Julie Blakeslee – Big Red Sun Austin

Zeroscape

Let’s talk about maintenance.

It’s up to us to make decisions about our own bits and pieces. When I first started visiting potential gardens with BRS, I had many a client ask me for a zeroscape. I always giggled knowingly at them, ha ha wink, we all know the word is really xeriscape – defined as a landscape that uses xeric plants. But, um. No. It’s come to our attention that there are folks who believe a garden needs nada. never. That we might guarantee their garden will never have weeds, nor frost damage, will laugh off drought, humidity, dog pee and drunken marauders. Never would it need a clip, or a pinch, a nip or full bush whack.

We quickly began to associate people’s garden maintenance requests with their personal grooming styles and I’m here to tell you- in our heads, we think we are spot on. So yeah, we are thinking about your bush when you are talking about bushes. Really. I’m not saying we all fall into strict categories- there is winter and summer grooming for us and our gardens agreed? But let’s name it to tame it- a little grooming all the time is just a good idea.

Speaking of- last spring I decided to rip out the Hades Garden. It was getting too expressive. Imagine that in a bikini? We were.

And truth be told, I’m feeling the need for some C O N T R O L. clipped tight clean control. Something that will do what I will it to do. And it’s a wee bit sad that I have a better chance of mother nature bending to my will than my two and a half-year-old.

Thus the new bliss garden.

at install last spring:

We used a few things we had hanging around the nursery and added pretty silver, blue, purple and yellow. And I’ve made it smell good- loads of lavender, so if I’m having a little melt down at work I just pop out into the new garden “to clip”. It gets clipped several times a week and it’s responding with vigor. Nicole Vesian said you can show your plants you love them by giving them a good clipping. This garden is an homage to her work with which I’m rather obsessed.

Voila. She is already putting out this spring after a winter of pruning and light fertilizing. We experimented with fertilizing the lavender all winter as it’s its growing season. And it’s about to burst forth with controlled lavender love.

I’ll tell you though- when a client comes in and says I want that… and points to the new Bliss garden. We have to say, wellllllllll. Will you love it and feed it and groom it weekly?

A bit more about the beauty of loving garden care.

Some of our most favorite-est projects are our gardens at Josephine house and Jeffrey’s. Larry McGuire loves JoHo to look like a rich woman’s yard and well… a-hem, we are here to make your techni- color dreams come true.

When we inherited the Josephine House property, it was feeling a little neglected.

Bravely brushing aside jeers “hey hey tutti-frutti” from other landscapers driving by- (that’s you Jeff Neal) we quickly put aside our innate snobbery about annuals and dug deep for our inner California housewife- little did we know, she rested very very close to the surface.
Now, we trip over one another to find the best color combos that can bedazzle and withstand the plethora of dog pee and Christian Louboutins popping about. And yeah, it needs bi-weekly love to look like this but so do you.

Slowly we’ve been asked to help other McGuire Moorman properties. Lambert’s is a particular love- minimal cowboy chic is our latest theme.

Yep even cactus need love and care to look their very best. Last spring we were asked to take on the beast of Perla’s on south congress. Dios mio- it’s hard out there being a plant- but we are getting her rhythm and we will thwart and stun the garden trespassers with our eye popping Long John’s Silver color theme. We have also been fortunate to add Clark’s to our constellation: “preppy plants please”. We do love how McGuire Moorman let’s each property find it’s own personality and we are honored to be working with them and the gorgeous By Georges as well.

Go East

The Violation made BRS do some quick and deep thinking about needing to move office. Brilliantly- Selena and Dylan founded BRS on the East side of ATX in 1994. After 22 years- the east side is a big part of the firm’s identity. Personally, it took me a little time to get my East Side on. But soon our neighbors were like family. The 6th street cowboy gives me a shout out.

When the churro trailer set up next door, I knew not to assume that they were frying this gringa up to serve to tourists. Or actual dogs for that matter. I stopped trying to find the home of every chicken I found wandering on the street and finally stopped bringing fabulous shiny piñatas to every party.

And when we looked in other parts of town to office- they just seemed a little too. too. not BRS. Thus our buckling down to try and stay put. Last week we took a trip to the history center to see if historically there was parking with this building.

This photo is from sometime b/t 1903-1914. But even before that in 1887 Kunz Groceries and Beer was on this corner. First street seems to have always been a mix of commercial and houses. It’s understatement to say that the history and politics of this neighborhood are very tough. After settling in our new home for a few years,

we arrived at work one morning to see our neighbors Sergio and Monica’s shop being bulldozed. This shit actually happens? I felt like a complete gringa asshole once again- never mind the fact that I had a yelling street fight with the new owner of the demolished building when he came to threaten me and my business the week before. The new owner told the Statesman — he wanted his building to be beautiful just like Big Red Sun. It’s confusing to become part of the fabric of this old neighborhood- we are valued in some ways but I’m sure also vilified for gentrifying. The CoA has contacted the business owners on Cesar Chavez about creating an IBIZ district- we sat in a CoA meeting and shuddered as we contemplated the city “solving” for “connectivity” issues on the street. This charming neighborhood has infected me. Last one in- shut the door to change. I’m sure that’s not the answer- but we do know that we have to honor this neighborhood, these neighbors and the changing city. And if the CoA is asking for our help- we’d be remiss to leave.

Violation

So- remember how shitty 2016 was? It ended for BRS with a parking code violation called in by one of our neighbors. As a result, the city has asked us to pave our courtyard garden to make it available for parking.

As a garden design firm, our garden is obviously an important part of our business identity. It’s also a hardworking space for our business-

For instance:

wait- there’s also a video (it’s worth a click)

This is just a day in the life of our hardworking garden. 2017 note- when someone comes and asks to film an underwear commercial in your garden ALWAYS say yes.

When we leased this building- the garden looked like this.

We cut the door into our space for loads of light and also so we could have a constant connection to the outdoors. Good for our soul and morale. Not to mention our baby plants- here grow our flower seeds we are starting for the Josephine house summer garden.

The courtyard has been a showroom/role model for our high end synthetic turf that we try and suggest to almost every client. This is an installation shot of the lawn.

We are a garden design and maintenance firm that does NOT own a lawn mower on principle. We have to have saved millions of gallons of City water from installing these all over town. It’s a big leap of faith for someone to put in a plastic lawn (!) so it’s great to have one that can be test driven.

Back to our violation–

The City’s request is for 9 parking spaces and a fire lane on the property that must be paved. PAVED?! the antichrist to gardeners.

The trashy little secret is that we do park in this courtyard and drive all over it…. storing trucks overnight etc. I’m telling you this turf is tough.

Thus after some major whining and flopping around, we’ve decided to take on the challenge of trying to abide by city’s needs while being green and staying beautiful in the process. We know the city also wants to encourage new thinking in terms of parking surface solutions, run off containment, heat reduction and tree health (note the heritage pecan at our fence line).

BRS will try and update our field notes here as we navigate the halls of our great city to find a kinder gentler alternative to paving the playgrounds of our scantily clad brothers and sisters, puppies, butterflies, bees and flowers.

“Meadow Mania”

So clearly having 2 chitlins has slowed mon field notes. It’s nice to be able to look back and see that the babies have made a softer and fuzzier me. And it’s not just my new baby fat and hairy legs. Long before they were twinkles in a petri dish, I had dreams of chubby little legs running through the meadow by our house. The details of not having an actual meadow fluttered way above my head. “Don’t worry sweetheart of a new hubbie, I’m a gardener- we’ll just make a meadow.”

Step 1- wait for the long abandoned and mostly waterlogged house next door to come out of trust.

Step 2- Bless it’s 1980’s soul and then quickly take it out of it’s misery.

Step 3- call friends at Native American Seed

Step 4- dazzle your new neighbors with tractors

Step 5- Voila- your new meadow.

Step 6-

Any of my fellow gardeners feeling a little fib in my pictograph? Think it went something a little more like this….

Step 1- agonize. fret. wring hands. argue about the property next door. Know that any new buyer will need 3 stories to get a city view- and an excellent view of our back garden and nekkid swimming.

Step 2- Secure next door property- knock it down and unleash a plague of rats on the entire neighborhood. starting with your own house.

Step 3- wait until the soil is perfect temperature, finally spread the seed

Install temporary irrigation, watch the birds convene daily to eat the grass seeds and then suffer 2 monster turd floaters that wash the majority of all the seed down the softly sculpted hill.

Step 4- re-sod with heinous squares of buffalo turf that take eons to establish

Step 5- finally get some grass traction- contemplate reverting to your father’s way of killing fire ants via pouring gasoline down the mound and lighting on fire. take refuge in Aztec Pest Control’s kinder and gentler way.

Step 6- crouch low when the city code inspector drives by frequently- has someone called me in for not cutting my lawn? Is there a code against having long grass? shouldn’t I know this somehow?

Step 7- Finally, get some luck, pull up the temporary irrigation after 2 seasons and get la niña!

I mean, was it worth it? Yes yes yes. I’m quite obsessed with it- I love it in the winter when it’s all gold and blowing. In the spring when it’s 5 bluebonnets and thousands of primroses bloom (the majority of the primroses at the bottom of the hill- ahem). Slowly, the other wildflowers are coming in- wine cups and other friends are self-sowing.

The second baby comes and what…is it hormonal….as we awaited Leon’s birth- in some weird nesting thing last fall I went out and dug in 100’s of flower seeds into the upper meadow. I’m telling you now that about 4 of them bloomed this spring.

So in a fit of maternal crafting this fall – Willie and I decided to make a butterfly garden in the upper meadow- with live plants. No more of this seed shit. And it isn’t pretty when the hormones have access to a planting crew, coincide with the native plant sale at the wildflower center & a need for some “alone time” in the nurseries.

I purchased oh about 150 4” plants. Willie and I dotted them all over the upper meadow & called my long suffering irrigation guy.

They came through my beautiful meadow and trenched to run temporary drip to the butterfly plants.

Is it worth it? Before we could even get the plants in the ground we had loads of butterflies. And watching the babies eyes light up is all that I had dreamed and more. Trust me hubbie- we’ll just “make a meadow. It’s what we do.”