While at Wimberley Market Days in early December to shop at my friend Cynthia’s booth, she told me about a must-see garden boutique in the town center called Ceremony. My friends and I made a beeline for it right after a catfish lunch along Cypress Creek.

Ceremony entices with exuberant and creative plant displays that spill off the front porch and onto a gravel patio along the street. The day we visited, a two-man band was playing guitar and singing on an elevated stage outside the store. Confession: I hadn’t been to Wimberley in a few years, and I remembered the shops as being, well, a little old-fashioned or Texas kitsch. But there’s an eclectic, hipper vibe these days, and I enjoyed exploring the whole area. Ceremony was definitely the highlight for this garden lover.

Cool planters packed with otherworldly cactus are parked out front, turning the shop’s exterior into a container garden.

Cast-off machinery and other metal objects stand like sculpture, awaiting your own creative repurposing. I coveted this metal ring propped up by a meringue-like chunk of limestone holey rock.

A big aloe looking cool in a cylindrical galvanized pot

Tentacle-like cacti droop from soil-filled niches in a juniper tree trunk. Every space around the shop is planted up.

A big metal funnel filled with cascading succulents makes a wonderful hanging planter.

On the porch, eye-catching displays of plants draw you in. Look at that gigantic metal spring-turned-pedestal!

Ceremony’s motto is “Respect the ritual,” which an article in the Hill Country Sun delves into:

“Jessica Brasher, who writes the blog for Ceremony, [says], ‘Plants are the reason any of us are here on this spinning globe anyway, [and] shifting the idea of caring for them from a chore to an act of service uplifts us all. It’s that small bit of daily care-taking that is behind the meaning of Ceremony’s mystical maxim.'”

Inside, several rooms contain shelves and shelves of potted plants…

…pretty seed packets and candles…

…pots and decor.

I adored these little terracotta face pots and bought one. Later I realized from the tag that it’s a mezcal shot glass made in Mexico. It now lives on my bar tray.

Ceremony carries a lot of houseplants…

…but I suspect their buyer most loves succulents and cacti.

An old sink or planter table is turned into a dripping water feature, with a white mannequin hand dipping its fingers into the pool.

Plants and pots and glass bottles for rooting

Chunky glass pot necklaces too

A display of terracotta pots and tillandsias in a back room

As the cashier rang up my mezcal cup, I noticed a horse skull with a tillandsia spilling from its eye socket.

A handwritten note explains: “This was Albert, an Irish Draft Horse. He was approximately 4 years old and lived in the 1860’s –Authenticated by Charlotte Cambridge, equine dentist”

Um, hello, Albert.

Back outside, I was drawn next door — still part of Ceremony? I wasn’t sure — to a collection of recycled architectural pieces.

There were also pipes and tubs clearly begging to be upcycled into one-of-a-kind planters, and more plants for sale.

Alongside the shop, a rusty-metal fireplace mantle leans against a stone chimney, with succulents and other plants creating a floral tableau.

All it needs is sansevieria flames where the logs would be lit.

I loved this, can you tell?

Over the fireplace, a distant cousin of Albert — a cow skull, in fact — hangs like art, with tillandsias tucked in like living hair ornaments.

Ceremony also offers botanical, event, and landscape design, according to their website. So check them out next time you’re in Wimberley, and remember to respect the ritual, my fellow plant lovers.

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Digging Deeper

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