Buffalograss (Buchloe dactyloides) stands in for a traditional but thirsty St. Augustine lawn in this NW Austin garden.
Surrounded by typical suburban yards, this garden shows how to use drought-tolerant natives in a fairly traditional way. While it didn’t bowl me over with an unusual design or eclectic plants choices or a remarkable site, its value on a tour such as this shouldn’t be underestimated. Though it won’t wow the gardener who already knows and uses lots of native plants, it offers a nice example to people who don’t know natives and want ideas on how to incorporate them into a traditional landscape.
A lovely, tufty buffalograss lawn in the front yard enticed me to run my fingers through it, though my mother thought it looked too prairie-like. She’s a lawn traditionalist, it seems, but I adore the way buffalograss looks, especially in spring. Near the front door, a small courtyard contained Turk’s cap and other shade lovers, though it was a little sparse and in-between seasons.

In the narrow back garden, the buffalograss lawn shrank to one small oval surrounded by muhly grasses and a mix of groundcovers and shrubs.

Around front again, the decomposed-granite path seen above leads from the driveway to the shady courtyard and front door, bypassing an island bed with the most interesting feature in the garden: an old, bent and twisted tree propped on a pole. I neglected to ask the garden designer what it was, but it was certainly eye-catching and intriguing.
The designer is Judy Walther, president of Environmental Survey Consulting, and it turns out that she’s a neighbor of mine from a couple of blocks away. Who knew? (She and David Mahler, also of ESC, designed a more extravagant garden on the tour as well, at Skyline Drive.) Checking out the company online, I noticed that ESC designed one of my favorite features at the Wildflower Center—the Erma Lowe Hill Country Stream. It was a pleasure to meet Judy, and I hope to run into her in the neighborhood one of these days.
According to the tour brochure, this garden is maintained without the use of an irrigation system and with a heavy deer population. It’s a pleasant landscape that fits in with its traditional neighbors—and perhaps will persuade a few to convert their thirsty lawn grasses to low-maintenance native grasses when they notice that their neighbors never have to mow, fertilize, or water the lawn.
Tune in tomorrow for a tour of the two Maury Hollow gardens.