cool gardens in a hot climate™
November 19, 2019The Nuevo Santander Garden on the Austin Open Day tour, sponsored by The Garden Conservancy earlier this month, reminded me of native-plant gardens from the old Wildflower Center tour that used to be held Mother’s Day weekend. With … Read More
An Old Austin-style garden awaited across the street from the Greenway Garden on The Garden Conservancy’s Open Day tour two weeks ago. What does Old Austin style look like? To me it means a mature tree canopy and a lush understory of sturdy subtropical evergreens like boxwood, pittosporum, sago palm, and fig ivy. It feels green and restful.… Read More
With the Death Star at bay and a little rain last week, the plants are rejoicing with a flush of flowers. It’s a second spring for us Texas gardeners.… Read More
On Saturday, November 2, you can visit six private gardens in Austin through the Garden Conservancy Open Days program from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.… Read More
Have you ever seen a glorious spring garden fade by late summer into a semi-dormant hot mess? That’s what happens when you don’t have structural plants and hardscape to give your garden shape and interest in hotter, drier seasons. … Read More
One thing I love about having a stock-tank pond is the visual cooling it provides, a little oasis in my Texas garden during our long, broiling summer. Pond plants like waterlilies never get crispy looking because they’re growing neck deep in cool water. Who wouldn’t want to spend the summer like that? … Read More
Morning light in the front garden, with Berkeley sedge aglow, a hulking ‘Green Goblet’ agave, and a silvery groundcover of woolly stemodia — this is a summer scene I enjoy before the Death Star gets high in the sky.… Read More
Many people wouldn’t consider buying a house sandwiched between MoPac expressway, a multi-lane highway with freight trains chugging down the center median, and its neighborhood feeder road. But Cynthia Williams Deegan and her husband, Bobby, have a talent for transforming an unpromising property into an indoor-outdoor paradise.… Read More
July 22, 2019The last private garden on the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling tour (June 2019) belongs to Keith and Retha Funk of Centennial, Colorado. When they bought their house in 2011, they inherited some lovely trees but also a tired … Read More
July 21, 2019Colorful 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 … Read More
Boulder-native Panayoti Kelaidis, a world-traveling plant explorer, author, nationally known speaker, entertaining blogger at Prairiebreak, and senior curator and outreach director at Denver Botanic Gardens, has made it his life’s work to open people’s eyes to the beauty and value of the steppe’s unique flora. Among his other achievements, he designed the plantings of the superb Rock Alpine Garden at DBG and co-authored the book Steppes. … Read More
All 80+ bloggers had lunch under a pavilion at Denver Botanic Gardens on Day 3 of the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling (June 2019), and then we were set loose for about an hour. One hour is not enough time to see DBG, of course. One day hardly is. Happily, this being a garden open to the public, I’d already enjoyed a lengthy visit before the Fling officially kicked off. This is part 1 of my tour, combining photos from both excursions.… Read More
After 24 years as a radio talk show host on gardening, Jim Borland may have retired, but his Denver garden continues to broadcast loud and clear about how to garden in semi-arid eastern Colorado (15 inches of annual precipitation) without using any supplemental water. His gardening inspiration? Mother Nature. “She perfected the notion of growing a vast number of species in un-amended soils with no mulch or supplemental irrigation,” he says.… Read More
July 14, 2019Kicking off the 3rd day of the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling in, yes, Denver, we toured an inviting patio garden designed for relaxing with family and friends. The owners, Kirsten and Scott Hamling, had set up a long … Read More