Opaye

Tanglewild is a botanical fantasia unlike any other garden in Austin, with palms, bananas, cannas, and daylilies galore.… Read More

The post Tanglewild Gardens merges passion for daylilies with tropical wow factor appeared first on Digging.

Every time I visit Tanglewild Gardens, an Asian-influenced, daylily-hybridizing, future-wedding-venue garden in North Austin, I’m impressed by the energy and ambition of its owners. Skottie O’Mahony and Jeff Breitenstein, 13 years into the making of Tanglewild, continue to expand on its garden rooms and are in the process of remodeling a detached garage into an ADU with a tiki bar. Skottie calls the 1.7-acre property in the Wells Branch neighborhood a “private (for now) north Austin botanical garden & National Daylily Display Garden.” It’s a botanical fantasia unlike any other garden I’ve seen in Central Texas, with tropicalesque palms, bananas, and cannas galore. Oh, and lots and lots of daylilies.

I was there a week and a half ago, when the daylilies were popping with the arrival of May’s heat. But let’s start our tour in the moon garden, a black-fenced courtyard filled with white- or pale-flowering plants for evening enjoyment. Thai rice goddess figures and a carved wooden doorway in a stucco wall give you the sense of entering another country.

A tiered fountain on a gravel patio adds the music of trickling water.

Variegated bamboo stands out against the dark-stained fence.

Framed view into the moon garden

Skottie and Jeff were hybridizing daylilies in Seattle before they relocated to Austin, and they brought a bunch with them. They soon learned that many of the best performers in Seattle’s mild climate couldn’t make it here. But others grow well in our hotter climate. The couple built multiple raised beds to display their collection, with each plant carefully labeled.

I didn’t write down any cultivar names, but here’s a pretty sampling.

Fellow visitor Lori Daul checking them out

A few crinums and cannas share space with the daylilies.

Griffin guardian of the daylilies

The property slopes steeply down to Tar Branch Creek. Skottie and Jeff took advantage of the grade change by running a long stair down the slope and up the other side, creating a strong axis. A large patio with a stone fire pit is the focal point of the sunken garden.

Skottie and Jeff have arranged branches in the fire pit, giving an effect of crackling flames even in the off-season.

Let’s head down.

Pairs of Adirondacks flanked by silver-stump drink tables offer room for a crowd. You can see the ADU under construction in the background.

A sword in a tree — existing when Skottie and Jeff bought the property — has been dubbed Texcalibur by the couple. There’s a whole legend about that sword, which you can read about in my original blog post about Tanglewild.

Tar Branch Creek winds lazily through the garden. It’s home to a big snapping turtle, which I’ve not yet been fortunate enough to see.

Jeff and Skottie love big, bold foliage and have the water to support it, thanks to the creek and a well.

Check out the vivid red foliage on this Japanese maple, and it’s not even autumn.

Dwarf orange cannas march up the steps on the other side of the creek.

Looking back at the creek-crossing bridge and fire-pit patio

Smoldering cannas

An arbor with formal busts marks the entrance to the future wedding-venue garden.

A large, circular lawn makes a lovely space to exchange vows.

White prickly poppy

Cannas

Arbor view

Bull thistle

A windmill adds a little Texas flair to the garden.

Mexican hats

This elephant sculpture (unless they’ve acquired a second one) used to live in the moon garden, but now he’s frolicking in a bed of Mexican hats and cannas.

He looks happy here!

More daylilies

Beyond the wedding lawn, a patio backs up to a dramatic bamboo forest.

Now let’s go back to the fire-pit patio and take a side path to the rest of the garden. I especially enjoy this view of the lushly planted creekside garden.

Looking back toward the fire-pit patio…

…and the creek as it widens around a bend.

An Asian sculpture greets you along the way.

Heading back up toward the house, where a vitex shows off its pretty purple spires

Skottie and Jeff invited us to see the work-in-progress inside the ADU and pointed out this view from one of the windows. That’s the back of their main house and pool courtyard, with the moon garden behind the white wall on the right.

And here’s the reverse view from their back porch looking across the pool toward the ADU.

Courtyard wall with laser-cut Moroccan-style screens. What a retreat this place is!

Thank you, Jeff and Skottie, for sharing your beautiful garden with me again!

My previous posts about Tanglewild Gardens:

• Tropicalesque Tanglewild, where bananas and palms grow big and bold
• Life is beautiful at Moroccan-inspired Tanglewild Gardens

I welcome your comments. Please scroll to the end of this post to leave one. If you’re reading in an email, click here to visit Digging and find the comment box at the end of each post. And hey, did someone forward this email to you, and you want to subscribe? Click here to get Digging delivered directly to your inbox!

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Digging Deeper

June 1-2: Take a self-guided, 2-day tour of ponds and gardens in and around Austin on the annual Austin Pond and Garden Tour, held 6/1 and 6/2, 9 am to 5 pm. Tickets are $20 to $25.

Come learn about gardening and design at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, authors, and gardeners a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance; simply <

Deborah Hornickel’s tiny bungalow lives larger by extending her living space outdoors with a pear allee and other architectural features.… Read More

The post Deborah Hornickel’s modern-formal garden invites outdoor lounging appeared first on Digging.

Deborah Hornickel credits her garden’s timeless good looks and livability to her good friend James David, a hugely influential designer formerly of Austin with a showpiece personal garden and a revered boutique/nursery called Gardens. (He and partner Gary Peese now call Santa Fe home.) Thanks to James’s design vision, Deborah’s tiny Bryker Woods bungalow was made to live larger by extending her living space outdoors.

In 1991, James convinced Deborah to plant an allée of Bradford pears down the center of her backyard. As they grew, he helped her train them into a tunnel on a custom rebar arch. Aligned with Deborah’s back door, the allée draws the eye from inside the house out into the garden.

String lights run the length of the allée, which leads the eye to a potted Ming fern on a limestone pedestal. Not long ago, Deborah lost one of the pears and has planted a new one to replace it. The gap is hardly noticeable thanks to the strong architectural form of the allée.

(Does this pear allée remind you of another Austin garden I’ve blogged about? Designer Jackson Broussard, who worked for James and who’s also worked with Deborah on her garden, has a similar allée in his personal garden.)

Over time, the pears have grown around the rebar tunnel, becoming one with the frame.

Italian terracotta pots throughout the garden hark back to the classic style of Gardens. Two terracotta bowls of purple heart elevated on limestone plinths mark the entrance to the pear tunnel.

A rectangle of lawn makes a verdant outdoor area rug on one side of the allée.

In the center, framed by a square of clipped boxwood, stands a focal-point pot. Deborah told a funny story about shopping with James, when he spotted this pot and insisted she had to have it. She hesitated. “Trust me,” he said. She did, and he was proved right. This was a theme in every story she told about James’s influence on her garden: “you need this,” “trust me,” and “he was right.”

Notice how deep the fence-line bed is — 8 or 10 feet, I’d say. Newly planted screening shrubs — replacing plants killed by recent deep freezes — include Arizona cypress, cherry laurel, and ‘Brodie’ eastern red cedar.

Against the back of the house, a metal arbor encloses a small patio adorned with candelabras, a limestone console, and a garden-reflecting mirror.

At the far end of the lawn, a limestone bench under a vitex tree terminates the axis view.

Vitex’s pretty purple flowers

At left of the vitex, a trio of elevated pots makes a focal point at the end of the pear allée.

Mangave in one of the pots

Beyond the allée, a raised container pond beckons. A Monet-green bench under the allée overlooks the pond.

Green bench and ceramic table positioned in the shade

The raised concrete walls of the contemporary pond elevate it about a foot. A long steel pipe emerges from a boxwood border (recently replanted with blight-resistant ‘Winter Gem’) to spill water into the pond. Yellow-stemmed ‘Alphonse Karr’ bamboo and a limestone bench accent the modern lines of the pond.

Steel-pipe fountain and a hot-pink waterlily

Waterlily

A 1400-pound slab of limestone on faceted pillars makes a custom dining table near the house. Deborah said James made sure the pillars were set on a reinforced foundation for stability.

Mushroom lanterns and a stone bowl of shells and slag glass make a pretty tabletop vignette.

Shells and chunks of green glass — this reminds me of another old-Austin garden I once knew.

In a circle of clipped boxwood, a pebble-filled birdbath on a pillar stands ready to welcome thirsty birds.

Deborah’s covered porch overlooks a fire pit patio under the sculptural limbs of a crape myrtle.

A stone trough of water (by Jackson Broussard) anchors a grouping of potted plants, including a diminutive Japanese maple. This reminds me so much of vignettes in James and Gary’s old garden (see part 1 and part 2).

A patchwork patio contains old bricks and stone pavers.

Deborah was delighted to discover among the found bricks one stamped from Palmer, Texas, where she has a family connection.

Porch decor, each piece carefully curated

In Deborah’s garage, a farmhouse sink and slatted table make a handy potting area. The sink doubles as a drinks basin during parties. A large window — another idea of James’s — provides a connection to the covered porch.

Mexican folk-art skeletons are a theme in Deborah’s garage decor.

More collected objects

Out front, Deborah shows off a beautifully tended collection of succulents in terracotta pots, displayed on a metal bench and a concrete step.

‘Cherry Chocolate Chip’ manfreda

‘Praying Hands’ mangave

No idea what this beauty is.

Kalanchoe tomentosa

On the porch, a limestone console table designed and installed by Jackson Broussard displays candles and dried botanicals in glass vases. Below, like a log in a fireplace under a mantel…

…stands a fascinating planter — sort of faux bois-esque. A tropical plant creates the effect of flickering green flames.

A Moroccan-style lantern hangs from the eave.

Another handsome terracotta pot with succulents and a stone obelisk

Deborah’s front garden is subdivided by sculpted green blocks of clipped boxwood. A Dr. Seussian yucca or nolina, its shaggy head sprouting from a quirky trunk, adds a vertical element.

Side paths lead to tiny hidden garden rooms, like this one with a green urn and sphere.

A pink crinum and purple-leaved canna offer bright color.

Jerusalem sage…

…and sunflowers provide a jolt of yellow.

Along the stone-slab front walk, boxwood cones (recently clipped hard to reshape them) and spheres lead the eye to the front door. A desert willow makes a natural arch over the path and will be blooming soon, providing color all summer.

I adore Deborah’s modern-formal garden, whose living architecture complements her charming home and makes it live large. T

At Vivero Growers nursery, I oohed and aahed over big, beautiful containers planted as eye-catching showpieces.… Read More

The post Eye-candy containers at Vivero nursery appeared first on Digging.

At Vivero Growers nursery in southwest Austin, big containers are planted as eye-catching showpieces. I oohed and aahed over them, including this one with hot-pink ice plant and a giant hesperaloe, during a recent visit.

Sizzling pink ice plant flowers

Check this one out: a potted Mexican grass tree — like a shimmering fiber-optic sphere!

Lantana mounds in this container, with flowers as hot as the Texas sun.

A cooler combo — chocolatey-purple pennisetum and silver ponyfoot — make a hammered-silver pairing.

Vivero has some new-to-me salvias, which I drooled over: ‘Plum Crazy’ (left) and ‘Blue Chill’ (right). They look terrific together, especially paired with a burgundy Japanese maple. I couldn’t help thinking, though, that the maple would want shade in our hot climate while the salvias would want sun. It works for staging though!

A butterfly appreciating ‘Blue Chill’ salvia

Bees like it too.

I’m plumb crazy for ‘Plum Crazy’ salvia.

Outside the succulent greenhouses, a container bursting with slipper plant, silver ponyfoot, and something flowering hot pink — pelargonium? — caught my eye.

I’m a sucker for all kinds of prickly pear, especially ‘Santa Rita’ with violet pads and yellow flowers.

Ooh, ‘Silver Dollar’ prickly pear, with round pads like Mickey Mouse silhouettes!

Tree cholla with a handsome fuchsia flower

A prickly pear-like plant in a succulent trough also caught my eye. I think it’s Brasiliopuntia brasiliensis.

The other succulents are fab too.

In the shade area, I admired this handsome planter with foxtail fern, variegated baby sun rose, Mexican heather, and a burgundy-leaved something.

Vivero has smaller planters too, perfect for a porch table.

They’ll make you happy!

I welcome your comments. Please scroll to the end of this post to leave one. If you’re reading in an email, click here to visit Digging and find the comment box at the end of each post. And hey, did someone forward this email to you, and you want to subscribe? Click here to get Digging delivered directly to your inbox!

__________________________

Digging Deeper

June 1-2: Take a self-guided, 2-day tour of ponds and gardens in and around Austin on the annual Austin Pond and Garden Tour, held 6/1 and 6/2, 9 am to 5 pm. Tickets are $20 to $25.

Come learn about gardening and design at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, authors, and gardeners a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance; simply click this link and ask to be added. Season 8 kicks off in fall 2024. Stay tuned for more info!

All material © 2024 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The post Eye-candy containers at Vivero nursery appeared first on Digging.

In Dallas, I swung by the Bush Native Texas Park before sunset to see the wildflower show I’d been hearing about. I was not disappointed.… Read More

The post Prairie wildflower oasis at Native Texas Park in Dallas appeared first on Digging.

On a mid-May trip up to Dallas, I swung by the Laura W. Bush Native Texas Park just before sunset to see the big wildflower show I’d been hearing about this spring. I was not disappointed.

Red-and-yellow firewheel, purple horsemint, rusty Mexican hat, and lilac American basketflower were quilting the 15-acre park with color. Vying with the hum of traffic from nearby (but invisible) North Central Expressway, insects were buzzing in the wildflowers and birds were trilling in the trees. As the sun dipped to the horizon, the orange haze of the flowering prairie deepened. It was magical!

Native Texas Park unfolds via walking trails behind the George W. Bush Presidential Center on the Southern Methodist University campus. Open daily — and free to visit — from sunrise until sunset, the park “reflects what the site might have looked like centuries ago,” according to SMU.edu. “Native trees, plants, and water-conserving features make the park drought resistant, minimize the need for irrigation through municipal water sources, and helps [sic] important pollinators like butterflies, birds, and bees thrive.”

Designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, the park sits below the brick-and-limestone presidential library and slopes downhill toward a wet-weather creek and retention pond. A native-blend lawn similar to Habiturf provides a green negative space surrounded by native gardens. Kids were having a blast running the trails and dashing across the lawn. What a great place to get outdoors in the middle of Dallas.

American basketflower in fringey lavender-and-cream bloom

Pokeweed in flower, later to make berries beloved by birds

The layout of the park, in a bowl edged with trees, offers a secluded oasis amid glass office towers on one side and the SMU campus on the other.

From the lawn you look out over a large meadow, hazed with orange at this time of year thanks to all the firewheel. A curving boardwalk bridges the wet-weather creek.

Bicyclists and walkers were exploring the paths among the wildflowers.

The light was beautiful in the late afternoon.

I was intrigued by this ivory horsemint, which Jay at NewTexasGardens ID’d as spotted beebalm (Monarda punctata).

Spotted beebalm colonizing the slope…

…and glowing in the late-afternoon light

It was a good time of day to photograph the garden and people enjoying it.

Firewheel on fire

Below, the kids and their moms had staked out an idyllic conversation spot under a live oak.

That oak is a picturesque presence in the background of several of my photos.

More firewheel

I love a shaggy native-grass lawn.

So tranquil

Winecup and lantana aglow

Along a side path following a drainage swale…

…I found a stand of Mexican hat, one of my favorite wildflowers.

The path crosses the wet-weather creek and emerges into the wildflower meadow.

More basketflower

The moms enjoying a quiet moment

More Mexican hat

Firewheel with horsemint

Wildflowers every direction I looked

As twilight softened all the colors, I headed back, swatting a few aggressive mosquitoes along the way (note to self: spray with repellent next time).

American basketflower

So much firewheel

The conversation bench under the live oak, open for the next tête-à-tête

Basketflower and the Bush Library

Pink prairie roses

Thistle

And more firewheel and basketflower

What a serene place.

Up by the library, I admired a row of large chitalpa trees.

Chitalpa, a cross between Southern catalpa and desert willow, is showy with pale-pink flowers.

Out front, a native lawn flows around clusters of trees, rising and falling like the prairie of old. Native Texas Park echoes what was once here, hopefully serving as inspiration to designers of other municipal, cultural, and commercial sites across the country. It offers a sanctuary to wildlife in an urban environment and to the humans who come to enjoy it.

For more, see a previous post I wrote about Native Texas Park.

Up next from my Dallas trip: A tour of the colorful garden of Suzy Renz on the Dallas County Master Gardener Association Tour.

I welcome your comments. Please scroll to the end of this post to leave one. If you’re reading in an email, click here to visit Digging and find the comment box at the end of each post. And hey, did someone forward this email to you, and you want to subscribe? Click here to get Digging delivered directly to your inbox!

__________________________

Digging Deeper

June 1-2: Take a self-guided, 2-day tour of ponds and gardens in and around Austin on the annual Austin Pond and Garden Tour, held 6/1 and 6/2, 9 am to 5 pm. Tickets are $20 to $25.

Come learn about gardening and design at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, authors, and gardeners a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance; simply click this link and ask to be added. Season 8 kicks off in fall 2024. Stay tuned for more info!

All material © 2024 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The post Prairie wildflower oasis at Native Texas Park in Dallas appeared first on Digging.

Garden Spark, my speaker series on garden design and ecology, will return for its 8th season of in-person talks in Austin this fall. … Read More

The post Garden Spark’s 8th season brings exciting new speakers appeared first on Digging.

Wow, 8 years! Garden Spark, my speaker series on garden design and ecology, will return for its 8^th season of in-person talks in Austin this fall. I’m excited to announce the new lineup of speakers!

This season we’ll explore the cultural significance of seeds and how those who keep them and sow them can be powerful agents for change; we’ll learn how a suburban gardener transformed his traditional lawn into a captivating native prairie garden; we’ll get field-tested tips on making a successful xeriscape garden and explore what “low maintenance” really means; and we’ll be inspired to upgrade a basic builder’s landscape into a garden with more function and beauty.

Talks are held on Thursday evenings. We’ll meet at Barton Springs Nursery in the fall and — new this year — at Leaf Landscape Supply North in the spring. I hope you’ll mark your calendar for the dates listed below and make plans to join us.

Tickets go on sale for each talk 4 to 6 weeks in advance and are offered to subscribers first. Talks tend to sell out quickly, so don’t miss out. SUBSCRIBE to Garden Spark’s email list to be notified as soon as tickets go on sale. Simply click this link and ask to be added.

And now, here are this season’s garden thinkers and presenters!

October 24: Jennifer Jewell

What We Sow: The Personal, Ecological, and Cultural Significance of Seeds

Gardens and gardeners are powerful agents for positive change in the world, helping to address challenges as wide ranging as climate change, habitat loss, cultural polarization, and individual and communal health and well-being. Jennifer Jewell, host of the national public-radio program and international podcast Cultivating Place, will explore that power through the lens of SEEDS: how they grow, where they grow, who grows them, who sells and/or controls them, and their care up and down the seed-sheds of our world. 

Jennifer will share fascinating stories of seeds and seed-keepers from her newest book, What We Sow: On the Personal, Ecological, and Cultural Significance of Seeds (2023). These stories are both cautionary tales and guiding lights in ways we can all sow, seed, and grow our world more beautiful, more delicious, more biodiverse, and more brave.

Speaker Bio

Jennifer Jewell is the host of the award-winning, weekly public radio program and podcast Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden and author of three books: The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants, Under Western Skies: Visionary Gardens from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast, and What We Sow: On the Personal, Ecological, and Cultural Significance of Seeds. Her greatest passion is elevating the way we think and talk about gardening, the empowerment of gardeners, and the possibility inherent in the intersection between places, environments, cultures, individuals, and the gardens that bring them together beautifully – for the better of all the lives on this generous planet.

Cultivating Place has several times been recognized by Garden Communicators International as Best On-Air Talent and Best Overall Broadcast Media. In 2023, Jennifer was honored with the American Horticultural Society’s Great American Gardener B.Y. Morrison award for horticultural communication. She regularly serves as keynote speaker for horticultural organizations large and small across the country, including The Garden Conservancy, The American Public Gardens Association, The American Horticultural Society, The Thomas Jefferson Foundation/Monticello, The California Native Plant Society, The New York Botanical Garden, Miami University of Ohio, and the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Jennifer lives and cultivates her place in interior Northern California with her partner, plantsman John Whittlesey. You can find her on Instagram and Facebook and listen to Cultivating Place wherever you get your podcasts.

November 14: Michael McDowell

Lawn Free: How I Transformed My Lawn into a Prairie Garden

Why settle for a boring, thirsty lawn when you can create a dynamic prairie garden that changes with the seasons and benefits the environment? That’s exactly what Michael McDowell thought when he set out to create his Plano prairie garden in the suburbs 20 miles north of Dallas. Michael will show how he transformed his yard from a lawn-dominant landscape to a lawn-free prairie garden and how his vision continues to evolve as he and the garden mature. He’ll share his tips for gardening on a budget (hint: propagation and patience), explain how he’s stayed on good terms with neighbors and off the radar of property standards officers, and show how resilient prairie plants are in spite of extreme weather and other challenges.

Speaker Bio

Michael McDowell started gardening at a young age and planted many rows of evenly spaced marigolds and petunias. When he got his hands on a copy of Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by Region by Sally and Andy Wasowski, it changed his perspective of what a garden could be and, perhaps, should be in Texas. He began searching for the Texas native plants that he read about in the book and incorporated them into his landscape when he could find them. As native plants became more available and water became more scarce, he decided to focus solely on the plants that evolved to thrive on the Texas prairie with only the water and nutrients that nature provided. 

Michael gained familiarity with the ways of prairie plants in the privacy of his backyard. When he started removing his front lawn, an unconscionable act in Plano, he documented his progress on his blog Plano Prairie Garden. He thought his blog posts would provide evidence that his non-traditional landscape was intentional and not the result of laziness, should a property standards officer knock on his door. They didn’t. He now posts as Plano Prairie Garden on Instagram. His blog archives date back to 2009, and he regularly refers people to the Resources and Plant List pages.

Michael spends his work days as a compliance manager in the highly regulated insurance industry. He researches insurance statutes, regulations, and case law to ensure his employer’s business practices are compliant. Creativity with insurance laws can get you fined or imprisoned, so gardening is his creative outlet.

March 6: Danny Bravens

Searching for a Low-Maintenance Yard: Views on Xeriscapes in Central Texas

Everyone wants a low-maintenance yard, but what does that really mean? For four years, Danny Bravens’s design company, Native Son Gardens, has been yanking out lawns and installing native-plant gardens that can be used more while requiring less maintenance than a traditional lawn-filled landscape. In this talk, he’ll cover the many failures and successes they’ve had along the way, as well as the specific practices that they’ve adopted in their search for a lawn-free Texas yard.

Speaker Bio

Danny Bravens is the founder and lead landscape designer of Native Son Gardens and has always been drawn to nature. A few years ago, after a decade in the film industry, he started taking landscape design and botany courses as a fun hobby. When the pandemic hit and he lost a good-paying job, he decided to ditch film for landscaping and started this company the next day. It was a good decision. On the company’s first project, he met his partner, Hector, who manages the crew. Native Son Gardens has since installed well over a hundred landscape designs, redesigned the Long Center’s main entrance, experimented with seeded meadows, and grown a small company into a slightly less small one. It’s been both fun and hard, but also incredibly rewarding turning outdated lawns into sustainable and beautiful native landscapes.

You can follow Native Son Gardens on Instagram.

May 8: Toni Moorehead

From Builder to Better: How to Upgrade Your Builder-Grade Landscape

Whether you’re building a house and need to make decisions about landscaping, or your house came with a generic “builder’s landscape” and you want to improve it, or you’re feeling stuck in a gardening rut, this talk is for you. Designer Toni Moorehead will explain how to apply right-plant/right-place principles and show you how to take your landscape from builder to better!

Speaker Bio

Toni Moorehead is a Texas Certified Landscape Professional and the owner/designer of Signature Gardens in Grapevine, Texas. While she grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm, she swapped cheese and snow for tacos and summer when she moved to Texas in 1986. Then, after working as a court reporter for nearly two decades, Toni traded transcripts for trowels and lawyers for landscapes and started her own garden-design business. She’s never looked back. Toni loves helping people learn to love gardening in Texas, and she shares about gardening on her blog