Design

Heading off to attend the Garden Writers Association annual conference in Dallas, I took a pre-conference detour to Austin, Texas, where I grew up.  Austin is a great city, but not the place that I remember.   My mom's house (our family home) was in Northwest Austin, but my dad (and his wife) and my sister (and her husband) now live well outside of anything that I'd call 'in Austin' today, outside the Highway 360 loop. Lobelia cardinalis along Hill Country Stream I mention this in talks; where I rambled as a young teenager, poking around in natural landscapes, is now completely developed.  From where our family home was, once open space, is filled with houses to where my sister lives, a considerable distance away. But, I was encouraged by the sense of place that many residential and commercial landscapes had.  Central Texas sees the convergence of the Edwards Plateau,  black land prairie and other ecosystems.  It makes a great mix, both for vegetation ...