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Backyard Spark kicks off Season 7 subsequent month


July 05, 2023

Backyard Spark returns for its 7th season on August twenty fourth, kicking off a sequence of in-person talks by three of Austin’s finest backyard thinkers. For those who love gardens, design, and studying, these talks are for you! This season we’ll learn to “grow to be the bison” and create a pocket prairie in our house panorama, why we must always select a hedge over a fence, and easy methods to harness stone and waterwise vegetation to make an totally distinctive, Texas-tough crevice backyard.

Talks are held at Barton Springs Nursery‘s out of doors classroom (or indoors if climate necessitates) on Thursday evenings. Actual occasions are introduced when talks go on sale, a couple of month upfront. I hope you’ll mark your calendar for the next dates and make plans to affix us.

Tickets should be bought upfront, and talks are inclined to promote out rapidly, so don’t miss out. SUBSCRIBE to Backyard Spark’s e mail listing to be notified as quickly as tickets go on sale. Merely click on this hyperlink and ask to be added.

John Hart Asher

August 24 – John Hart Asher

Pocket Prairies: Creating Biodiverse Landscapes Whereas Saving the World

Ecological restoration is not a nicety. It’s a necessity. All of us love wildflowers within the wild, however shouldn’t we demand to see those self same species surrounding our houses and all through our cities? On this speak John Hart Asher reveals easy methods to design and set up a “pocket prairie” with a various mixture of native grasses and flowers. Pocket prairies reconnect us with nature, present important habitat for pollinators and different native species, and enhance the panorama’s capability to heal our world. By putting in your personal pocket prairie, you’ll discover out fairly rapidly that you simply’re additionally restoring part of your self.

Speaker Bio

John Hart Asher has over 13 years of expertise designing and constructing pure ecosystems in city environments. At Blackland Collaborative, his ecological restoration agency, John Hart works with engineers, architects, panorama architects, and builders to combine sustainable panorama designs, practices, and philosophies into initiatives. He additionally goals to enhance the efficiency of inexperienced roofs in semi-arid, subtropical climates and has helped design and construct quite a few native-prairie inexperienced roofs all around the state of Texas, together with for Austin’s Edgeland Home, which was featured in Dwell and Texas Architect and received a number of awards. Present initiatives embody restoration of a tallgrass prairie in an city riparian hall; inexperienced roof analysis and implementation; and water conservation, soil remediation, and inexperienced infrastructure.

John Hart holds a bachelor’s in historical past from the College of Mississippi and a grasp’s in panorama structure from the College of Texas at Austin, which awarded him a President’s Excellent Employees Award in April 2018. Since 2019 he’s additionally hosted the nationally syndicated PBS present Central Texas Gardener. You may wager he has a pocket prairie in his personal yard. Comply with John Hart on Instagram.

Shaney Clemmons. Photograph: Cambria Harkey

December 7 – Shaney Clemmons

Hedge Enjoyable: How Hedges Beat Fences for Wildlife Habitat and a More healthy Ecosystem and Why You Want One

As a substitute of spending your landscaping funds on a fence, be taught why planting a hedge is the greener selection — in each sense. Biodiverse hedges present shelter and meals for city wildlife, create and join wildlife corridors, and scale back impervious cowl, making a more healthy ecosystem and extra snug local weather whereas additionally mitigating stormwater runoff. Panorama architect Shaney Clemmons explains why her agency, Shademaker Studio, began the Hedge Pledge three years in the past and the way planting hedges has improved her shoppers’ gardens. Be taught why climate-resilient plant design is necessary, easy methods to enhance plant range in an current backyard, and which vegetation are performing finest in Austin’s excessive temperatures of current years. 

Speaker Bio

Shaney Clemmons is the principal and founding father of Shademaker Studio, a small panorama structure studio in East Austin. A licensed panorama architect with over 25 years of expertise, Shaney takes on initiatives starting from single-family residential gardens to tons of of miles of scenic byways.

Shaney spent her childhood spelunking the lava stream caves of southern Idaho and dealing the fields of the household farm, slicing and baling alfalfa on the Camas Prairie. These early experiences formed how she spends her time as an grownup, each professionally and personally, and have made her a passionate observer and advocate for the outside. Since shifting to Austin in 2013, Shaney has grow to be an advocate for enhancing soil well being, decreasing impervious cowl and stormwater runoff, and growing biodiversity inside our city gardens.

Coleson Bruce

January 18 – Coleson Bruce

Crevice Gardens: Discovering Pure Resilience in Central Texas

Crevice gardening is leading edge and common in dry, cool-summer climates like Colorado’s. However right here in Texas, conventional crevice gardening with alpine vegetation is a nonstarter because of our warmth and humidity. Enter Coleson Bruce’s Texas-style crevice backyard! Coleson created a Texas-tough crevice backyard throughout the COVID lockdown, when he instantly had time on his palms and a garden of thirsty St. Augustine to kill. Instead of conventional alpine granite, he used native Texas limestone to type the gardening crevices. As a substitute of alpine vegetation, he deployed dry-loving species present in Zones 7 and up. As quickly as he bought it planted, alongside got here Snowpocalypse in 2021, adopted by the hellish summer time of 2022. Be taught what grew to become of all of it, as Coleson shares his expertise in designing, constructing, and sustaining a Texas crevice backyard. Whether or not or not a crevice backyard (or possibly a crevice container?) is in your future, uncover modern methods and sensible suggestions that will enable you to unlock the pure resilience of Central Texas gardens.

Speaker Bio

Coleson’s backyard has been described by Kenton J. Seth, writer of The Crevice Backyard, as “one of many most interesting crevice gardens: I’d put it in prime ten earth-wide, possibly even prime 5.” A lawyer by commerce, Coleson’s background consists of desert biology and sculpture, each of which performed a job in his fascination with crevice gardening. What started as a small landscaping mission throughout the COVID lockdown morphed into an 8-month, all-encompassing ardour mission, from which he emerged narrowly professional in crevice gardening — admittedly a comparatively small area of competitors. His backyard has been featured in outstanding gardening blogs, photographed by internationally recognized backyard photographer Claire Takacs, and might be included in a forthcoming ebook by Pam Penick. Coleson lives in Austin together with his spouse and three younger kids.

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The way to Attend

Subscribe to Backyard Spark for first dibs on tickets! Merely click on this hyperlink and ask to be added.

Sponsor Thank-You

Grateful because of Barton Springs Nursery for sponsoring Backyard Spark, offering use of their lovely venue, and their hospitality!

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All materials © 2023 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized copy prohibited.



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