garden tour Archives | Page 4 of 5 | Diana's Designs Austin

A garden surprise around every corner…

One of my favorite Seattle private garden tours was that of Denise Lane’s garden. We all enjoyed a break and a nice lunch in her wonderful outdoor entertaining area.
We spent quite some time in this amazing garden and were able to stop and visit and admire in many cozy seating areas throughout the garden. Here, Layanee of Ledge and Gardens and Cindy of My Corner of Katy spend a quite moment talking plants.

Denise Lane shared her garden’s history with us with a photo album chronicling each step of the process.
The flowing garden curves were all filled with beautiful border plants.
The garden’s secret series of paths led us to many different sculptures and works of art. I know you see the metal heron, but did you notice the lime and brown cat tails in the background? I almost missed them myself.
My favorite scene in the garden was this water feature flanked by Doric columns and covered with vines and plants from every angle. It was so packed with texture and color and sounds and scent…it was very hard to capture it all in a photo.
Austin blogger and my travel mate Jenny, of Rock Rose, was as taken with this garden display as I was. I managed to pull her away from her photography for just a moment.
Another lovely place for bloggers to rest and contemplate the garden.
I love this little birdhouse with the green roof. Makes sense – birds are far greener than we are!
This Greek column just popped up out of nowhere in the garden.
Several beautiful pieces of pottery adorn the garden, or maybe the garden adorns several pieces of pottery.
It was hard to choose among all my photos because so many of their subjects are so interesting like the pairing of these succulents.

This was a delightful garden, full of surprises and creativity and beauty. I could have spent an entire day there.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:21-06:00August 5th, 2011|Blog, garden bloggers, garden bloggers fling, garden tour, Seattle, Seattle fling, Sharing Nature's Garden, Spring Fling 2011|0 Comments

Garden delights in sunny Seattle…

The private gardens we’ve seen at the Garden Bloggers Seattle fling are among some of the prettiest I’ve seen.

The garden of Suzette and Jim Birrell was filled with whimsy and color. It was delightful and filled with plenty of places to sit and enjoy the garden.

Garden-inspired art and decor surprised us around every turn.

Looking for lights for their garden and project shed, Jim decided to convert simple, galvanized buckets into whimsical lighting.

The brightly-colored shed provides contrast with other vibrant colors throughout the garden.

A small section of lawn provides a play area and a soothing companion to the bright and busy garden areas.

Years of work to create this lush and peaceful garden made for a wonderful morning tour for the garden bloggers.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:22-06:00July 24th, 2011|Blog, decor, garden bloggers, garden bloggers fling, garden seat, garden tour, Seattle, Sharing Nature's Garden, shed, whimsy|0 Comments

Botanical Garden displays…

Seriously, I thought I was in Texas when we toured the Botanical Gardens in Madrid (except for the rain that is). This beautiful Yucca recurvifolia one of many US plants.
Mediterranean style abounds in the flora and fauna of Madrid, but many of the plants we saw were Xeric varieties well know to Central Texas.
This Nolina was even labeled as the Texana variety and attributed to the USA.

This beautiful bottle brush tree reminded me again of how I lost two of these at home in the last two winters!
An entire section of the display gardens was dedicated to grasses.

This Coreopsis gradiflora loves this climate as well as ours.

The timing of their gardens is also similar to ours — the irises were almost all done blooming, and other bulbs were also going dormant as the grasses and summer perennials were coming into their own.

Next post, some of their beautiful palms.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:23-06:00June 8th, 2011|agaves, Blog, Bottle Brush tree, cottage garden, garden tour, grasses, Madrid, Mediterranean, Sharing Nature's Garden, yucca|0 Comments

Wildflower Center Gardens on Tour 2011 — A Hill Country Paradise

Armed with camera and my blogging buddies Pam of Digging and Robin of Getting Grounded, I ventured out Saturday to explore the gardens on the 2011 Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Gardens on Tour.

Some as different as night and day, each garden offered a different perspective and radiated a unique feel to visitors who came to experience it.

This garden was off of Bee Cave Road and its owner, Tait Moring, is a landscape architect.

The property itself was stunning. 17 acres – mostly undeveloped, but on a Hill Country hillside with amazing views. Blooming just in time to put on a show for us, this Agave greeted us as we entered into this Texas-style paradise behind a very tall cedar fence.
You can see the scale of the fence and the entry as people come into the property.
There were several creative fences and gates leading into different areas of the garden – each with it’s own unique appeal.
Several large ceramic pots provided specimen plant focal points for the garden.

Rockwork throughout the landscape brought in a Hill Country rustic element. Behind the rock wall is a Pittosporum tree that fascinated us with its structural beauty.
Interesting artwork and statuary dotted the gardens with whimsy and focal points.
Just off the back deck, a tall cedar fence hides a great outdoor shower complete with local boulders to perch on as you cool of on a hot day.
Up the stairs you can see the back of the shower against the house.
The deck included a interesting array of xeric plants and attractive pots.

A collector, much of the rock work includes special items Tait has gathered over the years.
Wouldn’t you love to have a vegetable garden like this? These beautiful rock pottagers were new additions to the garden last winter.
Another lovely walkway combining native rock and rough cedar.
This simple little water feature was so beautiful and made a lovely little sound in the peace of the garden.

This was my favorite garden on the tour. I took dozens more photos, but can only post so many. It is a lovely hideaway that is a testament to an owner with an absolute love of gardening and an amazing talent.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:24-06:00May 8th, 2011|arbor, Blog, cedar fence, fence, garden tour, Garden Tours 2011, pittosporum, pottager, Sharing Nature's Garden, shower, water feature|0 Comments

Buffalo gardens amaze & impress

As I traveled home from a delightful time in Buffalo for the garden bloggers’ Buffa10 gathering, I tried to think of the best way to describe the gardens I’d seen.

It wasn’t easy.

We had a whirlwind 4 days — seeing sights, touring gardens, meeting and making friends and smelling the roses.

Our hosts, Elizabeth Licata of Gardening While Intoxicated and Jim Charlier of Art of Gardening took us on a fairytale tour of their beautiful city and its gardens. They were perfect ambassadors who opened our eyes to not only the gardens of the city, but the art and the architecture and the city’s rich history.

A wide variety of gardens and gardeners welcomed us with open arms as we descended upon the city.

And while they ranged from jam-packed cottage gardens to simple, zen-like Asian gardens, they all had one thing in common.

They were lush.

Really lush.

There — that was it, that was the word that captured all the gardens we had the good fortune to see. According to Thesaurus.com, there are many ways to describe something lush.

Main Entry:	lush
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	profuse and delightful
Synonyms:	abundant, ambrosial, delectable, delicious, deluxe, dense, elaborate, extensive, extravagant, exuberant, flourishing, fresh, grand, green, heavenly, juicy, lavish, luscious, luxuriant, luxurious, opulent, ornate, overgrown, palatial, plush, prodigal, prolific, rank, rich, riotous, ripe, ritzy, scrumptious, sensuous, succulent, sumptuous, teeming, tender, verdant,

Oddly enough, the weather when my travel companion Pam, of Digging, and I arrived, was actually hotter than in Austin, Texas! Back home – 86, Buffalo – 91!
On our first afternoon, we enjoyed a walking tour of the Allentown Gardens, including a stop for happy hour at Elizabeth’s garden.
Then we were treated to a fabulous dinner and a tour of the 20th Century Club and its gardens. See that sun?!
Garden bloggers Leslie of Growing a Garden in Davis, Robin of Bumblebee Blog and Kathy of Cold Climate Gardening are probably discussing the uncharacteristically hot weather in Buffalo as we wait for dinner.
And now, more lushness.
The beauty was blurred, one stunning garden after another, as we stumbled along – not knowing which street we were on or whose garden it was, just struck by the amazing displays of annuals, perennials, trees, shrubs and garden art.
And then there was the amazing architecture, including some borrowed views of historic buildings like this one.
Each garden delivered a new perspective, a different plant list and a unique feel to our troupe of 70 visitors.

And I, for one, will carry these amazing memories with me for a long time. Buffalo is a beautiful, historic city, and one I would gladly visit again and again.

There is so much more to see — stay tuned for more posts about our amazing adventure. This just covered the first 6 hours!

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:26-06:00July 13th, 2010|Blog, bloggers, Buffa10, cottage garden, garden bloggers, garden tour, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

Come tour my garden on Central Texas Gardener

This Saturday, Austin area gardeners can come “tour” my garden by watching Central Texas Gardener on KLRU, PBS at 12:00 and at 4:00.

For those of you not lucky enough to live in Austin, you can join in on the fun by watching it online at

http://www.klru.org/ctg/episode/date/2_20_2010

It was so fun to shoot this episode with Linda and her crew at CTG, who did a great job with me and the garden. They put me right at ease and spent a long time getting to know my garden.

It was a very windy and warm late October morning. The garden had begun its recovery from the drought after several good rains helped us turn the corner.

Enjoy the tour!

By Diana C. Kirby|2019-07-15T19:14:18-05:00February 19th, 2010|Blog, CTG, garden tour, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

garden tour

A garden surprise around every corner…

Garden delights in sunny Seattle…

Botanical Garden displays…

Wildflower Center Gardens on Tour 2011 — A Hill Country Paradise

Buffalo gardens amaze & impress

Come tour my garden on Central Texas Gardener

Escape in the garden