January 24, 2024
Backyard Makeover Grows New Mates and Profession
Jennie Ostertag broke a couple of shovels turning her clean yard into a fascinating hangout for household, associates, and wildlife. However as she struck rock, sheet mulched grass, and reimagined salvaged supplies on a funds, she met a group of equally-challenged gardeners joyful to share crops and recommendation.
We dropped by in November 2023 to learn the way she reworked a stark fence and Bermuda grass yard. It began in 2012 when she returned to Texas with husband Chris. With a demanding profession and eventual motherhood, she snagged random moments to rid the grass for vibrant curving beds buzzing with pollinators.
When working the soil grew to become solace after nerve-racking work days, Jennie modified her life’s path, too. She enrolled in UT’s Faculty of Panorama Structure, however when the pandemic hit, she discovered her area of interest as an eco-centered designer, founding BOLT Panorama Design.
“The best way this has all developed has been very natural and experimental, that means there wasn’t some grasp plan. It’s a continuing state of evolution,” Jennie advised us. And, for her, meaning slamming on the brakes when she drives by an irresistible curbside giveaway.
At numerous occasions, she picked up a great deal of discarded bricks from 5 neighbors to put the patio. (I nonetheless have bricks sourced the identical approach; repurposed many occasions in my backyard!)
Neighbors handed alongside flagstones and discipline stones, too, although lots of them got here from Jennie’s personal excavations. “I’ve joked that the I’m farming Texas potatoes, which actually are simply hunks of limestone. I’ve damaged three shovels digging,” she laughed. “And that’s once I was advised that there are rock bars. So, I now have two rock bars.” (For me, clay soil turned digging forks into backyard artwork.) Director Ed Fuentes and grip Steve Maedl take within the view atop the deck that Jennie constructed.
It may be exhausting for gardeners to visualise how a pint-sized plant will fill a spot because it grows up. However Jennie’s bought it. For one factor, small crops are simpler on the pockets. Plus, it’s a lot simpler to dig a gap in rock or clay. This Cassia corymbosa, together with its companion salvias, grasses, mistflower and rosemary, will camouflage the deck hole by subsequent yr.
She began on the again fence, the place she’s bought essentially the most mild, and labored her option to the patio.
Jennie grew her plant stock by propagating favorites and swapping crops with neighbors. Her buddy, backyard designer Lori Daul, shared divisions of eye-catching ‘Princess Caroline’ fountain grass. In the course of the pandemic, her buddy Rebecca began a free plant stand that continues to develop group. “So plenty of it has come to really feel like extra of a designed composition over time as we try this sharing,” she stated.
Alongside the best way, she created touchdown spots for various viewpoints.
Shade beneath the stay oaks referred to as for household time picnics the place its dappled mild additionally makes it the right nursery for cuttings and divisions. She screened the fence with deciduous and evergreen shrubs and small bushes, together with wax myrtle, American beautyberry, almond verbena, Texas persimmon, and ‘Sky Pencil’ holly, an upright slender selection. In just some years, they’ll completely body that view.
She focuses our consideration with vignettes, pairing enjoyable salvages with crops.
In case your eye skipped previous wonderful Salvia ‘Amistad’, this spinner would carry it proper again.
To water container crops and her divisions, she positioned a inventory tank beneath the patio door gutter to catch rainwater. It’s no shock that crops, through water gardening associates, quickly confirmed up.
When a neighbor was gifting away a bathtub or trough of some type, she put in it at floor stage for birds, bugs, and lizards.
She created a vignette with one other inventory tank—seen from the kitchen window—as a reminiscence backyard for a buddy.
It’s exhausting to consider that we’re inching up on the anniversary of the well-known February 2023 freeze. Jennie’s mountain cedar (ashe juniper) nonetheless bears the scars, although she used its sawed up branches as edging and backyard artwork. Ed wished a treetop huge shot, however I feel he actually simply wished to be a in treehouse!
The upside is that Jennie’s bought extra mild for flowering crops, together with Gregg’s mistflower, a fall-blooming butterfly favourite.
The actual hit was in entrance the place they misplaced a heritage stay oak. In spring 2023, she planted a Mexican white oak and encircled the garden with layers of seasonally blooming perennials. On this partial view, she’s bought datura, catmint, mushy leaf yucca, aster, sedges and snake herb.
She avoids “marching” basis crops by mixing issues up in layers of top, texture and shade. Asters, sedges, and tradescantia cluster beneath a younger yaupon holly. Newcomer artichoke agave marks its spot for planting.
In 2022, Jennie began an excellent enjoyable and informative TikTok channel, Texas Gardening. I’m already hooked on her genuine, “come together with me” fashion and how-to experience! You’ll adore it!
Watch now!
Thanks for stopping by! See you subsequent time! Linda