TEXAS TRIP: LADYBIRD JOHNSON WILDFLOWER CENTER, I

WILDFLOWER MEADOW NEAR ENTRANCE TO CENTER

Every time I go home to Texas, I have to make a visit, no - a pilgrimage - to this place:  The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center.  On the site you can learn the history and mission of this marvelous place, and I do hope you will visit there and read more than I can put in this post.  Two of my favorite Grande Dames, Ladybird and Helen Hayes, were the founding mothers back in 1982.  My first visit there was several years after that, but long before it was the horticultural and architectural wonder that it is today.  I've visited it many times over its years of expansion, and I am ever more amazed at its scope each time I leave.  If you have visited this journal with any frequency, you know my focus here has often been the environment, you know how important it is to me - so you will bear with me if I give you, in brief, the reason for the Center's existence, from the mission statement:

We honor and respect the natural beauty and biological heritage of each region of the country
We commit ourselves to conserving and restoring wildflowers, native plants, and the biological communities on which they depend
We encourage native flora through artful, naturalistic plantings in public, private, urban, and suburban landscapes
We use native plantings with regionally appropriate architecture to integrate the human community into the natural world in a responsible and respectful manner
We recognize that the health and well-being of human communities is directly related to the health of the land which sustains human life.

(That last sentence seems to me to be the best short statement I've come across anywhere re why working for the environment should be the first and most important consideration of any human being.)

When the Center began it was "in the country" way outside Austin.  Now the urban sprawl has spread south, and the surrounding area has been gobbled up by housing developments and shopping plazas.  So the chunk of land that will remain forever wild is even more miraculous.  When the present Center was established great care was taken to hire architects who understood Mrs. Johnson's vision - the buildings are connected to the landscape, not just complementing it but part of it.  All of the buildings play a part in a water collection scheme involving aquaducts, collection tanks, cisterns, and water recycled in pools, streams and fountains.  This year the Hill Country has had more than enough rain, but such is not always the case.
This is an aquaduct running along the walkway into the Center, you can almost see the cistern it empties into at the far end.

Another water collection cistern.  All the buildings and outbuildings are made of native limestone, all are patterned after vernacular architecture of the old farms and ranches in the area.

This is the café, a cool and pleasant space both inside and out.  But, behind it is one of the most interesting architectural features of all.  I was too tired and hot by the time I was taking this picture to go all the way around the buildings and get a good picture of this tower.  My very bad.  It's a tower spiraling around a cistern, part of the water collection system.  There are stairs winding up, plants growing from nooks and crannies.  Children love it.

Just a charming element, a window in a solid rock wall, allowing a glimpse into the display gardens.

A quiet place to sit and contemplate just about anything.  Stretching away from this little patio is an area of several miles of trails through meadows, savannahs, groves of trees.  In spring this area is glowing with the colors of the native Texas wildflowers.  July is really not the month to visit, the full glory happens in March and April.  You should plan not to die without seeing rural Texas in wildflower season.

That's enough for one entry, I hope to finish up tomorrow or Monday, with more pictures from the Center, and a few more of the kids.