Nonirrigated native plant garden of Lee Clippard is a foliage lover’s dream
October 16, 2014 Earlier this month I visited the East Austin garden of Lee Clippard, blogger at The Grackle, and his partner, John. The first fall rains had just arrived, following a relatively mild summer, so their foliage-centric garden of native plants was looking lush and green. I’d never have ...
Garden magic and whimsy at Floramagoria: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 13, 2014 As we entered the intriguingly named Floramagoria garden on the recent Portland Garden Bloggers Fling, thunder rumbled and raindrops pelted our group of 40 or so bloggers. The reasonable — and hungry — among us ran for the two covered pavilions with box lunches in hand. The ...
Read This: A summer round-up of gardening books
July 03, 2014Now that the early summer frenzy of planting, weeding, and watering new plants is behind us and sultry midsummer is here, it’s the perfect time to kick back with a glass of iced tea and a stack of gardening books. I recently read three books authored by friends ...
Hippos, bottle art sculpture, and a free-spirited garden journey with Donna and Mike Fowler
May 22, 2014 Could the official mascot of Hutto, Texas, possibly be anything other than a hippo? The Hutto Hippos. Nope, it’s perfect. Located 30 miles northeast of Austin, the formerly sleepy hamlet of Hutto is growing as quickly as a hippopotamus in a lake full of duckweed. But the ...
Gardens on Tour 2014: Tait Moring’s garden on Bee Caves Road
May 14, 2014 Here’s a garden I’ve shown you twice before, but I never get tired of touring it. Beautifully designed, inviting, with whimsical and personal vignettes, landscape architect Tait Moring‘s personal garden on Bee Caves Road has been previously featured on the Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour. (So were ...
Colorful desert garden of Noelle Johnson, Arizona Plant Lady
May 07, 2014 Last month I visited Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, to see how they’re gardening in a much drier climate than Austin’s. (Drought is much on our mind in Texas). I toured Desert Botanical Garden, which was amazing, saw a couple of Steve Martino’s beautifully designed gardens, and admired ...
Visit to Desert Botanical Garden and Chihuly Exhibit: Edible Garden, palo verde splendor, and Chihuly balloons
April 30, 2014 During my April 4th visit to Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona, I flitted from trail to loop to gallery with no concern for the map or where the Chihuly pieces were located or any knowledge of the garden beyond what I’d gleaned from the blog posts ...
Color-drenched walls and desert beauty in Steve Martino-designed Palo Christi Garden
April 19, 2014 Forget Easter egg pinks and lilacs. Yellow, I discovered two weeks ago, is the color of spring in Arizona. A sunny, egg-yolk yellow. My friend David Cristiani introduced me to Phoenix landscape architect Steve Martino, who pioneered the use of desert natives in area gardens decades ago ...
Nursery visit: The Arbor Gate near Houston
April 13, 2014 My sister, who lives in Houston, expressed amazement at how many gardens I managed to squeeze into my visit to her city a couple of weekends ago. It’s true. I’ve shown you four Open Days tour gardens, plus four drive-by gardens that were pretty fabulous, plus a ...
Houston Open Days Tour 2014: West 11th Place Garden
April 07, 2014 Houston has one of the earliest Garden Conservancy-sponsored Open Days tours in the country. This year it was held on March 29, after a cold, drawn-out winter (by Texas standards) that saw two 20-degree dips even in subtropical Houston. I wondered how Houston would pull off a ...
Visit to Thompson+Hanson nursery and Tiny Boxwoods cafe
April 05, 2014 Can you travel to another city to see gardens without visiting a local nursery? Yes, but why in the world would you? While Diana and I were in Houston last Saturday for the Open Days tour (pics coming soon), we stopped for lunch at Tiny Boxwoods cafe, ...
Drive-By Gardens: Aloes abloom in modern dry garden of Karen Lantz
April 03, 2014 ‘Blue Elf’ aloes, purple prickly pear, gold sedum, and smooth sotol and silver ponyfoot in the steel ring, with an Opuntia “tree” behind I’m hearing from many of you how much you enjoy my Drive-By Gardens posts, and so I’m pleased to offer a third this week ...
Drive-By Gardens: Cottage garden color explosion in Houston Heights
March 31, 2014 Go see the flower garden on Peddie Street, my sister urged when I told her I’d be in Houston for a garden tour. It was the same advice I’d recently gotten from a Digging reader, who told me the garden on Peddie was not to be missed, ...
Book release party and giveaway: The 20-30 Something Garden Guide
February 16, 2014 It’s the season for garden book releases, and today I’m helping to celebrate my friend Dee Nash’s brand-new book, The 20-30 Something Garden Guide: A No Fuss, Down and Dirty Gardening 101 for Anyone Who Wants to Grow Stuff. I met Dee, an Oklahoma garden writer and ...
Tanzanian safari: Mto Wa Mbu village
January 12, 2014 After the nature walk at the hotel, we drove down to the village of Mto wa Mbu, at the foot of the Rift Valley, for a guided tour (June 2007). Our guide told us that out of 120 tribal groups in Tanzania, 110 are represented by people ...
Tanzanian safari: Maasai school and Lake Manyara National Park
January 12, 2014 On our fourth day in Tanzania (June 2007) we visited a local school on the way to Lake Manyara. An English-language world map was painted on the school building. The only city noted on it is New York, which is of course how New Yorkers see the ...
