo shows: fresh green leaves surrounded by brown live oak leaves. Live oaks stay green all winter, like an evergreen tree, but come spring they do actually drop their leaves and swiftly leaf out again. Casting ...
Autumn stroll around my garden
October 27, 2017 Autumn is my favorite season in the garden, when the Death Star abates and cool breezes blow in from the north, pushing that Gulf Coast humidity back to Houston where it belongs. The sky goes china blue, fall perennials burst into bloom, and fall-blooming grasses incandesce in ...
Red dragonfly and golden spider, beneficial garden predators
August 02, 2017 Here be dragons! I see a lot of dragonflies in my garden each summer thanks to the stock-tank pond. Last week I watched this beautiful red dragonfly guarding his mate as she laid her eggs in the pond, dipping her tail repeatedly in the water. He flitted ...
Newborns and other wildlife in the garden
May 17, 2017 While I was turning off a hose Monday, water dribbled into a thick stand of inland sea oats, and something moved among the grasses. I saw a small head and thought, cat. Having endured a year of a neighbor’s cat using my gravel path as a toilet, ...
Out and about in Austin nurseries and parks
September 18, 2016 Lately I’m taking as many garden photos with my phone as with my “real” camera, and these often get posted to my Instagram. But not all of them, and sometimes I like to share them on my blog too. So here’s some cool stuff I spotted last ...
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
July 25, 2016 Our Minneapolis Fling banquet dinner — an opportunity to dine with blogging friends, win amazing giveaway prizes from sponsors, and listen to entertaining anecdotes and announcements from organizers — was held at the end of the second day, at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Time was short before ...
Foliage in full spring swing: May Foliage Follow-Up
May 16, 2016 The day after Bloom Day is Foliage Follow-Up, a day to give foliage plants their due. This month I’m leading with the fresh spring greens of ornamental grasses, like shade-loving inland sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium). Their “oats” are just forming, and by mid-summer will turn from apple ...
Island hopping, Toronto-style: Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling
June 23, 2015 Seventy garden bloggers boarded a ferry earlier this month and were transported from bustling downtown Toronto (pictured above) to the idyllic lanes of the Toronto Islands (below), a mere 15 minutes across Lake Ontario but seemingly a world away. This was the last tour on our first ...
50 shades of grey (and blue) in the garden
April 02, 2015 Like Anastasia Steele, I’ve been seduced by Mr. Grey. Grey paint, that is. I’ve started staining the front-garden lattice fence a dark grey-green (Sherwin-Williams Black Alder), matching it to the lattice mirrors I recently hung on the house, visible in the background. Going to the dark side ...
