Our garden welcomed me home after a week in Texas, first visiting family in Austin, but most of the week spent at the Garden Writers Association annual conference in Dallas. The cool greens and yellows in the perennial borders, the big trees, the pocket lawn framed by perennials, not to mention a flourishing array of fall greens was heartening and the songs of singing crickets are loud outside the open window.
There were interesting gardens in Dallas, to be sure, and wonderful educational sessions, but the meeting took place in a huge conference hotel at the end of downtown. Being indoors in windowless rooms for long spells of sitting each afternoon is not my idea of fun, no matter how interesting. I attended every session, however, and found it well worth the time and effort (and personal expense).
Mornings and afternoons spent on garden tours don't provide enough of an antidote to real 'green' though, as the gardens we visited were often extravagant, some totally over the top, and frequent devoid of any clue as to the inspiration of the gardener. They were billed as showing us the 'Big D,' however, and certainly delivered on that. Sustainable, they weren't, with the exception of a wonderful schoolyard vegetable and wildlife garden (at Stonewall Jackson Elementary School's Stonewall Gardens), flourishing now with private support, following school system budget cuts.
A delightful surprise was the Dallas Arboretum, which I'd thought of as a primarily display-oriented garden in the past. They were enormously gracious hosts, providing a lovely reception and dinner for us, but the gardens were a treat, in a great setting.
I took lots of photos, but they kept us so busy, there was hardly a time to make a post! Hopefully, I'll be able to add a few things along the way.
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