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A Grand Vision at Paripuma

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Cloudy Bay.  If you’re a wine-lover, that name calls up a memory of one of the finest vintages of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, a label we all wished we could afford, back in the early 1990s, when the world was discovering the allure of the green-skinned Bordeaux grape that the Kiwis grew and bottled to perfection in the Marlborough Region at the tip of the South Island. We drank our Kim Crawford and Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blancs, yes, but really wished we were sipping a glass of premium Cloudy Bay.  So the only disappointment my wine-collecting husband felt in our entire NZ garden tour was at NOT stopping for a tasting at Cloudy Bay Wines on our way through Marlborough. We certainly saw our share of vineyards in the region, en route to and from our stay in the Marlborough Vintners Hotel, some draped with netting to prevent bird damage…..

…… some newly planted…..

…… and some growing in their verdant, geometric patterns up the hillsides.

But Cloudy Bay is also a place on the map, and our destination this morning following our first stop at Barewood Garden was a spectacular property on the shore of the bay that Captain James Cook first named in English in 1770 for the cloudiness of its water, a result of the constant churning of the waves over the stony soil washed into what became known as Cook Strait, between the North and South Islands.  Cloudy Bay is now called by its Māori name, Te Koko-o-Kupe/Cloudy Bay, and we were about to visit award-winning Paripuma, a remarkable native plant garden on its shores.

We gathered in a courtyard behind a whitewashed house with simple lines…..

…. and listened to the owner and garden designer, Rosa Davison, talk a little about the property’s history and her own. Having grown up on a farm in the Waihopai Valley in a family that came to the region in the 1840s, she was drawn to the coast near the Marlborough Sounds where she’d spent idyllic childhood vacations.   Two decades ago, she and her husband Michael bought the property less than a half-hour south of Blenheim and moved there with three teenagers. Rosa called it Paripuma (Māori for “white cliffs’) for the famous bluffs nearby, and proceeded to plan her garden on barren paddock that ran to the sea.

We walked through the house onto the pergola terrace enclosed in vines….

…..and sheltered from the sun by gauzy, white shade canopies using dowels hooked to slide-wires. I loved this idea.

There were shells that told the story of life at the seashore: spiny murex, ostrich foot shell, starfish and others.

Seen from the bottom of the stairs leading to the garden, there is a simplicity and pleasing geometric balance to the house framed by the enclosing beds of native shrubs and trees, and a lushness to the palette of green and white.

Rosa had set up “before” photos of the property, and they added to the drama of what we were about to see. This celebratory picnic in 1999 (I love the carpet) heralded the beginning of her creative journey….

…and what stretched out before us with Cook Strait in the distance was its spectacular culmination.  It was as if André LeNôtre’s little bosquets at Versailles had drifted gently down onto this beachfront property under the Antipodean sun. But here at Paripuma, the formal placement of the gardens flanking the 300-metre (980-foot) central allée fulfills a rigorous ecological imperative: to grow a fairly restricted roster of native shrubs and small trees in order to encourage and sustain native wildlife. And though LeNôtre had gardeners to plant his bosques, Rosa Davison planted everything here herself.

The Google satellite view below shows how the garden’s formal central axis almost parallels the shore of Cook Strait, rather than approaching it on the perpendicular, as I’d imagined it had.

I made the decision to turn right to see some of Rosa’s small, enclosed gardens en route to the beach, so I could later approach the house via the big garden.  With a view of the Pacific Ocean in the distance, I walked under tree boughs…..

….. into a formal potager overflowing with leafy vegetables, squash, onions, herbs and berries.

Turning towards the sound of the ocean, I walked through a flower garden filled with familiar perennials – all good pollinator plants in my own meadows and grown here to attract monarch butterflies, which arrived naturally in New Zealand in the 1870s and are thus considered native.

Before long, I was standing at the water’s edge, gazing towards those cliffs that inspired the garden’s name, and the crashing waves that inspired Captain Cook to call it Cloudy Bay.  That’s all still South Island in the distance, with the Tasman Sea out of sight behind.
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But gazing the other way, I looked straight out toward the Pacific Ocean.

Looking down at my feet, I saw the smooth, wave-tumbled rocks that give a “shingle beach” its name. Shingles can range from fairly large cobbles to small stones, and are usually a mélange of different types of rocks.

As I looked back over the shore plants towards the house, it was difficult to imagine how barren this was just two decades ago.

Rosa is also planting natives between the garden and the shore, like this young kākābeak (Clianthus puniceus). And though she welcomes all animals into the garden, including rabbits, young plants are protected with sleeves to give them a fair head start.

Then it was time to explore the main garden.

Mown paths guide visitors between the various beds and invite close inspection of the natives, like the tall harakeke or New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) and carex species.

A few New Zealand Christmas trees or pōhutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) were still in flower.

And of course there was native hebe or koromiko (H. salicifolia), among many other plants in the various beds, including ngaio (Myoporum laetum), ake ake (Dodonaea viscosa), puka (Meryta sinclairii), coprosmas, cabbage trees or tī kōuka  (Cordyline australis), Nikau palms (Rhopalostylis sapida) and wire vine (Muehlenbeckia sp.)    She also grows the extremely rare, critically endangered Three Kings Kaikomako (Pennantia baylisiana), which I was able to see the next day at Otari-Wilton’s Bush Native Garden in Wellington.

I came to a small pond surrounded by plants…..

….. with a charming sign that describes its seasonal habitation by one of the many wildlife species that have made Rosa’s garden their own. With all the frogs in the pond, I can only imagine the night music at Paripuma.

Circling the pond, I came to the perfect little dock with one perfect little chair – and only wished we had more time so I could sit here for a moment to take it all in. Notice the view lines right across the central allée to the far side.

Wandering back toward the central path, I took a closer look at the big garden’s simple focal point, set in a small bed of poor knight’s lily (Xeronema callistemon) that had already flowered.

It is an antique whale pot once used at nearby Port Underwood for rendering down whale oil during New Zealand’s notorious whaling era. When the pots were in active use, mostly in the 19th century (including American and Australian whalers), the nation saw its native whales – especially southern rights, humpbacks, sperms – hunted to near decimation. In the years 1911-1964, not far from Paripuma on a headland in the Marlborough Sounds that flows into Cook Strait, 4200 whales were caught at one shore station alone, including the last whale ever killed in the country. Since 1978, whales in New Zealand’s 200-mile offshore waters have been protected under the Marine Mammals Protection Act. As a wildlife-lover and conservationist who supports the New Zealand Whale and Dolphin Trust, Rosa Davison’s whale pot is an evocative and stark reminder of those days, and of the threat that international whaling continues to pose to the country’s whales outside its protective waters.

I headed back up the stairs to the house, taking another look at a photo of Paripuma before the garden was made.

And then I gazed out over this truly amazing landscape once more. New Zealand’s Gardens Trust has named Paripuma a 5-star Garden of National Significance, but it is more than that. It is one woman’s vision fully realized: planned, designed, planted and opened for visitors to explore,  and enjoy.

***********

Planning a trip to New Zealand? There could be no better way to enjoy the scenery and wines of Marlborough than to return ‘home’ each night to one of the region’s most beautiful gardens. Paripuma is available to rent as a bed-and-breakfast, with varying rates based on the accommodation chosen. If we ever get back to Cloudy Bay to taste our favourite Sauvignon Blanc, staying here would be the first order of business.

Kellie O’Brien’s English Garden in Hinsdale

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The same August day that the Garden Writers Association (GWA) visited Susan Beard’s garden in suburban Oak Grove, Illinois, in Chicago’s western suburbs, which I wrote about in a recent blog, we were also treated to a stop at the Hinsdale garden of Kellie O’Brien.  We got our first peek through the boughs of a crabapple, part of the large mixed border surrounding her front lawn.

As befits Kellie’s design/contracting company, English Gardens, and the architecture of her home, the garden style here was formal, with clipped hedges containing all the ebullience of the borders, including many hydrangeas.  And there were lots of conifers to give interest during Chicago’s long winters.

But Kellie is known for her masterful touch with tropical plants that enjoy Chicago’s warm, humid summers. Have a look at this container with colocasia, chartreuse sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas ‘Margarita’), coleus and other foliage plants…..

….. and another nearby containing a tree-form angel’s trumpet (Brugmansia).

We headed to the back garden to meet Kellie. As I walked past this windowbox featuring magenta-leaved Persian shield (Strobilanthes dyerianus), silvery licorice plant (Helichrysum petiolare), trailing purple heart (Tradescantia pallida ‘Purpurea’) and silver ponyfoot (Dichondra argentea ‘Silver Falls’), it was clear that she had a deft touch with subtle colour combinations.

We walked down the flagstone path beside her house…..

….and in the back found more containers stuffed with colourful caladiums, coleus and other tropical delights…..

…. and an enclosed bed containing big-leafed alocasia.

There was a lion’s head fountain nestled in climbing hydrangea (H. anomala ssp. petiolaris)…..

….. and a seating area set into lush plantings of ferns, tropicals and beautifully-displayed container plants……

…. like that popular houseplant mother-in-law’s tongue (Sansevieria trifasciata), displayed as a stunning centrepiece surrounded by yellow lantana and a charteuse sedge.

Teak furniture with red cushion accents surrounded a table with a wink to “lawn furniture” – a circular doily of actual lawn!

There were more containers arrayed around the terrace. I loved the yellow allamanda mixed with pink begonias in this one, also featuring canna and alocasia….

Today, more than 45% of men after the age of 40 suffer from erectile dysfunction, a repeated inability to gain https://unica-web.com/archive/2017/unica2017-palmares-2.html buy brand cialis and keep sufficient erection needed for satisfying sex. It is a medicine viagra wholesale price used to give sexual desire to men who suffers from erectile dysfunction. Tension is a major feature of patients with get cialis prostatitis. Synthetic drugs: wikipedia reference buy viagra online or Sildenafil, viagra, buy viagra online or Vardenafil: The only approved chemicals for ED, unica-web.com, work in the office or home and execute any kind of work. ….. and the bright orange of the guzmania in this one…..

…. and the red allamanda picking up the colour splash of the caladium in this one.

Kellie had set up a patio table with refreshments for us, including iced red hibiscus tea. And she’d arranged one of the prettiest floral tablescapes I’ve ever seen, with green hydrangea blossoms set atop hosta leaves.

Then she took a few moments to tell us about the garden and her history of getting into garden design. She mentioned that the garden was often used to host fundraising events for the school that she started in Tanzania, the O’Brien School for the Maasai. As we sipped our drinks, she related how it had come about.

(I have quoted most of the following from the history section on the school’s website. “

In 2006, Kellie and her daughter, Heather, traveled to Tanzania to go on safari, climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, and volunteer at a convent in Sanya Juu.  While there, they asked the Sisters for any other projects they could help with.  The Mother Superior at the time, Sister Dona, told them: “There is a Maasai man named Gabriel who keeps coming to us asking to help his village with a school.”  When they visited the village, they were greeted by 150 members of the Maasai tribe.  A few men stood before Kellie and offered their most prized possession, their land, to her if she vowed to build a school for their children. As Kellie looked around at the many children who were at home during school hours, she and her daughter knew what they must do.  They discovered that their real purpose of their trip to Africa was to give the children of that village hope for the future. Ten days later, they returned to the village and designed the school on the back of an envelope.  When they left Tanzania just two days later, concrete blocks and sand were already in place to begin construction.  They are now at their student capacity of 420, ninety percent of whom are Maasai, and celebrate graduating classes each year.

Our thirst quenched, it was time to explore the back garden, via a beautiful cobble pathway through shade plantings…

…where an island bed (or maybe ‘peninsula bed’ is a better term) extended into the lawn….

…. and featured beautifully-grown hostas under the shade of big trees.

I adored this rattan chaise lounge, and could imagine bringing a book out here to nod off reading…..

…or maybe relaxing on this Luytens bench…..

But Kellie isn’t only about tropicals and manicured hedges in her garden. She had a lovely little potager at the very back, its paths mulched with straw dampened from the rain, and vegetables growing in abundance….

…. including cherry tomatoes tied to handsome stakes.

Then it was time to say goodbye. And this is a good time to say “Thank you” to all those people, like Kellie, who generously open their gardens to passionate fellow gardeners so we can look and learn and enjoy.

An Illinois Flower Garden

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One of the joys of participating in the annual symposium of the Garden Writers Association (GWA) is the opportunity to tour local gardens. It’s especially fun to visit private gardens where the owner is clearly a long-time, passionate gardener – and the garden is big enough to accommodate a few busloads of visitors at a time. That was the case in August when we visited Susan Beard’s wonderful 3-1/2 acre garden in Oak Brook, Illinois, in Chicago’s western suburbs. Though the Beards have lived on the property for 37 years, the frame house is one they built in 1996.  And the welcome couldn’t have been more flowery!

Flanking the driveway was a sea of blackeyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta) – the old-fashioned biennials, not the fancy perennials.

The entrance to the back garden at the end of the driveway was announced by a bench, birdhouse and picket fence…..

…. and a planting of ‘Queen Lime’ and pink zinnias and butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii).

I loved this chartreuse and magenta combination!  And this was just the first of scores of birdhouses in Susan’s garden.

Inside the fence, the garden dips steeply to one side via flagstone steps.  On the stairs, ‘Margarita’ sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas) was deployed as a brilliant edging.

Down below I could see a lime-green Tiger Eye sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’) and a bridge over a damp part of the garden.

Here’s a closer look at the bridge.

There is dampness here…..

….. and Susan takes advantage of the moist soil with swamp hibiscus (H. moscheutos) doing its beautiful, late summer thing in shades of white….

….. and cranberry-red.

Back up near the house, zinnias are such cheerful flowers and Susan used them throughout the garden, including here as an edging.

The honey bees approved!

Around the corner flanking the house was another visually stunning edging of Japanese hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) – another one of Susan’s mainstays.  And I liked the way the flagstone pavers are set flush into the soft lawn, rather than forming just another hard surface.

Ahead was Susan’s swimming pool, set on an interesting angle and framed by a stone sitting wall and a split-rail fence with the main garden behind.  Long ago, the pool was bright blue, but she had it painted it black so it wouldn’t be an eyesore.

There’s a good patch of lawn here, but the main show is from flowers grown in a lovely, informal, cottage garden style.

The view looking into the back garden was an August tapestry of hydrangeas, summer phlox and blackeyed susans……

……… with the occasional obelisk bearing purple clematis.

This was the swimming pool view towards the house.

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We were welcomed into her kitchen with homemadc cakes and cookies!

But there was still much to see and I returned to the garden. I passed another birdhouse and more waterfall-like hakonechloa.  Although flowers create colour throughout the growing season, Susan has included lots of conifers in the borders for bird habitat and visual interest and structure throughout Chicago’s long winter.

A birdbath sits amidst blackeyed susans.

Then it was into the woods: a mature forest containing oak, shagbark hickory, ash and hawthorn……

….. and some lovely pieces of metal sculpture.

Susan has cleared away some of the understory here to create a beautiful shade garden.

There are lots of native ferns and buckeyes…..

…… and piles of firewood left in place (which attract fireflies).

Another lovely fish sculpture graces the forest garden.

When Susan’s six grandchildren were young, they played hide-and-seek on the paths through the forest and gardens.  And I’ll bet they loved this garden house.

With so much shade here, hostas are used extensively (300 varieties!), along with native plants like Solomon’s seal.

The compost heaps and nursery plant area even have their own gated section!

New plantings here are carefully mulched…..

…. with the abundant leaves shed each year.

Though the woodland is predominantly green, garden art supplies a little brilliant colour.

According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, the forest garden owes much to Susan’s late father, a retired U.S. Air Force general from Santa Barbara who needed a project when he visited long ago, so used a chainsaw to begin the process of clearing the edges of the woodland. And it was from her father’s garden that Susan brought back the naked ladies or surprise lilies (Lycoris squamigera) that were just moving past their prime in the photo below.

Soon we were out of the forest and back into the garden via another stone path edged with invaluable hakone grass…..

….. and found our way to the comfy teak tables beside the pool where we relaxed until the call to load up the buses that would take us to the next stop on our tour of Chicago’s beautiful western suburbs.

A September Visit to Bellevue Botanical Garden

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On our brief stop in Seattle in September, we paid a visit to Bellevue Botanical Garden. I had been to the garden years earlier and it was still enchanting — if only the weather had cooperated (she says, with a wink). For unlike most people who revel in a warm late summer day without a cloud on the horizon, photographers tend to gaze skyward hopefully for the chance of overcast – even a light sprinkle – because midday sunshine creates difficult, contrasty light in a garden. Nevertheless, that’s what we had and I was resigned walking in that I would be focusing on shadier spots in the garden.

This is a map of the garden, which I modified to show both the small keys and actual sections in one image. From their website a bit of history:  “The Bellevue Botanical Garden Society (BBGS) was founded in 1984, by Iris and Bob Jewett, with the idea to build and support a free public botanical garden for their local community. It came to fruition when Harriet and Cal Shorts generously donated their home and 7.5 acres to develop the Bellevue Botanical Garden (BBG). The Society was then incorporated in January 1986, as a non-profit organization. Beginning in 1992, and in partnership with the City of Bellevue, more than 45 acres has since been added to the Garden. Today, the 53-acre Bellevue Botanical Garden is a world-renowned community treasure for everyone to enjoy”.  

The entrance walkway features a unique in-ground rock fountain which feeds a rill that flows along the pathway.

Beyond is an interesting slatted wall fountain.

If you have a cellphone, you can use the Tap or Scan app for the garden.

The Fuchsia Garden has been maintained by Seattle’s Eastside Fuchsia Society since 1992. I could have spent a long time here shooting macros, but we had a big driving day ahead, so I satisfied myself with….

…. just one or two close-ups. This lovely blossom is ‘Delta’s Sarah’.

Then we were approaching the famous NPA (Northwest Perennial Alliance).Perennial Border, which is actually a series of parallel borders arrayed on a slope.  Though this is an older article, I appreciated reading about the history of the border. 

There are attractive benches throughout the garden…..

….. and interesting stacked stone sculptures (these ones in goldenrod about to flower.)

I wish I could show you the border as it should be seen, but in the harsh light I took very few photos.  There was an ebullient display of Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), Verbena bonariensis and blue mist bush (Caryopteris x clandonensis).

And out of the sun, I liked the way V. bonariensis insinuated itself into this heavenly bamboo (Nandina domestica).

Verbena bonariensis always attracts bumble bees, and since I do a lot of photography of bumble bees and all kinds of other native bees and honey bees, I stopped for a moment to watch a yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) nectaring on the tiny flowers.

Gaura (Oenothera gaura) was a cloud of tiny flowers.

The purplish-blue spikes of anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) made a pretty pairing with the gaura.

Rudbeckia subtomentosa ‘Henry Eilers’ is one of the late season charmers among the myriad yellow daisies.

I loved the way false hemp (Datisca cannabina) created a living arch on a path behind towering pink Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum ‘Gateway’).

Ornamental grasses are featured abundantly in the perennial border.

Bulbs are also used in the perennial border, like this tropical ginger lily (Hedychium coccineum ‘Tara’).

And the border features shrubs and small trees like crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia) ….

…. and hydrangeas, which were undergoing their beautiful late summer colour transformation.

Red-orange heleniums (H. autumnale) were attracting pollinators in one section of the border.


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In a shady section, below, I was charmed by this small vignette of hydrangea, brunnera and geranium……

…. and the azure-blue flowers of Gentiana asclepiadea cascaded over stairs between the parallel paths.

The cultivar name of this pure white toad lily (Tricyrtis hirta) is ‘Shirohohotogisu’, which means ‘white cuckoo’, a descriptive metaphor for the upswept petals.

On higher ground beside the lawn near the garden’s gift shop, I stood in the shade of the silk tree (Albizia julibrissin) and looked back at the borders below.

The silk tree was in full flower.

At the far end of the border, the Dahlia Display Garden maintained by the Puget Sound Dahlia Association was at its late summer best.

Who doesn’t love the brilliant colours of dahlias?

The bright sun on this dahlia suited the leafcutter bee just fine. (Bees love single-petalled dahlias!)

Even this southern green stink bug nymph looked fetching on an orange dahlia.

Since our schedule had us driving to the beaches of Oregon that day, we hurried out of the NPA Perennial Border area on a path through the forest. Here you’ll find the Native Discovery Garden. From the website: “The Native Discovery Garden, maintained by the East Lake Washington District of Garden Clubs and the Washington Native Plant Society, inspires visitors to look to the native plant palette when planning their home gardens. Adapted to the climate and conditions of the Pacific Northwest, native plants in urban landscapes can be ecologically sound, beautiful, and low maintenance. Adjacent to a natural wetland, this garden illustrates the many layers of plant life in the Northwest, from ground covers to trees. It serves as a transition from the gardens to the woodlands and forested lands to the south.” 

 

I stopped at a beautiful bench, sculpted from Washington state hexagonal columnar basalt by sculptor Barry Namm.

There were excited children watching the fish beneath the waterfall in the Shorts Groundcover Garden.

Water is used throughout Bellevue Botanical Garden, in inventive ways both natural and highly artificial.

I captured some of those water features in this short video.

To honor its ‘sister city’ relationship with Yao City near Osaka, Bellevue originally established the Yao Japanese Garden at Kelsey Creek Park.  In 1992, the garden was moved to the Bellevue Botanical Garden, where it opened two years later. This is the entrance gate.

Unlike many traditional Japanese gardens, there are lushly beautiful plantings here.

I loved this timber bridge.

But there are also the more traditional features of a Japanese garden.

We stopped briefly at the Tateuchi Viewing Pavilion, nestled under massive red cedars (Thuja plicata).  It was a gift from the Tateuchi Foundation, i.e. Atsuhiko Tateuchi and his wife, Ina Goodwin Tateuchi.

Then it was time to take the Tateuchi Loop Path to return to our car and drive south towards Oregon.

A Garden for Wildlife in Texas

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When the newspaper cartoonist and trailblazing conservationist Ding (Jay Norwood) Darling (1876-1962) established the National Wildlife Federation in 1936, he had conservation as his goal.  “Land, water and vegetation are just that dependent on one another. Without these three primary elements in natural balance, we can have neither fish nor game, wild flowers nor trees, labor nor capital, nor sustaining habitat for humans.”  Ruthie Burrus’s Austin garden meets those critera, and an NWF sign proclaims her intention for all visitors to see.

But it’s not really necessary to read the words on the sign, for you can discern Ruthie’s intent based on the masses of pollinator-friendly plants flanking the long driveway at its start near the road…..

…. and the painted lady butterfly nectaring on the mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea)…..

…. and the honey bee foraging on the blanket flower (Gaillardia pulchella)…..

…. and the cottage garden-style matrix of self-seeding, mostly native wildflowers and grasses.

For structure, Ruthie has used the “it plant” that we saw in almost every Austin garden, the beautiful whale’s tongue agave (A. ovatifolia).

Not every plant is native – brilliant, bee-friendly corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) have been incorporated, and self-seed regularly.

But the Texas natives do attract their share of pollinators, including this beautiful pipevine swallowtail butterfly nectaring on Hesperaloe parviflora, or red yucca.

There was lovely pink evening primrose (Oenothera  speciosa)….

And Engelmann’s daisy (Engelmannia peristenia)…

And lemon beebalm  (Monarda citriodora…

And rock rose (Pavonia lasiopetala).

The curving driveway’s retaining wall is draped with bee-friendly rosemary.
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When we reached the top of the driveway, we were treated to a tamer garden surrounding the Burrus’s lovely limestone home.

Ruthie Burrus was waiting for us there, ready to tour us around.

But even here, the plant palette was chosen to attract pollinators, like the honey bee on Salvia guaranitica ‘Amistad’, below.

In the shade, surrounded by ferns, was a water trough fountain with a slow-trickling stream of water cascading to the plantings below, then recirculated.

This was Texas hill country, and the view st the back of the house over the pool to downtown Austin was spectacular.

I loved the outdoor living room, protected from Texas gullywashers by a roof, and featuring a fireplace for cool evenings.

Beautiful succulent designs filled pots and troughs outdoors.

Many homeowners are including woodburning pizza ovens in their landscapes these days, and Ruthie’s was beautifully landscaped with Phlomis and agaves.

Nearby was a sweet building that Ruthie calls her garden haus.

A large cistern — one of two on the property — gathers rainwater channelled to it via a system of drains. A pump then facilitates irrigation of the garden.

We were just leaving when I heard excited voices at the front of the house. Looking up, I saw a huge tarantula on the cool limestone wall.  At the risk of anthrpomorphizing a little, it seemed to be saying, “I’m a Texas native insect too, and there’s room for all of us here!”