October 16, 2023
On Saturday I headed down San Antonio means for a Backyard Dialogues occasion led by Christy Ten Eyck, principal of Ten Eyck Panorama Architects in Austin, at a personal backyard she designed in San Antonio’s Hill Nation Village. Christy has lengthy been an inspiration for her design work* in Texas, Arizona, and past, utilizing a largely native plant palette and artistic water harvesting to convey nature again into over-paved or degraded areas. As her bio reads, “Christine has drawn upon her instinct and data to construct a physique of labor which celebrates the inherent great thing about Texas and the Southwest, the tradition of its folks, and the sacred path of water, pioneering modern regionalism within the Southwest.”
She is a rock star of panorama design, with a deep fan base amongst design lovers, together with myself.
Backyard Dialogues occasions are sponsored by The Cultural Panorama Basis (TCLF) all through the nation and permit attendees to find out about designed areas immediately from panorama architects, architects, and their shoppers.
Christy (center-left, in sun shades) greeted us on the gate and launched us to the homeowners, the architect Michael Imber, and different key collaborators on this multi-year challenge.
The 6-acre property greets you with charismatic stay oaks spreading their gnarled limbs above meadowy swaths of Berkeley sedge (not native however effectively tailored), fall aster, and inland sea oats, accented with whale’s tongue agaves and both sotols or blue nolinas.
The autumn aster was in wonderful full bloom.
That is limestone nation, and large slabs of it have been layered alongside the driveway, with Berkeley sedge and inland sea oats inspired to unfold beneath the oak cover.
A layer cake of ‘Powis Fort’ artemisia, limestone, and Berkeley sedge
A wider view
Visitor parking is alongside this beautiful bermed backyard with stay oak, fall aster, yucca, sedge, whale’s tongue agave, and ‘Blue Glow’ agave. Virginia creeper traces greenery up a limestone wall, with cut-out home windows and a wrought-iron gate providing views of the house’s entry courtyard.
Christy identified the masterful stonework of paths and partitions at a number of factors alongside the tour. The stonemasons have been the Francos — a household of 9 craftsmen, if I keep in mind proper — employed by residential building agency Truax Development. It was certainly beautiful.
The courtyard is a shady backyard room planted with Berkeley sedge, silver noticed palmetto, oakleaf hydrangea, and big ligularia below a cover of stay oaks. It’s neglected by a number of giant home windows and a shaded arcade from the storage to the home.
Palmetto and Virginia creeper
I want my very own Berkeley sedge regarded as fluffy as this!
A smattering of river fern, ‘Everillo’ sedge, and oxalis provides totally different greens and a contact of purple. Redbuds are included for understory spring flowers and fall shade.
Within the middle of the entrance stroll, a carved limestone basin holds a reflecting circle of water.
You may see the limestone water basin within the background, as seen from the arcade.
The arcade is constructed with reclaimed wood beams, as I recall. Lovely stonework with an arched doorway frames a view of a small outbuilding — previously a playhouse and now a crafting studio, I imagine.
A tile image on the wall affords a bucolic Outdated World scene.
Arched view
Yet one more glimpse of the entry courtyard, framed by a stay oak limb
Subsequent we entered the yard, the place a stone hearth helps a metal-grid roof, which vines are beginning to climb. In a 12 months or two they’ll shade the seating under.
A terracotta pot full of sedge and decorative cabbage makes a reasonably vignette.
Hearth patio
An olive tree stretches towards a pair of cushioned chaise lounges alongside what I feel is the visitor home. I like that light-blue trim.
A pair of carved hen heads marks both sides of limestone steps.
The patio overlooks a negative-edge pool that mirrors the sky — and our group.
Lovely blue Munder-Skiles Swan lounge chairs
From the swimming pool patio, elegant limestone stairs, planted alongside the sides and bisected by a rill, lead right down to a concentric-circles pool.
Tufts of sedge soften the pool, which is neglected by extra Munder-Skiles chairs. Fort Price panorama architect Lorie Kinler (she and husband Michael, co-owners of Kinler Panorama Structure, drove down for the tour) gazes on the scene, taking within the particulars.
Each patios — the swimming pool and the decorative pool — overlook a big, picturesque pond backed by a belt of bushes.
Cattails body a view of a stone summerhouse within the distance.
Buttonbush enjoys a moist spot on the pond’s edge.
The first bed room wing of the home overlooks the pond from a treehouse-like perch below sinuous stay oaks. Beneath its upper-story porch, a trickling grotto fountain visually serves as headwaters for a stream that drops alongside ledges on its means towards the pond.
Alongside its path, a riparian backyard of grasses, palmettos, and bald cypress provides greenery and motion.
A gravel path leads across the pond to the limestone summerhouse. A flagstone patio with a metal firepit affords a marshmallow-roasting spot close by (the place I’m standing as I take this photograph).
The inside of the summerhouse is gorgeous, with one other tile image creating a way of depth together with thick-walled window openings.
I feel I might stay right here on cool spring and autumn days. Think about the bird-watching alternatives on the pond.
Christy speaking about these large limestone slabs that lead throughout the marshy finish of the pond
Grasses and daylight
On one facet of the pond, a willow grows straight out of a rock marooned within the water. You couldn’t plant something higher on function.
Because the tour wrapped up, the annular photo voltaic eclipse was making itself recognized. San Antonio was within the path of totality, though in an annular eclipse the sky doesn’t go darkish. As an alternative the sunshine went flat and peculiar, and all of us donned the foolish however protecting eclipse glasses the tour organizers supplied. Listed below are Christy and my buddies Cat and Jean staring on the solar because the moon slowly slid throughout it.
The homeowners allow us to keep to observe the eclipse from their driveway. Shadows on the courtyard wall quickly caught my consideration.
The bushes have been filtering gentle like a pinhole digicam, creating shadow photographs of the solar because the moon crossed in entrance of it, making little crescents in every single place. It was fascinating.
You may see crescent shadows on the bottom contained in the courtyard gate. Discover the scrolled stone detailing on the high of the doorway.
Photo voltaic crescents on the limestone basin
1,000,000 little suns was crescent moons
What an enlightening tour, in each sense! My because of Christy and the opposite architects/designers who led the tour and particularly the beneficiant homeowners for opening their personal backyard to us.
*A few of Christy Ten Eyck’s initiatives that I’ve photographed by means of the years: her private backyard, the landscaping at Resort Magdalena, the Scottsdale Xeriscape Backyard, Pease Park’s new Kingsbury Commons, San Antonio’s The Pearl plaza, the grounds of Arizona State College’s Polytechnic Campus, and the Household Backyard and Culinary Backyard at San Antonio Botanical Backyard.
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Come find out about backyard design from the specialists at Backyard Spark! I set up in-person talks by inspiring designers, panorama architects, and authors just a few instances a 12 months in Austin. These are limited-attendance occasions that promote out shortly, so be part of the Backyard Spark e-mail checklist to be notified prematurely; merely click on this hyperlink and ask to be added. The Season 7 lineup might be discovered right here.
Tour a number of Austin gardens on Saturday, November 4, on the Backyard Conservancy’s Open Day tour for Travis County. Tickets should be bought on-line prematurely and can be obtainable starting September 1st.
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