Garden 3

The Elevated Garden

A Habitat of Love

Berms, stock tanks, fruits, veggies, bee hives, succulents, and a 20-lb. tortise to keep watch over it all!

Garden Features

Rainwater collection system
Working greenhouse
Full sun environment
Abundant color
Persimmons
Mulberries
Berm beds
Rose varieties
Potted citrus
Succulents
Stock tank vegetable gardens
Pollinator garden

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A bee pollinating a borage plant flower.

Garden History

Colorful datil peppers growing in a pot.

Austin’s rocky limestone-laced soil is notorious. But what if your garden sits directly on top of the solid rock of an old stone quarry? That’s what Teresa Garcia faced when she and Donnie bought the place in 2012. Together, they rose to the challenge, literally. Every bed is elevated. Large, mulched berms are linked by gravel pathways. Stock tanks full of organic soil overflow with produce. Pots of all shapes and sizes are sprinkled across the one-acre property.

With full sun on most of the garden, color is just about everywhere. Persimmons and mulberries cluster in a big bermed bed, flanked by attention-grabbing varieties of roses in the next one. Half a dozen citrus varieties thrive in numerous pots. Succulents are seemingly everywhere. Tomatoes, okra, peppers, blueberries, and strawberries spill from the stock tanks. The pollinator garden in front nearly runs the entire width of the house. A 3,000-gallon rainwater collection system helps to irrigate it all.

A galvanized metal stock tank holding blue kale, thai chiles, and ping tung eggplant.

A Marie Daly rose providing a beautiful pink bloom.

Animals are favorite attraction in the garden. Bee hives and flowers for the bees. Bird houses and bird baths for the birds – as the cats watch. Dogs play in the small grassy area. Chickens squawk in their coop. Butterflies, horn toads, frogs, and roadrunners make regular appearances. All the while, CheonCheonHi, a ten-year old, 20-pound tortoise patrols the property, ever vigilant in his pursuit of tasty hibiscus growing in containers.

The Garcia’s garden is a natural, inviting space for everyone and everything. The National Wildlife Federation could designate it a Certified Wildlife Habitat. For now, it’s just a Master Gardener’s home.

Directions

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Garden Address

9211 Lauralan Drive
Austin, TX 78736

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Google Map

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Special Instuctions

Follow directional signs to the gardens.

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Garden Gallery

Varying Plants and Trees

Varying plant heights and colors such as these sensation cosmos, globe mallows, bubba desert willow, borage, cardoon, althea cosmos, abelia, and an Arizona ash tree provide visual interest.

Raised Beds

Raised beds provide better soil and more nutrients for vegetables and can be made from many materials such as wood, metal, or stone. Here modified hugelkucher beds hold icicle eggplant, collard greens, and peppers.

Water Feature

Water features, a variety of surrounding plant types such as creeping jenny, canna, bamboo, minari, papyrus, water lilies, and even figurines help create visual interest.

Borage Plant

Borage and other pollinator-friendly plants create an important ecosystem contribution and help sustain local pollinators.

Colors and Sizes

Dwarf golden cosmos, cardoon, and other plants provide a variety of color and texture to a garden bed.

Peppers

Potted datil pepper plants provide color and a fresh addition to any cook’s menu.

Shantung Maple

A shantung maple tree provides wonderful color to a garden.

Stock Tank Planter

Stock tanks are readily available and create a controlled soil and moisture environment for vegetable gardens, such as for this dazzling blue kale, thai chiles, and ping tung eggplant.

Roses

Rose bushes give color and visual interest to any garden. Here Marie Daly rose (foreground) and coral drift rose (background).

Bee Hives

Bee hives bring pollinators to your garden and can create a colorful apiary space.

Succulents

Succulents adapt easily to the Central Texas climate and require much less water than other plant types. Here yuzu cirtus, bromeliad, ice plant, mangave, aloe, dyckia, agave, and bulbine create wonderful visual variety.

Picnic Table

A picnic table encourages meals and socializing in the garden. This one is shaded by a shantung maple.

Marie Daly Rose

Marie Daly roses fill in nicely as a bush and provide a beautiful scent to the garden.

Sculptures

Stone, metal, and even wooden sculptures provide interesting visual demarcations between garden areas and can offer fun surfaces for planting, such as for this squid agave, sedums, aloe, and forsythia sage (background).

Calamondin Orange Tree

The calamondin orange tree performs well in a pot and provide lovely color to the garden.