Touring Texas Gardens

This guide includes the best times to visit, how to get there, what to expect in bloom, what birds and butterflys you'll see, how to arrange group tours, and children's activites.

A colorful guide covering the basics of replacing a traditional lawn with a wide variety of easy-care, no-mow, drought-tolerant, money-saving options that will appeal to today's busy, eco-conscious homeowner. Americans pour 300 million gallons of gas and 1 billion hours every year into mowing their lawns, not to mention 70 million pounds of pesticides and $40 billion for lawn upkeep. No Wonder the anti-lawn movement is thriving, as today's eco-conscious consumers realize that their traditional lawns are water-hogging, chemical-ridden, maintenance-intensive burdens. Lawn Gone!, from award-winning gardening blogger Pam Penick, is the first basic introduction to low-water, easy-care lawn alternatives for beginning gardeners, written in a friendly style with an approachable package. It covers all the available time-saving options: alternative grasses, ground cover plants, artificial turf, hardscaping, mulch, and more. In addition, it includes step-by-step lawn-removal methods, strategies for dealing with neighbors and homeowner associations, and how to minimize your lawn if you're not ready to go all the way.

Texas Month-by-Month Gardening, the companion to Texas Getting Started Guide, presents a month-by-month breakdown of what to plant, when to plant, and how to take care of it in order to have a beautiful Texas garden year-round.

In this eloquent plea for compassion and respect for all species, journalist and gardener Nancy Lawson describes why and how to welcome wildlife to our backyards. Through engaging anecdotes and inspired advice, profiles of home gardeners throughout the country, and interviews with scientists and horticulturalists, Lawson applies the broader lessons of ecology to our own outdoor spaces. Detailed chapters address planting for wildlife by choosing native species; providing habitats that shelter baby animals, as well as birds, bees, and butterflies; creating safe zones in the garden; cohabiting with creatures often regarded as pests; letting nature be your garden designer; and encouraging natural processes and evolution in the garden. The Humane Gardener fills a unique niche in describing simple principles for both attracting wildlife and peacefully resolving conflicts with all the creatures that share our world.

A perennial garden is an ever-changing source of delight. Each season brings new colors and textures in flowers and foliage. As the years go by, perennial plantings mature and interweave into forms more beautiful and surprising than a season's growth of annuals can ever give. Best of all, a perennial garden can grow almost anywhere with plants suited to local soils, temperatures, and rainfall. This book is a complete guide to perennial gardening in Texas and similar regions of eastern New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. In Part One, Julie Ryan offers a historical sketch of cottage gardens and perennial borders, with a sampler of some of their modern variations. In Part Two, she defines the major ecological regions of Texas and, with words and color photographs, takes you on a tour of lovely public and private gardens in each region. You'll find all the "how to" information for creating your own garden in Part Three. Ms. Ryan describes and pictures over 300 flowering perennials, bulbs, foliage plants, and old roses suitable for Texas gardens, with lists of companion annuals, vines, shrubs, and small trees. Accompanying charts provide quick reference to each plant's preferred regions and cultivation requirements. In addition, Ms. Ryan discusses how to design a garden and select plants, prepare the beds, and deal with garden pests. She concludes with substantial lists of resources, including mail-order suppliers of perennials, bulbs, and old roses.

A captivating portrait of the greatest British gardens and the lords, ladies and gardeners who own and manage them. Focusing on the counties of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, this stunning book features 20 gardens designed by some of the leading contemporary garden designers from across the world. This beautiful corner of England has a rich tradition of garden making, which is explored in this very personal view by photographer Hugo Rittson-Thomas and journalist Victoria Summerley, both residents of this green pocket with more than its fair share of beautiful and interesting gardens. Some of the gardens are strictly private, while others are regularly open to visitors, but all can now be savoured and enjoyed along with those who know them best.

Elevate your backyard veggie patch into a work of sophisticated and stylish art. Kitchen Garden Revival guides you through every aspect of kitchen gardening, from design to harvesting—with expert advice from author Nicole Johnsey Burke, founder of Rooted Garden, one of the leading US culinary landscape companies, and Gardenary, an online kitchen gardening education and resource company. Participating in the grow-your-own movement is important to both reduce your food miles and control what makes it onto your family’s table. If you’ve hesitated to take part because installing and caring for a traditional vegetable garden doesn’t seem to suit your life or your sense of style, Kitchen Garden Revival is here to show you there’s a better, more beautiful way to grow food. Instead of row after row of cabbage and pepper plants plunked into a patch of dirt in the middle of the yard, kitchen gardens are attractive, highly tailored food gardens consisting of easy-to-maintain raised planting beds laid out in an organized geometric pattern. Offering both four seasons of ornamental interest and plenty of fresh, homegrown fruits, vegetables, and herbs, kitchen gardens are the way to grow your own food in a fashionable, modern, and practical way. Kitchen gardens were once popular features of the European and early American landscape, but they fell out of favor when our agrarian roots were displaced by industrialization. With this accessible and inspirational guide, Nicole aims to return the kitchen garden to its rightful place just outside of every backdoor. Learn the art of kitchen gardening as you discover: What characteristics all kitchen gardens have in common How to design and install gorgeous kitchen garden beds using metal, wood, or stone Why raised beds mean reduced maintenance What crops are best for your kitchen garden A planting, tending, and harvesting plan developed by a pro Season-by-season growing guides It's time to join the Kitchen Garden Revival and start growing your own delicious, organic food.

Make your garden a healing place. If you love to garden but also worry about the physical strain, or if you are in search of ways to promote a healthier lifestyle, and even combat specific chronic health issues, then noted garden author and speaker Shawna Coronado has good news for you! You can stay active, fight chronic pain, and keep the garden you've worked so hard to cultivate. In The Wellness Garden, Shawna details exactly how she has learned to use her garden as a key tool in her battle with osteoarthritis and other chronic pain issues. In this inspiring but highly practical book, you will learn from Shawna's life-changing garden experience how to create your own Wellness Garden—and gain the healthier lifestyle you desire and need. Shawna's Wellness Garden Program: Grow and eat produce with specific healing benefits Use ergonomic tools and methods to redefine garden chores as beneficial exercise Redesign your garden as a space for beauty and relaxation

While many growers focus on attracting adult butterflies to their gardens, fewer know about the plants that caterpillars need to survive. Native host plants—wildflowers, trees, shrubs, vines, grasses, and sedges—not only provide a site for the butterfly to lay its eggs, they also provide a ready food source for the emerging caterpillar. Think of these plants as the nurseries of the garden. This user-friendly, heavily illustrated field guide describes 101 native larval host plants in Texas. Each species account includes descriptive information on each plant, a distribution map, and photos of both the caterpillars and adult butterflies who frequent those plants. An adult butterfly may nectar on a wide variety of flowers, but caterpillars are much more restricted in their food sources. Some feed on only a limited number of plant species, so female butterflies seek out these specific plants to lay their eggs. For example, the host plants for Monarch caterpillars are various species of milkweed. Often, these plants are not the same as the ones the adult butterfly will later use for nectar. Learning more about the plants caterpillars need is crucial for butterfly conservation. Butterflies’ dependency on specific caterpillar host plants is one of the key factors restricting their range and distribution. Armed with this knowledge, readers can also hone their ability to find specific species of breeding butterflies in nature. This is a handy guide whether you are in the field searching for butterflies or on the hunt for butterfly-friendly options at your local plant sale.