Urban landscaping along Austin’s 2nd Street
While downtown recently for dinner, we walked along 2nd Street and the arched Butterfly Bridge and visited Austin Central Library, first stopping to admire the native-plant landscaping along Shoal Creek. Purple trailing lantana cascades over rock walls to brighten the late-winter garden.
More trailing lantana, which blooms reliably through much of winter. Behind it stands the library, which is well worth a visit, especially the rooftop garden and 2nd-floor reading porch.
The library’s Lake|Flato architecture is airy, inviting, and stunning. For more, click to read a longer post I wrote about the new library.
Back outside, a stroll across the Butterfly Bridge on 2nd brings you to a pair of massive owl sculptures, Kempelen’s Owls (click to read my post about them). The layered design of each owl echoes the layered tower of the Jenga building.
Strolling along 2nd Street to Numero28 for Italian food, I spotted this interesting planting strip, with what looks like shaggy sedge or maybe Korean velvet grass (Zoysia tenuifolia — zone 9, but in warm downtown, maybe?) under a trio of upright trees. The grassy groundcover mimics ocean waves, bringing a sense of movement to a simple, two-plant planting scheme.
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Digging Deeper
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Nice to see this garden sidewalk in the winter. It was one of my favorite stops during Fling.
I’m so glad you enjoyed seeing the library and its landscaping, Gail. It was a good place to kick off the Austin Fling.
Wow, that looks great–and is a big change from when I was living in Austin.
There’ve been so many changes just since we moved here.
Have you seen the plans for the Waterloo Greenway? Hopefully that will include some interesting planting once it’s complete!
I sure have, and it looks amazing. You can be sure I’ll be writing about it when the first stage is complete.
I am glad we had our first stop on the Austin Fling at the library. Remarkable part of downtown Austin.
I was happy we were able to share it with you all. It was very new then!
Trailing lantana – I’m not familiar with that but I sure like it.
It’s a beauty. Sometimes people just call it purple lantana. It tends to hold its leaves and even bloom in mild winters in Austin.