Returning to nature
Houston Botanic Garden is taking shape on a former golf course
We might get stuck, Joy Columbus warned as she steered the cart at a zippy pace across the soggy grass, over rolling and weedy terrain that buried once manicured greens and tee boxes.
Spray yourselves and keep moving when you step out, she added. Mosquitoes were swarming.
Columbus joined the Houston Botanic Garden staff as vice president of horticulture just as summer set in. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, who has worked in New York and Illinois, she was unconcerned by the spectre of searing heat, humidity and bugs she had yet to experience at the future garden site, which will transform the former Glenwood Golf Course on the southeast side of town. Mornings and evenings were still pleasant and breezy.
By September, of course, ample rains had brought the full onslaught.
Undeterred, even cheerful, Columbus trekked through the tall grasses one recent muggy morning in knee-high muck boots. Every big garden has challenges, she said.
In her previous job as director of horticulture at Cantigny Park in Wheaton, Ill., drainage issues prompted a $35 million, 500-acre campus revitalization plan. The garden’s annual bulb displays were a prime attraction, she said, “and every spring, our tulips would be covered in water by rains that also saturated pathways.”
Because the design phase for Houston’s long-awaited botanic garden has progressed slower than she hoped, Columbus has the luxury of time to observe how the landscape functions on its own. “It’s been great just to let stuff grow and see what happens,” she said.
The temporary, laissez-faire approach might help to mitigate years of golf course management that reduced native species. “We do not have the most diverse plant materials here now,” Columbus said.
She looks for signs of regeneration, even in the smallest plants, especially under the canopies of trees, where “first invaders” are most likely to sprout from any longdormant seed base that might lie below.
Virtually everywhere she looks, Columbus sees promise for a magnificent garden with ample native areas. While she can’t wait to improve the plant palette, she was surprised by the many varieties of oaks, as well as sweetgums and bald cypress.
“And I love that the fungi grow so fast,” she said. “Within 24 hours, a whole mushroom village can sprout.” (A sign of healthy micro-organisms at play.)
She stooped to inspect the small blossoms of smartweed, a native annual that thrives with moisture and can create endless headaches for home gardeners. “There is no such thing as a weed,” she said. “Just plants that are annoying because they are not in the right place.”
She’s even giving largescale nuisances, such as hackberry trees, a pass. Although prone to unsightly nipple gall, they are attractive to birds. Members of the Audubon Society are already watching the garden site, hoping for an increase in bird diversity.
The garden is still on track to open in phases, starting in 2020.
The first attractions will include a prairie created with an assist from the Wildlife Federation, an aquatic garden developed with Texas A&M University and a community garden. Showcase global and edible gardens at the heart of the property will be accessible once a new entry boulevard is built from Park Place on the garden’s north side. Denser, woody areas along the perimeter will be preserved to reflect what Columbus calls “Houston’s authentic wilderness.”
She smiled as we rounded a knoll near Sims Bayou, which forms an oxbow around the 120-acre property. “I feel like I’m crossing into a wonderland when I come over the bridge.”
She wasn’t joking.