NORTH OF TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Many think that a visit to your local botanical garden is a place of escape. Surround yourself with all that is green and flowery, soak up some of the best in urban landscaping. For me? Plus a stroll through my local plant lab.
It’s no hidden truth that most of my garden is a best estimate of someone else’s success. I see, I imitate. Sometimes, while mixing other people’s ideas, I come across a semi-unique version of mine. It could be more born out of a habit of confusing several new information streams in my head and making a stew instead of duplicating a dish. By the way, the above points also reveal the secret sauce to the patent generation monster that is the United States. Just put a curled up mass in a big pot and add some fair opportunities and a little grain to it. Diversity is a visual force and sustainability in any landscape; it is a generator of ideas in an open society like ours.
In any case, I digress. A visit to your local botanical garden or a well-maintained urban space is a lesson in what grows in your area. The demonstration garden at the back of the Fort Worth Botanical Garden has been around for decades. Come back there and choose a few of your favorite plants to try in your garden. You know they are working in your area when you can see them growing (and hopefully thriving) right in front of your eyes. I also turn my training rides on my bike into information gathering missions as I do my miles through my local neighborhoods. If he catches my eye, I take a photo. Sometimes I get lucky and the gardener is in the yard to answer a few questions. I have never met a gardener without wanting to talk about what he grows and what he has learned. It’s part of the credo.
During my walk in the demonstration garden with Steve Huddleston, I got him to talk about some taller summer flowering plants. I already have the Orange Zest Cestrum and the Rock Rose growing in my garden (an idea planted during a previous visit to the same garden). I think I have a place for the Phlox. Ideas flow, the garden is bubbling. Visit your local botanical garden often for ideas through all seasons.