Checking out the new Academic Quad at Rice
This Owl flew back to Rice University in Houston for Homecoming and to check out the newly redesigned Academic Quad.… Read More
Front-yard gardens and free spirits in Houston’s Heights
During a walk through the Heights neighborhood in north Houston last month, amid the derecho cleanup I saw cheerful cottage gardens in bloom.… Read More
Kinder Land Bridge restores coastal prairie and unites Houston’s Memorial Park
Houston reimagines Memorial Park with a new land bridge for human and wildlife movement and acres of coastal prairie restoration.… Read More
Enormous live oaks wow at Becks Prime in Houston
Two enormous, tentacle-limbed, 400-year-old live oaks wow and shade diners on the decks at Becks Prime restaurant in Houston.… Read More
Exploring Houston’s Centennial Gardens and Japanese Garden
A few days before Christmas, we explored McGovern Centennial Gardens and the Japanese Garden in Houston’s Hermann Park.… Read More
Houston Botanic Garden brightens the holidays with Lightscape
Lightscape at Houston Botanic Garden is a fun new addition to the holiday garden-visiting scene. It runs through January 2,2022.… Read More
Houston Botanic Garden’s surprising cactus garden and more – part 2
Sunset-hued boulders stacked into low walls hold gravelly soil for dry-loving plants at Houston Botanic Garden’s cactus garden.… Read More
Brand-new Houston Botanic Garden showcases tropical and subtropical plants – part 1
Houston’s long-anticipated botanic garden opened to the public last weekend. I road-tripped to the Bayou City to take a tour.… Read More
Sculpture worth visiting at Rice University
Rice University is my alma mater, and if the weather’s nice when I’m in Houston I’ll often take a walk around campus. It’s not all for nostalgia’s sake, though. Rather, Rice has really upped its sculpture and art collection game in recent years, and much of it is open to the public. Take the James Turrell Twilight Epiphany Skyspace, which rises like a grassy Mayan pyramid at the end of a sycamore allee. A thin white rectangular roof floats over the mound like a hovering UFO.… Read More
Eerie and occult Wilde Collection in Houston
October 31, 2018 On this spookiest of days, when ghosts and evil spirits walk among the living, it seems appropriate to share with you an eerie shop that my daughter and I stumbled upon in Houston — The Wilde Collection. … Read More
Houston, capital of Southern-cool art?
August 24, 2018 Detail of Dixie Friend Gay’s mosaic Wild Wonderland in Houston’s Midtown Park Speeding away from the sleepy South Carolina town I grew up in, I rolled into megatropolis Houston at the nadir of the mid-1980s oil crash. … Read More
Foliage architecture (and art) on Rice University campus
October 16, 2017 At my alma mater in Houston last month (right after Hurricane Harvey), I appreciated the marriage of foliage and architecture at the Brochstein Pavilion, a remarkable structure and hub of student activity that didn’t exist when I … Read More
Cockrell Butterfly Center in Houston
July 13, 2009 While in Houston last weekend, we visited the marvelous Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. We enjoyed a fun, interactive exhibit about insects (not just butterflies), looked at displays of preserved specimens and … Read More
Old South at Bayou Bend
November 25, 2006 Camellia in bloom at Bayou Bend After not one but two Thanksgiving feasts—Thursday with my husband’s family, Friday with mine—it was time to give thanks for nature’s beauty and feast our eyes instead of our bellies. So … Read More