A Trip to Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

On a recent road trip to Texas, we were looking for something 
to do on a Sunday morning and found that 
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center 
was open and nearby.

( If you are not old enough to know who Lady Bird Johnson is,
she was the wife of Lyndon Johnson,
 who became president when John Kennedy was assassinated back in 1963.)

 One of the causes that was dear to her heart was to
 save native wildflowers and encourage others in the
 country to use them as much as possible. 

 When you see wildflowers  growing along interstates, 
they are there mainly due to her efforts.
  She said "We have impressive and valid reasons 
for using our native plants
---reasons of the soul and pocketbook". 

The most famous of her native Texas
 wildflowers is the Bluebonnet. 
 Normally, it would be abundant along the roadsides 
in Texas in April but due to the drought there this
 year, almost the only bluebonnets we saw were in gardens 
where they had gotten water by means other than rain.   

If you are ever near Austin, Texas, and you like gardening,

 you should take a trip to The Wildflower Center.

They have wonderful examples of how to use native 

wildflowers in fields and in gardens large and small.

The Display Garden section at the center shows that 
"whatever style garden you like, native plants provide the
 beauty, form, and texture you desire". 

The center teaches that native plants don't require as much
 water as conventional garden plants and thus saves our water resources.  Here are some examples from that area:

In very arid areas, a garden area could use texture and visual interest with sand and (something that looks like) sea glass
 (but I really don't know what it is exactly).

This was a mix a low-growing ground covers:

The center also had water features:

Even though I like to look at gardens, I don't do
 much gardening myself, so probably my favorite thing
 at the Wildflower Center was the beautiful use of 
native resources of logs and stone work there in 
the colonnades, buildings, and other structures.

                    My favorite structure was an observation tower. 

It featured a stairwell that had some treads on the 

interior and some treads on the exterior.

There were plants growing along the staircase and 

along the top wall at the top of the tower.

 

      Hopefully, you will find something in these pictures to inspire

       you in your garden no matter how large or small it may be.