I absolutely love it when our designers are able to pair certain elements together in a landscape so perfectly that --suddenly -- without ever leaving Texas, I am transported to another time and place. This courtyard pairing at a home in Sunnyvale, Texas is a great example, as it instantly reminded me of the wild but traditional English gardens you find throughout Europe or, more specifically, a castle I recently visited in Ireland.

Landscaping, by its very nature, is illusion; and when you get a designer who understands landscaping and yard design on both an intimate and historical level, it can be like you are working with a magician, a master of craft, that through the seemingly simple combination of the right birdbath with the right surrounding elements, is able to almost magically produce for their clients a peek into another world.

In this regard, Covington's designer STEVE MALONE is a highly skilled illusionist, and in so many of his designs that I have photographed over the years, I walk onto the property and instantly forget that I am still in Texas.

In this photo, however, I learned that we don't actually sell the purple loosestrife that you see around the birdbath above. The general manager at COVINGTON'S NURSERY told me that we used to sell the hell out of it, but we can't anymore, because it turned out to be and invasive an unmanageable species. That's too bad, because it photographs beautifully!