The Diana Garden

Miss Hogg's elegant integration of house and garden can be most fully appreciated in the Diana Garden. She created an outdoor "room" defined by walls of evergreen yaupon hedges that separate the garden from the natural woodlands beyond. Reminiscent of Italian Renaissance gardens, the Diana Garden is a model of classical simplicity.

The evergreen hedges in the garden are highlighted by seasonal color from pink-flowering plants that pick up the color of the house. In February magnolias are in bloom, in March and April azaleas appear, and crepe myrtles bloom in June and July. The distinctive columnar trees behind the statue are Japanese yews.

Framed by the native bayou woodlands, the Diana Garden provides a magnificent vista from the north terrace of the house. The pink flagstones that pave the terrace floor were removed from the sidewalks of downtown Houston when they were being "modernized" with concrete in 1927-28, and a more recent use of salvaged materials can be seen in the gracious walkway along the west side of the terrace that was created in 1968 using antique pink brick from a demolished building.