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Gardens
from the Past
Did
your teen ask you to dish out $65 a couple of years ago for a pair
of bellbottoms exactly like the ones you finally threw out in
1979? If we all had
attics the size of Big Tex’s boots, we would never have to buy
another “new” fashion. And
if we live long enough, we are able to reach into our past and
pull out the perfect outfit for today. You can walk through any
city in Texas and see fashion out of
every era, from
the double
knit pantsuit of a grandmother to the double knit pantsuit of her
granddaughter. Although
made of the same material, neither would be caught dead in the other’s
outfit. But savvy designers use
what works from one era, give it a couple of twists and tucks, and say “THIS
is the new fashion.” And
if we were to walk down those same city streets, we would see that our
landscaping is much the same. We
either live in the past, dating our homes to a previous era, or we borrow from
the past to bring it into the here and now.
Texas
melds together an incredible mix of cultures, past and present, each with its
own distinctive flavor. But
from the beginning of its settlement by the European, the land here bucked
taming into the typical European style and therefore was modified into its own
Texas version.
SPANISH:
The gardens introduced by Spanish missionaries attempting to
Christianize the first Texans bore thick stone walls in arid sections of the
state, heavy timber walls in our eastern part of the state.
The enclosed outdoor rooms these walls produced gave protection not
just from raiders or animals, but from the elements as well.
Most of the day-to-day living was done within the walled area. Small gardens filled with food as well as transplanted native
trees were grown for their fruits, nuts, flowers and shade from the hot Texas
summers. And although the Spanish
eventually gave up on their quest to change the Native Americans, the changes
they brought to the landscape of Texas remains to this day.
OLD
SOUTH PLANTATION PERIOD: By the 1800s, the area around Houston thrived
with extensive plantations just as the rest of the Gulf Coast did.
An allee of oak or magnolia led up to the house.
Landowners, such as the de Zavala family whose plantation on the San
Jacinto at Lynchburg (where the San Jacinto Monument now stands) encircled
their homes with picket fences and gardens filled with color and fragrance. In
Texas, most of the plantation gardens relaxed compared to their northern
counterparts such as George Washington’s Mount Vernon home.
Because of extensive land holdings, the gardens need not be for food
anymore, but for enjoyment, although many did have kitchen gardens blended in.
The plants were usually in rows with roses shipped from distant lands vying
with herbs, annuals and perennials. These
were the predecessors of what we now think of as English cottage gardens. The
gardeners themselves were sometimes even shipped in from England to tend these
newly cultivated spaces. When that happened, as in the case of Eagle Island
Plantation in Brazoria County, the gardens tended to reflect a more European,
formal air. Mail-order services
were now being introduced offering plants from around the world, enriching the
previous canvas available to gardeners to almost limitless boundaries.
Tested, however, these boundaries again tightened as many of the
experiments ended in defeat. The expensive, mail-order plants grown easily in other
climates often failed miserably when tried in Texas.
GERMAN:
Using the distinctive, native white stone of the Hill Country,
homestead gardens of a new variety cropped up during the massive influx of
German immigrants in the mid-1800s. Still
seen today, especially around New Braunfels and San Antonio, these back door
gardens reflect a people’s ability to adapt, mixing edible with aesthetic in
well-organized spokes off of a center hub.
The paths that divided the garden might be crushed rock, white stone
slabs or swept earth. Although
intermingled colors sprinkled each section, the design pattern was precise and
clean, making the garden neat and tidy. When
not using the white limestone as a perimeter fence, cedar posts with sharpened
cedar post pickets were whitewashed to line the gardens.
Unlike their counterparts on the plantation, these practical gardens
were not strictly for show, although a novice plants person would be hard
pressed to tell the difference.
VICTORIAN
AND GRAND ESTATE DAYS: The Victorian period influence of the late 1800s
and then a few years later the wealth that trickled down from newly found oil
in Texas brought a move away from the plantation style garden - now thought to
look “messy” - and toward the type of landscaping that has remained
popular in America today. Angular or odd shaped beds filled with shocking
color, shrubs and trees in rather arbitrary locations used as specimens, and
everything else neatly tended lawn typified Victorian landscapes.
Planned and pruned, they evoked (and usually involved) the perception
of hours of maintenance: the homeowner must be wealthy because they either had
full-time gardeners or the luxury of time to do the work themselves.
In big cities like Houston, Galveston, San Antonio and Fort Worth or
Dallas, those who could afford to be fashionable in couture and décor wished
also to be fashionable in landscaping. The
affluent soon began building country homes, devoting huge budgets to artfully
designed gardens with structures such as arbors and gazebos littering a
well-manicured landscape. They could spend money on exotic plants from exotic
places and grew them at great expense to flaunt their wealth.
Whereas the plantation gardens simply put in mail order plants, these
new gardens were amended. Huge
holes were often excavated and more amenable conditions were contrived for the
exotics. Green houses were a
necessity. Native plants were
forsaken for the most part. Crepe
myrtle, azalea, gardenia, camellia, ligustrum and other mainstays of the
southern garden came out of this period, imported from Japan and China.
Miss Ima Hogg’s Bayou Bend in the River Oaks section of Houston is a
prime example of the estate garden, where the forest along the river was
pushed back to give way to many formal garden “rooms” separated by vast
lawns. Boxwood parterres around
the house led visitors through to each room, or surrounded specialty gardens,
such as roses. Still largely
thought of as “correct” gardening, this style has stayed with us, even
though the labor and resources involved in keeping an estate or Victorian
garden are difficult in our society.
ENGLISH/TEXAS
COTTAGE GARDENS: Poor Texas
farmers of the early 20th century had little time or water to
devote to lawns, and even less money to devote to exotic plants.
Not to be outdone, the country folk in Texas began using what God had
given them and stretching it to create their version of a new cottage garden
style, called “herbaceous borders”. Popularized
in Europe by an English artist named Gertrude Jekyll, what we now think of as
English gardens were probably in America at the same time, only without the
garden walls that the English are known for. (On east Texas farms, chicken
runs bordered with a picket fence and covered with climbing roses were about
as close as you got to a garden wall.) Identical
plants were put into “drifts” of color instead of rows as they had been
for Victorian bedding, massed according to the way they grew and would play
off of one another. Shrubs were
left unpruned and natural; trees and arbors were used as “ceilings” for
garden rooms. Instead of the
garish colors that permeated the Victorian era, soft pastels made up the
majority of the cottage garden and texture came to play almost as important a
role as color. Like the Spanish
mission, the German and the colonists’ gardens of the previous century,
native plants were taken from the wild; herbs, berries, fruits and vegetables
were grown for culinary and medicinal use; practical plants - such as
soapberry -
were treated as prized specimens. Fragrance played an important role as
well and favorite plants were once again traded among farmers’ wives just as
they had been in an earlier time in Texas’ past.
MODERNISM:
After World War II, an architectural movement from California began to
creep into Texas gardens. The tiny urban and suburban lots came to be outdoor
extensions of indoor rooms. Patios
with barbecue grills and picnic tables became popular and the boxwood
parterres of the Victorian and estate gardens were pushed up against the house
as “foundation plantings”. Many
kept the grass of the past era too, although the true modernist movement
fostered by landscape architect Thomas Church used swaths of evergreen plants
in separate beds for privacy from neighbors and more hard surfaces and ground
covers for lower maintenance.
Many
of us are hopelessly stuck in a period long gone: some out of ignorance,
others out of apathy. In
clothing, this may be a matter of taste.
But in a society of water shortages, twelve-hour workdays and
recycling, borrowing from the past might not be a matter of taste in the
landscapes of today. It might be
a matter of necessity. We
can use the tried and true plants that have made it through the fluctuations
of desert then monsoon conditions. Reintroduce
the native plants that once thrived without a drop of irrigated water or
special fertilizer; plant them in a way that is in keeping with the
architecture or sense of place. Learn
from the past and apply it to the future for a timeless landscape design that
is always cutting edge.
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