Pittosporums and palms zapped by February freeze at Zilker Botanical Garden
The damage and plant kills at Zilker Botanical Garden stunned me when I visited a week and a half ago. No garden in Austin was spared during February’s Big Freeze, and of course our public gardens weren’t either. But I still wasn’t prepared to see the ancient, twisted pittosporums in the Taniguchi Japanese Garden looking like a fire had swept through.
Taniguchi Japanese Garden
This is how the garden always looked during the two decades I’ve been visiting: lush and green, with paths winding behind cascading limbs of giant pittosporums clinging to the rocky hillside above the ponds.
And now, bare and exposed.
I first came across the pittosporum that gracefully hung over the waterfall, which used to look like this.
Not anymore. I stopped in my tracks and gasped, “Oh no!” when I saw an amputated stump where that beautiful, old shrub sprawled for so many years.
From below the loss is equally tragic. Here it is before…
And here it is after the freeze, all the mystery shorn away.
Of course there’s still a lot of greenery in the garden. It was just a shock to see those beautiful pittosporums brown and dead, or entirely gone.
Hartman Prehistoric Garden
With trepidation I headed to the Hartman Prehistoric Garden, always the best-planted and best-maintained garden at Zilker, to my mind. Sad, brown palms greeted me.
Decapitated cycads and more brown trees lined the paths.
The cycad collection used to look like this.
Now it’s just stumps. I fervently hope these will grow back. I’ve seen sago palms releaf months after being frozen back, but of course this was a much colder and more prolonged freeze.
A thicket of palmettos edges a pond, or used to.
Now it looks like this. I see a few green fans of leaves in there, so maybe it’ll grow back.
Survivors
Texas dwarf palmetto (Sabal minor) is still green, happily. It sailed through that freezing week in my own garden too.
And look at this mock orange in gorgeous bloom! Only certain plants were harmed by the freeze, after all, and plenty of plants are in bloom and growing strong. While I’m sure the damage has been devastating for the gardening staff, I’m also sure they’re moving on by this point and already making plans for the affected areas.
Zilker’s future
What they need is funding — not just to repair freeze damage, but to turn this perennially underfunded and understaffed garden into the jewel it should be. Why the City of Austin hasn’t prioritized funding for this tourist mecca located near downtown Austin is beyond me. And why haven’t any of Austin’s tech billionaires stepped up with a generous endowment via the Zilker Botanical Garden Conservancy? I’m looking at you, Michael Dell, Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, and newcomer Elon Musk.
Think about this. Isamu Taniguchi toiled alone at age 70 to create Zilker’s Japanese Garden with his own two hands, for zero pay, as a thank-you to the city for his sons’ education and as a symbol of peace — and this was after he’d endured years in internment camps in Texas (yes, Texas) and California during World War II. If he could do that for Austin, we can surely honor his creation and ensure Zilker Garden is well-funded and blossoming for years to come. Go visit. Become a member. Give a monetary gift. Become part of Zilker’s future.
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Digging Deeper
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Yes, we finally admitted this weekend that our decades-old pittosporums are not coming back. We had one in the back yard that rivaled the waterfall one at Zilker. Alas.
I’m so sorry, Astra. That’s a painful loss.
I share your dismay and sadness over the impact to Zilker, Pam. I hope it can be restored to its former glory.
It’s a much-loved garden here in Austin, Kris. It needs a lot more funding to get it to what it could be.
What a lose for Zilker Park! I lost my old variegated pittosporum too but it didn’t have pride of place like the ones at Zilker. Let’s hope you’ve set a fire under someone to rescue the Park and bring it back better than ever!!!
I would love for someone, or many someones, to read this and realize what an impact they can make in helping this beloved garden, and give it new life for the future.
Thank you so much Pam for calling out the tremendous need for the community to help fund Austin’s little green jewel!!! It blows my mind that people with means have not stepped up more to help out this little treasure of a botanical garden!! It only costs $6 to get in! $5 if you are 65+. They do what they can with what they have but there is such potential to be something world class and they need help. The snowpocalypse has been devastating for the garden and they do what they can but the Garden absolutely needs donations, volunteers and members to keep it going and keep it thriving. There is an incredible plan for its future! Thank you for using your platform as a mechanism of support for the garden! Please consider becoming a member and joining the Zilker Botanical Garden Conservancy. It is only $50 a year and has major reciprocal benefits and gets you in to hundreds of other botanical gardens across the country. https://zilkergarden.org/memberships/
There IS an ambitious plan for Zilker Garden’s future, and many people are working hard to bring that plan to fruition. They have fundraising goals that must be met to make ZBG the destination for visitors that it really should be. Memberships and visitor fees are essential to help ZBG cover costs, but a big gift would go a long way to ensuring its future. I have hope!
Thank you so much for informing & challenging us, Pam! I wasn’t familiar with the history of the Taniguchi Japanese Garden or the Texas Monthly article & related book. I’m so glad to learn about this–thank you!
Isn’t Taniguchi’s story amazing? The gift of his creation (the Japanese Garden) is even more meaningful when you learn what he went through at the hands of our country, which is of course also the country he loved and called home.
Perhaps the greater interest in gardening during the pandemic will build more interest in local treasures like the Zilker Garden.
I surely hope so. I look forward to the day when they no longer require reservations to visit (a covid rule), and one can spontaneously decide to pop into the garden for a visit.
This breaks my heart. The prehistoric garden was my favorite, so much so that I dragged my husband there after the Fling. I was just looking at my photos from it. 🙁
All those wonderful palms, right? Some, I hope, will recover. Others I hope they can find the money to replace.
I am in Dallas and we did not lose our dwarf variegated pittosporums (I think “mojo”). A few brown leaves but no damage. I guess they are slightly more cold hardy?
Sounds like you were very lucky. Or perhaps they were buried under snow cover, which insulated them?