Join the Heights Garden Club for our July Garden Tour: Jeff Law’s Jardin de Sharpstown
Many of us know Jeff Law and his beautiful, colorful landscapes. Now, we have the opportunity to see his own private paradise in Sharpstown. This exclusive excursion is free, so bring a friend!
We will also see his unique home since that is the way to the back garden. We will carpool in a caravan right from the Heights, so meet us in the church parking lot at the corner of East 16th. and Heights Blvd. at 9:15 AM. Or if you’d prefer to meet us there: Off Southwest Freeway, take Beechnut exit going East until you reach McAvoy Dr., take a left. Next street is Hazen, you are there.
Additional information on his garden can be found at www.heightsgardenclub.com.
From the artist himself:
Jardin de Sharpstown began in 2011. I have been on several tours; the last garden tour was with the Nature Conservancy. The loose and rather wildly expansive gardens here are sited within a fairly large lot that once was entirely grass and some exhausted shrubs that were on life support.
A massive Shumard Oak sited in the middle of the front yard was my starting point on what to do next. There is a nursery of plants growing under its shade today. Most of the huge trees toppled during hurricane Ike in the back and side yards.
They’ve been entirely revamped with a small hill in the middle of the space, a little stream built into it, descends into a pond. The change in elevation was the result of adding a new room and planting so much, the dirt was not hauled off to the dump, but left for me to play with, like I did with dirt piles when I was a kid.
The front, back and side gardens are as diverse as the Hood has become. There are a few hundred varieties of plants. All perennial xeriscape types and many are natives. The soil here is hard rock in summer, and gumbo when it rains. I have not done much to ameliorate that at all.
Architecture merges with trees, bushes, flowers and vines rather symbiotically. The roof of the home itself covers only the interior living spaces.
