Xeriscape - Drought-Adaptive Horticulture
The Gone Native Drought Adaptive Garden
Scenes from November, 2006
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The leaves of Tracy Hawthorne (native to the Davis Mountains) turn a burgundy in the fall, and are complimented by the red berries of Pyracantha. Both glow in the yellow light of the fall foliage of Soapberry.
English Hawthorne unfortunately becomes afflicted by boring beetles and decline over 20 years, but their foliage is also spectacular in the fall.
The morning light in the fall landscape is multicolored splendor, as if the world is in a spectrum refracted by a crystal.
Soapberries are always golden in the fall, and are set off to great effect by the blue tones of Prickly Pear.
Fall sunrises are often colorful. The zig-zagging branches of Jujube create a pleasing network veiling the morning sky.
When acquiring lawn furniture, color is important. This red bench beckons a visitor to sit.
The silhouettes of mother-in-law prickly pear and the windmill make a dramatic statement.
The front yard grove glows in the early morning fall landscape.
Chinese Pistache is another consistent species for color-producing foliage for West Texas.
Tracy Hawthorne retains its colorful leaves longer than the soapberry trees. Fall foliage fallen to the ground should be left until it loses its color, then raked into the flower beds for wonderful mulch for the cold of winter.
Pyracantha berries will soon be eaten by birds, but for two weeks the suite of hawthorne, pyracantha, and soapberry sings an incredible song of the fall.
Texas Hawthorne leaves on the ground are in contrast to the golden foliage of Big Tooth Maple.
Big Tooth Maple produces a golden foliage on the Llano Estacado. In the Guadalupe Mountains and Lost Maples State Park, the species will produce foliage of many colors.
A delightful garden fairy dances over the fallen maple leaves among the Rosemary and Acacia greggi.
The fall foliage of Lacebark Elm sometimes produces "stitching" of color along the edge of the leaves.
The corrugated tin walls of the shaded deck at the cantina set off the golden leaves of a young maple.
The "morning gate" leads the way to a multicolored jujube, pistache, redbud, and desert willow thicket.
The morning light of the fall pulls a person into the landscape.
The yellow leaves of Texas Redbud are bright against the network of branches of the thicket mentioned above.
Pistache leaves pull a visitor to examine their variety of colors over and over.
Chinkapin Oak leaves do not turn color, reminding a viewer of the green of summer.
Evergreen (everblue) agarita leaves provide a pleasing contrast to the rich brown of the Mexican Buckeye seedpods.
The large leaves of Bur Oak often turn a rich brownish red.
Some Bur Oak leaves turn golden as well.
A patch of flameleaf sumac is a brilliant splotch of color in a landscape.
Even mesquite will respond to the cooling temperatures of fall and turn into tiny dots of gold.
The color of native grasses are another important feature of a xeriscape landscape (and of the regional landscape as well.)
Gone Native's pasture was once the bedding ground for cattle in the 1930s drought. The ranchers fed burned prickly pear to the cattle as rail transportation was arranged for shipping to greener pastures.
Thornless Prickly Pear was developed by Indians in Mexico. Its young pads were cut into pieces and utilized as food (nopalitos.) Nopalitos make a fine huevos rancheros addition.
The foliage of Spanish Oak, native to the Hill Country of Texas, is one of the last species to develop color, and the leaves hang on after most other deciduous tree species have dropped their leaves.
Tall grass (or Cane) from China has been used as a windbreak by West Texans since the days of settlement in the 1880s.
The delicate white tracery of three-awn grass seed stalks is delicate in comparison to prickly pear.
The nuts of Chinese Pistache turn a startling red, and are nestled in clumps among the colorful foliage.
The property to the east of the Gone Native Arboretum was bulldozed in November of 2006. New houses were erected in every other direction in 2006. The property of the Gone Native Arboretum is now an island of wildness in a landscape turned from exurbia to suburbia. Burr and Deborah Williams made the decision to sell the property and move to a small town lot to create an urban landscape that will be the most water-efficient landscape in town when completed.