Join the Heights Garden Club for the October Garden Tour: The Stuart’s Garden at 702 E. 13th
The Heights Garden Club is set to enjoy one of the first cold snaps of autumn weather next Saturday morning on the October Garden Tour at 702 E. 13th, the garden of Christine and Larry Stuart. Christine and Larry Stuart have lived in the Heights for almost twenty years, previously in houses with shady and small yards. So when they had the chance to design and build a home with a spacious and sunny front yard, they opted for lots of color and variety. After years of planning, the Stuarts completed construction and landscaping of their new home in August 2016. They worked with Heights-based architects (and business members) McIntyre + Robinowitz to design a home that integrated the indoor and outdoor spaces, with the front yard leading to a decorative gate opening into a courtyard. Danny McNair and Amy Winstead of Glauser McNair recommended flowering trees and perennials native to Texas to serve as a base for their yard, with room to add additional seasonal plantings in the beds during the year. The family grows herbs and fruit on the side of the house and has plans to add vegetable beds behind the home in coming years.
Larry spent years as a child trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid lawn mowing duties. As an adult, he has come to appreciate the meditative qualities of gardening and the joy of satisfying Christine’s love of floral color. The yard includes flowering native Texas trees such as Retama, Texas Mountain Laurel, and Possum Haw Holly, as well as perennials like Salvia, Rudbeckia, Purple Cone Flower, Strawberry Bush, and Guaro, plus colorful annuals and flowering long bean vines on the front fence. Boulders in the yard provide spots for the family and its cat to sit and watch the butterflies and bees and listen to the birds. Use of select native grasses and Zoysia lawn created a green space with the feeling of movement, and, best of all, no mowing!
Please join this tour of the Stuart’s vibrant garden on what will hopefully be a crisp morning next Saturday!
