Austin Pond Tour 2010, Part 2

The Austin Pond Society moved the date of their annual tour to mid-June for 2010 - it was still hot but the heat was less intense than last summer. This change kind of screwed up the lyrics of the Garden Pond Song I wrote in 2008 where "July" is rhymed with "DragonFly".




Guess I'll let the video alone - who knows what month the committee will choose next summer! What rhymes with May?

To read about the 9 ponds we saw on Saturday's South 2010 Austin Pond Society Tour see this Saturday Tour post. On Sunday June 13 we visited four of the 14 North Ponds open for the tour.

POND #10

An expanse of lawn under dappled shade was very inviting on a hot day in Austin- with trees enclosing the good-sized yard.
Most gardens we've visited have a bench or two, or a couple of chairs, but this garden had tables and seating tucked in everywhere - it looked ready for a lawn party and the hosts were so charming we wished our names were on the guest list
We talked to the owner about some of her beautiful plants - she also grows and loves the Blue Clerodendron that appears on this blog and on Robin's Get Grounded blog- instant bonding over blue petals!

Rather than a display garden and pond, this was a place where people live. They use tools and plant and inhabit the garden and do things. I liked this clever idea for storing pots and equipment around the corner of the house.
The owners had placed the pond so it could be enjoyed from a covered porch at the back of the house... a most civilized arrangement!

Making one pond frequently leads to the desire for another - here's the current project

After they get done with this adventure they'll need that hammock!

POND #11

This waterfall pond is in a courtyard off a front drive under a wisteria-covered pergola, with the sound softening the air and calling in wildlife. (we just missed seeing a pair of mallards).The owner told us they'd placed it here to allow room for a swimming pool in the back yard, but once the pond was constructed it changed the way the whole front garden felt and worked. The courtyard was full of visitors so I could only get a couple of closeups. So often side gardens are just patches of 'nothing'... I liked the way the rock waterfall wall set the front garden off from the street and the pergola set green boundaries, forming a pleasant courtyard.


THE DRIVE NORTHWEST
Next came a long drive through the outlying suburbs to a long parkway with Hill Country scenery
This kind of scenery can look wonderful when seen through the window of an air-conditioned car, especially when the sky has such beautiful cloud formations and you're wearing your strongest sunglasses. It's less wonderful if you're outside the car in 95°F heat.

Full Disclosure: This was a nice place to visit but even if I won the lottery, it's doubtful I could ever live here.

But that doesn't mean you wouldn't love it! Many, many people think they've found a slice of heaven in the hills of this master planned community, begun in the mid-1990's with a municipally-owned golf course and clubhouse at its heart, as these roof-covered hilltops demonstrate.

We found our way to two of the three ponds within the gates - somehow missed a turn and decided not to backtrack to find the third one.

POND #12

Isn't this flag patio and rock edge cool? The pond starts in sun but has shaded Texas-type woodland behind it...


When we walked closer we could see how beautiful the lilies were

And what a great job the owners had done with the waterfall
Looking back toward the house -

The owners have plans for expanding and building a stream in this more shaded area in future.

POND # 13

The last garden we visited had two ponds and a stream arranged on a five-acre property. The ponds were made about 9-years ago, so they've had time to mellow.


It's almost startling to see cattails against the Hill Country background
This is such a peaceful seat

You can walk around the whole pond and see various species of trees planted at the edges

Here's a look at the length of the stream

We bailed after this pond and didn't try to get up to Georgetown and Sun City. Maybe next year we'll run into you somewhere along the route on the Austin Pond Tour?

For video of some of the 2010 ponds check out the sidebar on our local PBS Station KLRU YouTube website. You'll find Central Texas Gardener shows with Tom Spencer posted by producer (and CTG Gardenblogger) Linda Lehmusvirta.

Edit June 23: MSS @Zanthan Gardens has posted about this tour. She visited some some gardens that we missed: 2010 Austin Pond Tour at Zanthan Gardens Blog.

2007 Austin Pond Society Tour

A week before the Austin Pond Tour we went to Hill Country Water Gardens to buy tickets and get the brochure. Buying the tickets took only a minute, but we needed an hour to wander around this wonderful place, fantasizing about water features, [oh those disappearing fountains!] admiring the plants, fish and statuary. This year the paper tickets were replaced by wristbands - a fun idea that left our hands free to hold the camera.

We made it to 24 of the 30 locations featured on the weekend of July 14th & 15th, having a slight meltdown up in Pflugerville and Cedar Park where new tollways slash and divide the terrain but don't yet appear on our maps. An organized account of the tour may be posted soon at the Austin Pond Society Website - these are merely my impressions of a few of the delightful ponds and gardens, from small owner-built pools to lavish estates.

We loved the fabric sail over this Wells Branch pond - an artful way to add shade.

I'm not fond of garden bridges with no reason for their existence. This simple bridge lets you move across the ponds, from one side of the garden to the other, so it's not just decorative but functional.

A really cool arch made a gracious entry to this waterfall and pond. I liked the pond but also liked that large fig tree full of fruit. It was interesting to see how many of these pond folk grow Loquats, figs and cannas - some of my own favorites.

This Pflugerville garden was filled with whimsical decor. And I do mean filled.

This garden in the Lakeline Mall area incorporated the existing large trees into the design and truly felt like a retreat.

Many ponds attempt to look as if they're natural outcroppings - this pond, also near Lakeline Mall, made no such attempt, remaining spare and geometric. It's clean lines acted as a refreshing lemon sorbet, clearing the palate at this lavish pond banquet.

A beautiful waterfall and stream like this one would be thrilling in any garden, but it's just the entrance pond for one of the most spectacular gardens in Austin. Featured on Central Texas Gardener and open both Saturday night and Sunday, this Lost Creek wonderland is large and lovely and was very difficult to leave. A wide shot of just one part of the back is below.

In yet another area there was a wonderful stream full of lilies.

MSS of Zanthan Gardens also enjoyed this hillside garden and has posted another view in the Zanthan Pond Tour Post.

MSS also took photos at this huge and famous estate garden overlooking Town Lake for her post - and it was fun to see that we noticed some of the same things, both posting a photo of the Wall of Buddha Statues in the Lotus Garden.

But I don't think MSS went on hands and knees to capture the floor of the terrace in the Lotus Garden - the elongated pebbles appear to be set individually making a wonderful pattern. It had me crooning, and the texture felt good underfoot.

What a view!

We came down from the mountaintop and drove back to the real world, where pleasure can be found in a long relationship with one plot of land and the fruits of one's labor. That concrete bench in the background is handmade, decorated with impressed Caladium leaves.

Alone in an enclosed garden hearing the sounds of water and birds.

Ah, serenity.

There are no photos of some of my favorite views and pond gardens - it doesn't feel right to put innocent bystanders on my blog, and at many locations it was impossible to exclude recognizable persons when photographing the ponds. One of the impossible-to-photograph places was a delectable, dreamy garden off Barton Creek Road with one of the ponds running alongside the house, and a rock outcropping overlooking green woods. In a perfect blend of urban life and privacy, one could balance on a large rock seeing nothing but pond and garden while inhaling the odor of onion rings wafting up from the Shady Grove.

Edit June 2011- old link to APS doesn't work - linked to revamped website.

The Ponds at Liberty Hill, next photo

The Austin Pond Society tour took in quite a large territory this year, reaching up past the northwest corner of Austin to encompass ponds in Cedar Park & Leander, then tossing a lasso up to Liberty Hill. Past the shopping centers, past the faux-Victorian subdivision houses, up to where the streets have horse names, the houses have a few acres surrounding them, and there is room to swing a cat – or a backhoe.

This pond owner/builder told me that he had an advantage when building his pond – he owns the backhoe, and lives in an area where rocks abound under the soil. Some pond gardens in more urban areas are designed for specific reasons: to muffle the sound of traffic, to add resale value to the property, to provide an impressive area for entertaining, to enclose the koi so they’re not pierced by herons, to provide privacy from close neighbors or to bring a feeling of nature to the city. This pond plays in a different arena – creative expression by a hard-working man who is having fun. It's actually a series of ponds, built in stages, displaying an adventurous & masterful use of plants, and decorated with whimsical touches. Along the back border of the pond area, native trees, shrubs and drought tolerant plants provided a colorful backdrop. A recent addition was standing cypress, Ipomopsis rubra. [You can see it at top left in the previous posted photo.] The owner intends to scatter the seeds of this beautiful flower, extending the bed into a border. Within the pond there was an area with bog plants, among them the red-flowering Lobelia cardinalis, happy to have damp feet in Central Texas. Wonderful water lilies are mandatory, of course! The bloom season of the water lilies is one reason for the mid-July timing of this annual tour.


With this large, well-built and well-planted foundation in place, the owner added many quirky touches, thus invoking what the tour brochure promised, “the essence of South Austin in Liberty Hill”. The effect was playful, charming the adults and delighting the children as they wandered up and around the ponds, discovering the Mariachi band, a lighthouse, a dry hill with cacti & a windmill, and dancing frogs tucked in along the way.