Azalea Trail

On Saturday, J, B, and I went on Houston's River Oaks Garden Club Azalea Trail in which people are invited to walk through the super expensive/expansive gardens and homes of 6 of Houston's well-to-do.

I love looking through other people houses (a little voyeuristic, I know...) and I love flowers so this was appealing to me on many levels.  Two of the homes were actually donated to art centers of Houston and are open to the public on a regular basis.  Could you imagine: "I'm so ridiculously wealthy that I think I'll just donate one of my mansions...."  Crazy. 

I actually didn't love those as much as the privately owned homes, though.  The first one we went into was owned by art collectors and the decor was insane.  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, otherwise this post would probably just be about that house.  This picture is from their backyard, though.  I want an incredible bronze statue in my backyard (first need a backyard, though...)

I also appreciated the nod to "Texas style" in many of the homes.  For example, this (hehe) lovely long horn topiary:

My favorite garden, though, was the last one we walked though.  The house was this fantastic little mid century style building.  And I do mean little, it only had one bedroom and the living area was quite small, though decorated impeccably.  Despite the house size, though, the owner was obviously quite affluent because the house was built on an expansive yard that overlooked one of Houston's bayous (basically a river - so waterfront).  The owner was billed as a landscape architect and it was obvious because the garden was beyond incredible. 

Definitely a fun, and unique Saturday adventure!