What I did on my summer vacation. No, make that, what I did on my spring vacation: Went to Austin, TX. Yes, I remembered to take some snaps to share with y’all. Didn’t bring you any barbeque or ice cold Shinerbock. Sorry. Pictures is all ya get.
I was participating in the first ever annual Garden Bloggers’ Spring Fling thing in Austin TX. With 35 fellow garden bloggers, we started the morning with a docent-lead tour of the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center and the Texas bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, yellow columbine and pink primroses bloomed as if on cue. Suhweet!
The Center is one of the best designed botanical sites I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. I especially liked the true Texas flavor of the preserve: the architecture and landscape architecture pay homage to the three main groups of Texas residents: the native and Mexican peoples, the German settlers and the ranch families. The entry building is a gorgeous limestone water cistern meant to celebrate the lifeblood essential to Texas land use: WATER. Rainwater is harvested throughout the property and carried via metal aqueducts to other buildings and other plantings. The metal roofs of buildings increase the ability to gather water during typical Texas rain soakings.
Texas limestone is the bane of many a gardener but an abundant and beautiful indigenous building material. The German settlers used it to build their farms and settlements. The humble, affordable and industrial corrugated tin is used for roofing and siding on some of the buildings as it was on working farms and ranches. Shade structures are made of branches and woods harvested locally……as they have been made for hundreds of years.
Next up, Austin’s famous Natural Gardener Nursery. The nursery has several demo gardens, I have included the poppy field and a couple of shots of the veggie garden. This place is all about color. Jeeeeez, I hate that. Not. I so wanted to bring home the copper globe mallow, pink actually, oh, I wanted it. Alas, the smallest they had was a one gallon container and I am so over the idea of packing plants on planes, especially one gallon plants. Arrrrggggh.
Back to the hotel to put up our feet for about three seconds and then to our hostess extraordinaire’s home for Texas-tinis and consumables. Our hostess, Pam, from Digging, has a delightful home, art I want, and makes a mean cocktail. I intend to shamelessly copy her blue bottle tree! Take THAT Boise! I know it is derived from Southern spiritual tradition (wards off evil), but if any body needed to ward off evil, it’s me. Some of you are aware we are in the war of our lives against the evildoers.
And let me tell you something. These folks are garden communicators. And man, oh, man, can they talk! You shoulda been there. To be continued…………
11 responses so far ↓
1 Carol, May Dreams Gardens // Apr 10, 2008 at 6:40 pm
That sure was some weekend, wasn’t it? I’m glad I was there, and got to meet you in person.
2 Kathy Purdy // Apr 10, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Hey, that Pictobrowser works really great! I must have been sleepwalking at the Natural Gardener. I don’t remember that colorful shed at all.
3 Mr. McGregor's Daughter // Apr 10, 2008 at 8:14 pm
For a bunch of introverts, we sure can talk. It was great meeting you. I too looked longingly at several pots of plants, but my rule of thumb was “if it doesn’t fit in the carryon, it doesn’t come home with me.” I long for the good old days of airtravel when 2 or 3 carryons weren’t a problem.
4 Annie in Austin // Apr 11, 2008 at 11:29 am
Had to go look at the Wildflower Center entry for the Copper Globe Mallow before commenting - too bad you couldn’t bring one back.
It was fun seeing all the color at Pam’s, the Natural Gardener and Lucinda’s, but boy my dark green/white garden shed and furniture looked plain when I got home.
MA, your Northern bottle tree could have an Idaho slant if you use bottles from Idaho-potato vodka ;-]
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
5 Rachel @ in bloom // Apr 11, 2008 at 11:53 am
Wow, I really like how streamlined your pictobrowser is. Great recap of the Spring Fling! It was nice to meet you.
6 karen // Apr 11, 2008 at 2:07 pm
That’s a lovely post on Spring Fling and GREAT photos. If I may ask a technical question, what is that photo gallery you are using? I really love it. Is it a plug-in? Thanks!
7 Mary Ann // Apr 11, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Hi all,
The clever little photo strip is called pictobrowser. If you have a flickr account, you can use picto. You can click on the picto in my post, and it will automatically ask you for your flickr name. Then you upload the sets you want. You can also adjust the appearance of the set.
I just happened to find it a couple weeks ago after I had spent DAYS trying to upload images into WP. It is lightning fast and I am really glad you liked it.
I will be adding a couple more sets from Spring Fling, part 2: after the Texas-tinis. MA
8 Linda MacPhee-Cobb // Apr 12, 2008 at 9:25 am
What cool photos, I love all the color in them.
I’ll be looking forward to the rest of your Spring Fling photos.
9 Dee/reddirtramblings // Apr 12, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I want a pictobrowser. You’ve been changing things again.~~Dee
10 Pam/Digging // Apr 13, 2008 at 5:23 am
Wow, you were paying attention during the Wildflower Center tour. Good factoids and pics. Thanks also for the photo of my drink table because I really wanted a picture of that lovely sunflower-iris bouquet that was given to me.
11 Layanee // Apr 14, 2008 at 4:29 am
Great pictures! They are all delightful and each gardener/photographer has taken just a little different view which helps weave the gardens together piece by piece. Thanks.
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