Austin: Wildflower Center, part 2 - in sun

In honor of Wildflower Wednesday, I return to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, a beautiful, warm place for an armchair revisit.

Being as how it’s Wildflower Wednesday (the native-plant-honoring meme hosted on the Clay and Limestone blog), now is a good time to resurrect my online journaling and publish the second half of my visit to the Wildflower Center. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, to be exact, in Austin, Texas.

This botanical garden and teaching facility is a lovely, warm place for a winter armchair revisit. So settle in for a long one…this is one of the longer blog posts I’ve written. You are forewarned, BUT this garden is worth it!

Returning to the Wildflower Center

After having missed most of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on my May 4 tour with the garden bloggers 2018, I returned with my husband and daughter after the conference, this time on a warm, sunny day. (On the first trip, all of us from out-of-state learned what an honest Texas rainstorm can be!)

My traveling companions this day:

L to R: myself, Joe Gass, and Emily Gass - Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, May 7, 2018

I was not alone among the bloggers who were excited to come back and see what the Center looked like—in sun. I caught a few in the background here, with Joe believing I was taking a picture of him. (Well I was. Sort of.)

In “Part 1,” I covered the Center’s entry and central plaza courtyard. It looked stunning in the pre-storm light of three days earlier:

Since I thoroughly covered that courtyard earlier, I skipped it now, knowing how fast I needed to move in order beat the high noon light. Just out of the plaza, one passes through a meadowy clearing with several themed components.

I chose the straight-ahead path, and entered the Hill Country Stream garden, a shaded glade devoted to Texas native plants.

The glade is shaded by several Texas native trees, most notably Quercus fusiformis (Escarpment Live Oak) which grows everywhere throughout the Hill Country, and ubiquitous throughout Austin. They make the city so beautiful. The photo above is all live oak.

In the oaks grow these epiphitic “air plants,” Tillandsia recurvata, or Small Ball Moss. Cute little buggers.

The paths crossing over the stream (a built water feature), effectively enhance stream. The creek-building craftsmanship is flawless!

The unobtrusive foot bridges highlight the water in a subtle way.

Even better are the stream banks. Creating the water’s edge with horizontally layered native stone, the builders effectively mimicked the natural limestone springs and stream edges from the surrounding country.

The planting pockets crafted into these stream edges were not unnoticed by me! I was charmed by the plants at water’s edge. The particularly frothy one is one of the Maidenhair Ferns. (I’m guessing Adiantum capillus-veneris?)

After the Hill Country garden, I passed through the Theme Gardens, laid out in their geometric grids in full blazing sun. I scooted through, as I had a long way to go before getting to the north side of the grounds before the sun got higher.

Agave americana, American Century Plant

The most famous plant in the Theme Gardens is a huge specimen of Agave americana, our native American Century Plant. It’s the size of a Volkswagon. The photo above will have to suffice, as I neglected to get a photo of the largest one!

By way of the Woodland Trail, I approached the north half of the realm, first crossing the creek (above), and then pausing every 10 feet to identify the trees in this arboretum of woodland natives. (Note to husband and other non-botanical family members, don’t wait for Alyse on these trails!)

I passed through some little meadows of the wildflowers this place is known for…

No rattlesnakes yet, y’all.

I’m guessing Englemann’s Daisy. Anyone catch me on this?

Eventually I emerged out into the back side of (what I’ve since learned is) “The Luci and Ian Family Garden.” It is a large area, and stretched beyond where I could see. I had not known of it before, so it was a happy surprise.

First I came upon this mosaic wall, named “Nature’s Spiral,” that’s fun to climb AND showcases the spirals of nature from sunflowers to shells to hurricanes.

Just beyond the mosaic wall, what is that in the hillside?

I was drawn in…

Pictograph art in the tunnel…waterfall clearly yet mysteriously beckoning beyond

This was my favorite part of the garden, approaching as I did from the back. From that side, the tunnel’s destination and purpose is mysterious. The pictographs inside surprised and delighted me, and beyond—that waterfall! What had been hidden, unfolded in a secret grotto. It was only “secret” for a moment, but I enjoyed that brief fantasy.

The place I had surfaced is named “Dinosaur Creek,” and it’s impressive. Obviously conceived by a community of people whole love this place, everywhere within the Luci & Ian Garden is thoughtfully imagined (and funded), from the big-picture on down to infinite small details.

This Google 3-D compilation shows the overall view of the Luci and Ian Garden. My approach from the back started in the upper right, and went counter-clockwise around the space.

This is the Dinosaur Creek water feature, as it winds down and around from the waterfall on the right.

Kids really were enjoying this place. I would think it would be endlessly fun.

There were little details everywhere. I loved their use of sculpture for the tactile experience of animals. The whole ecosystem is featured, in whatever way they can show it. (This occurred throughout the Center.)

The “headwaters” of Dinosaur Creek (even though they are really the out-take). It has the feeling of a giant dinosaur track.

I love how you can just step across the water.

Shade comfort. Looking toward the waterfall (dark spot in center left). The grotto tunnel is straight ahead. Multiple nooks!

Continuing around the huge family garden, there is NATURE PLAY of all forms. I took a particular study of the different areas, and how they achieved them, as I am involved with my local city’s advisory committee on parks. “Nature play” or “natural playgrounds” are The Thing. For a built environment, they’ve done them well here.

Instead of jungle gyms, climbing logs.

Birds nest play forts are as artistically/lovingly woven as a robin herself would do. This place is a little village of bird nest homes. Or forts, if you roll that way.

Horsetails, horsetails, everywhere. Austin is in love with them.
(The pavilion in the background is my next stop.)

In this open-air pavilion, I stopped to admire the walls’ patterns and the built-in amphitheater seating that also happens to be the building’s foundation. A good teaching space.
And then—above—what’s this?…

GASS FANS?? (Gass is my married surname. As my husband frequently has to explain regarding his last name, “Yes, that’s ass with a G.”) Upon closer look I realized my mistake. But hey, now I know what the Big Ass Fans logo could be, without its first two letters.

Outside the Robb Pavillion is a huge swath of Winecups, Callirhoe involucrata. Also known as Purple Poppy-Mallow. It was radiant on this day.

Purple Poppy-Mallow, or Winecups. And green cricket-y critter enjoying the center.

As the sun was now straight overhead, it was tough to get a good photo of the prairie/meadows east of the play area. Late to meet my family, I cruised through pretty quickly, but I grabbed a few shots of the more unusual things.

What a sweet plant this is! Even without much bloom yet.

It’s a Standing Cypress, Ipomopsis rubra, in the phlox family. New plant crush for me.

Yucca rupicola, common name of Twist-leaf Yucca. Another sweet one.

The ground looks good—yucca with the wildflowers scattered betwixt.

Meeting up with my family again, I spied Emily on her walk to the top of the Observation Tower. This cool tower is in the NW corner of the central courtyard complex.

On our way into the Wildflower Cafe for lunch, this Possumhaw tree captured me. Per the signage (Thank you, Wildflower Center!), this is an Ilex decidua. A holly native to the east coast. In the west, we don’t see too much of this one, but we should! That it can be grown this large, and limbed up into a tree, it’s an opportunity missed. This is my favorite form and size of a tree...

…and the berries are bright—a complement to both the leaves and the warm rocks of the building here.

The Wildflower Cafe, our lunch spot…

…has perfect Wildflower Center chairs!

“Crafted in Texas,” the underside says. Eagle Products, Houston.

The view out our window during lunch was this gaggle of sweethearts—school children, waiting in a line with their whole-body expressions of such perfect 1st-grade-ness. There are MANY outdoor school programs going on at the LBJWC. Austin children have it good.

Cooled down and sated, we emerged from the cafe back to the verandas that give such a great sense of protection to the plaza courtyard.

This glass sculpture, on the center axis through the courtyard, caught my eye. When the sun is angled lower in the sky, it would make an even bigger shadow on the surface below. It looked like water.

Looking down the axis of the central plaza

This is such a beautiful garden. The built elements and the plantings have harmony and eloquence, each the better for the other’s company.

From the viewpoint above, you are looking down the axis of the central courtyard. In the distance is the archway where we came in.
We are back where we began.

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Today’s Wildflower Wednesday blog-sharing is hosted by Gail Eichelberger over at ClayandLimestone.com. Check it out.

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