If you're making the blog rounds you know about the Austin Bloggers Field Trip to Peckerwood Gardens arranged by the lovely Diana of Sharing Natures Garden...we had a blast! Well, my idea of a blast...strolling the grounds of an artists dream, where every turn brings soft grass corridors lined with intricate textures, modern art, majestic oaks of every flavor mounded atop carefully designed contours. No thought left to Mother Nature...except of course the brilliant design of each healthy specimen. It was like the adult version of Willie Wonka's Chocolate room, remember the magic? Had I a nice organic Cabernet it would have been that for me...no Verruca Salt to boot.
When I got back to my tiny Crestview plot I wasn't as depressed or sad as I thought I might be.
My garden doesn't compare to the grande scale of Peckerwood, or any other arboretum, conservancy-fancy-schmancy work of living art, but it does look like me. Recycled yard art, unfinished projects, messy animals, work galore...it's where I am right now, and that's all I have time to do. I wish I had two full time gardeners and 40 acres...hmmm, what would I do different? That's another storey, but to start with...I'd make up a name. "Peckerwood" comes from the old 1955 novel by Patrick Dennis, it's a one liner referring to where Mr. Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside is from. My step-dad called anyone who disagreed with him a 'peckerwood' and it always raised a snicker. Apparently the name was coined in the early 1900's by blacks in the south who saw themselves as blackbirds and poor-working-class whites as wood-peckers because of their boisterous behavior, later being reversed as 'peckerwoods.' Today the white supremacists proudly call themselves peckerwoods and their female counterparts featherwoods. This wasn't such a pleasant finding...put a damper in my sunny afternoon, but got me thinking about what's in a name.
That being said, I was swimming in all those blasted botanical names that just rolled off our guides tongue...I ended up buying a baby cactus...neobuxbauhmia polyopha, say that three times. Still doesn't stick. It looked like a prickly pecker and made me giggle so I bought it, even though I couldn't say his botanical name, I just call him Peter.
Our tour lasted a short 2 hours and I could have stayed all day and watched the stars come up. It's outside of Hempstead about 2 hours east of Austin off 290, hardly any light pollution and I know the evenings must be glorious. Before you head out for an inspiring day trip, you need to check their website because they are hardly ever opened to the public and kids under 12 aren't allowed. It's pretty prickly, no pun intended.
Here's some of my view:
Punk Rock Cacti
Artichoke looking thingy
One of the many organic curvilinear edges
Knees.
Cute as a Button Cacti
This was just impressive and massive
Rock Plants
Magical texture
Magical texture with peckerwoods
Blogging hat ladies
Wisteria making love to a poleThe real history of the garden and it's founder John Fairey can be found on the website. I'm afraid if I upload anymore shots it'd spoil the trip! I'll leave you with just one more image from Peckerwood Gardens:
I was unable to find the artists name on this one...Happy Gardening
