The kid's museum with a grown-up landscape

The DoSeum, a kid's museum in San Antonio, opened in June 2015 and the landscape has been catching my eye ever since.  For the last two years I've passed this landscape on Broadway just north of downtown and intended to stop.  A few weeks ago I did just that.  This may be a children's museum but the landscape is fun for grown-ups too.

Impossible to miss a bright red wall along Broadway, a major north-south artery connecting downtown with close-in suburbs.  San Antonio's Lake|Flato Architects, the museum's designer, and Austin's Ten Eyck Landscape Architecture collaborated on the project.  The two firms have worked together on several local sites recently and the results are always excellent.  See my post on landscapes at The Pearl here.

A block-long striking red wall (bright as it looks) gets attention on busy Broadway which also serves as the gateway to our Museum District and the Pearl Brewery mixed-use redevelopment area.  Gabions filled with aqua glass cool that hot red wall color.  Texas sage (Leucophyllum frutescens) sits on a filled slope behind the wall.  Spots of bright red color show through softening trees.

Gulf Muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris) softens sidewalk edges and should be spectacular in full cotton-candy mode during fall bloom.  I'll try to return to see how all the fluffy pink works with the red wall.

The bus stops here.  Our Via bus system has a museum route plus a Trolley for visitors.  Mexican Olive trees and a bright yellow Esperanza are there to greet you.  Imagine that wall as seen from the bus.  I'd ride out from town to see this.



Bouteloua gracilis 'Blonde Ambition' looks best against a bright, solid background.

A peek inside the gabion revealed the center is filled with rubble rock but there still seems to be plenty of shine on all sides.  Four-nerve daisy  (Tetraneurus scaposa) is thriving in a west-facing location.

A curving hillside seems the perfect location for gabions.  Matching aqua recycled glass granules pressed into concrete at intervals repeat the color and a mix of textures make this a decidedly not boring sidewalk.

A few of the grasses are struggling on the slope.  Still looks good with dots of gold lantana.  I'd follow the aqua spiral up the hill but it's getting hot out here!

We'll turn to the cooling welcome of the museum entrance and the "place-based" design of Lake|Flato which draws inspiration from traditional buildings of South Texas.  With this approach, even the firm's earliest projects (now at 30 years) don't seem outdated.  Hesperaloe parviflora 'Brakelights' punching in more red accents brought over from the streetside wall.

Thoughtful architecture includes a walkway for families to safely navigate the parking lot.



Stroller and wheelchair-friendly access with shade sails to help beat the Texas heat.  Texas Mountain Laurel (Sophora secundiflora) in raised planters with softening effects of Mexican Feather Grass and Salvia greggii alongside.

Back the other way, planning ahead for our inevitable deluges.

This is how it's done.  One of my favorite things about Christy Ten Eyck projects is most of these plants are already in my landscape or readily available at local nurseries and are a main reason for stopping: plant massing, repeating colors, varying textures--all good ideas to consider.

We won't have to wait long for Ten Eyck's next project which is expected to open just around the corner at the San Antonio Botanical Garden in October.  Looking forward to seeing what she does to follow this wonderful DoSeum effort.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: March 2013

Gardens Blogger's Bloom Day sponsored by Carol at May Dreams Gardens is special day for garden bloggers to share what's blooming in their gardens on the 15th of each month.

March in Texas is bluebonnet season when our favorite native wildflower, Lupinus texensis, takes center stage.  A few years ago we planted a patch in our back yard and they have begun blooming right on schedule this week.  This is a preview and they will get their own post next week.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day: December 2012

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day for December 2012 finds plenty of blooms in the garden even with two freezes this past week.

Bougainvillea, light and deep pink mixed in the same container look great considering they are not too hardy and I forgot to cover them.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - December 2011

It's been raining for a week here so these are somewhat soggy blooms, but we can't complain about the rain.  There have been a couple of frosty nights, but no hard freeze yet.

Abutilon 'Bella Orange' is still blooming  

Work in Progress: The Hesperaloes

The issue on my mind today is planting diversity vs single variety plantings.  This post showing changes we have been making to the front yard beds is prompted by inputs from David at The Desert Edge.

Six red flowering yuccas (hesperaloe parviflora) were planted near the garage nearly 20 years ago.  They were definitely pretty when in bloom as shown here in Spring 2010

But the deer often snapped off the blooms and I thought they looked boring much of the year
 

Somewhat like the H-E-B parking lot

Not a bad choice for the local shopping center, but not so good for a color loving gardener like me.  One of my favorite things about San Antonio is how colorful everything is and I enjoy bringing that home.  Definitely time for some changes.

The south facing spot gets maximum sun exposure and plenty of reflected heat so anything here needs to be tough.  In the spring of 2010 we planted gold lantana in front.  Last fall we added Mexican Bird of Paradise (caeselpinia mexicana), Pride of Barbados (caeselpinia pulcherima) and a lantana camara found growing wild nearby

Inspired by the photos of Agave ovatifolia in Pam Penick's blog Digging, we removed the two large hesperaloe in front and installed the agave

A gardening friend shared a native Velvet pod mimosa (Mimosa dyscarpa) which will eventually grow up about six feet against the stone wall.


One of the large red yuccas has been transplanted to the back yard and the others will be divided and planted along side the driveway in the near future. 

 

The early plan was to replace them all until David featured hesperaloe in some of his posts and, combined with the really hot, dry summer of 2011, I began to rethink the plan.  Instead of removing the rest of them this fall, we have divided and relocated them around the bed to fill in the space.  Three of the larger original ones remain in place.  The tree form vitex remains and the Texas Mountain Laurel is kept full and shrub-like in front of the garage window.

As always around here there's more work to do.  Two more gold lantanas will be added in front of the agave.  The old landscaper's border will be pulled out.

The red yucca should bloom again next spring and the agave is growing well and looks good all year while adding interest that was lacking before.  The Mexican Bird of Paradise should take off next year and really bloom.  A more disciplined gardener might have left all the red yucca, but I enjoy seeing the new mix with the agave there whenever I pull into the driveway....and isn't that the purpose of a garden?