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Mellower Marfa

One early Sunday in October, I made the final day of Chinati Weekend, the annual event many people return to from around the world, and of course, the four cities of the Texas Triangle.

That was looking east towards the sunrise, somewhere around Lobo or Valentine. Below is looking west.

Upon arrival and after a breakfast taco or three at Stripes, I zipped over to the late Robert Irwin’s work at Chinati: untitled (dawn to dusk).

We’ll peek inside before it’s closed for the day.

The play of light through the windows and onto the scrim, with so few others including docents around – and nobody in sight – begged me to take those clandestine interior photos. Begged.

Agave salmiana / Green Maguey is one of the more common agaves in Marfa, being bold right in front, as I drove off to the next stop.

There was a screening of the Irwin film, “A Desert of Pure Feeling“, at the Crowley Theater. Front rows usually have many open seats, which got me into enjoyable conversation with a couple of women friends visiting from Dallas, sitting behind me and higher up. Both were friendly, but the wittiest of them (Ann?), peered over my shoulder, remarking about my Irwin photos taken inside!

Soon the crowds filtered away, the locals came out, and I got to take in all the peace that’s always in the background, while working on some writing or working on my business.

Then I wrote, explored, ate, and drank well, ….

Clerestory windows and Dasylirion wheeleri in rhythm, but a across town (not many blocks) is a patio restaurant with better landscape design and plantings than many where I live, closed and for sale. Their usual Chilopsis linearis with Muhlenbergia lindheimeri and some Muhlenbergia emersleyi closer to the building.

Returning to my home for a couple nights, then walking by to grab breakfast…..

The same home’s front garden by Jim Martinez. I took too many photos there! So, expect more on another post explaining the Bouteloua gracilis with conifers up-front. Or something else.

Arriving in Marfa at the end of the weekend nowadays is ideal.

It used to not be ideal, under a decade ago, but today many food and drink options are available from Sunday through Wednesday.

Before lunch or a Chinati visit, the mid town park called, to get more photos of the tile bench and plantings.

Two Nolina species stood their ground here, and were enjoying life. The smaller one is Nolina lindheimeri, and the larger, trunked one is Nolina nelsonii.

Visitors from the larger cities to the east are long gone or leaving, and few remain. I see some of what they see at the close of weekend events. Sometimes, I even overhear what they and the person across the table from them are discussing (hello, Barbara Hill!), which is perfect…for putting on my iPods to hear music!

I’ll post some more on this trip, since I spent more time with my camera than I did writing. Writing was a big reason I visited.

Words of wisdom

Next time.

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Sprinter is Over

Las Cruces is generally too far south this far west, and too far east this far south, to get surprised by wintry weather after some point in March, let alone snow.

Though there was April 1983’s 7 inch snowfall around Easter. But I was in high school then, far away in Denver, where it snows almost every April a few times!

With a persistent cool and unsettled pattern of a waning El Niño along the west coast, we even managed to stay a little cooler than usual. But after a few weeks of spring then winter, and back and forth (“sprinter”), it’s warming nicely here in the last half of April. Sprinter is over, it’s spring.

The plantings nearby and in town are responding.

Since this streetscape is a couple neighborhoods from my home and on the way to my hiking spot, I see at least a few sections of it each week. While bullet-proof planting and irrigation design is going into entropy due to a lack of any maintenance* savvy, there are still a number of places that still have appeal.

(*I was the landscape architect and primary designer on this years ago, and those plans included an entire sheet with clear maintenance graphics and scheduling by plant type, so…zero excuses)

Yucca faxoniana (Faxon or Palm Yucca) are at peak flowering, though over half have died in the last decade.

Some of the Blue Ranger (Leucophyllum zygophyllum ‘Cimarron’) shrubs were starting to flower, so given the year of drought it is likely proof this section of the drip irrigation line is functioning.

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Returning home after an energizing but brisk hike, I drove past two of the Las Estancias neighborhood entries. ‘Silver Sierra’ Texas Mountain Laurel (Dermatophyllum secundiflorum ‘Silver Sierra’) is ending it’s 2 week show of flower and fragrance.

And the exit onto Anthem Road, back from where I drove from home for my hike and these photos.

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At home on my patio, I enjoyed some shade and the cool breezes, with my own, future back garden area at home. Mostly native wildflowers and grasses have been volunteering into this spot for all 5+ years living here.

From warm, dry afternoon light, to nearly the same vantage point with also dry but chilled morning light.

Only the Agave weberi and hybrid Opuntia aren’t native. In the ground we have Giant Dropseed (Sporobolus gigantea), Fluffgrass (Dasychloa pulchella), and Desert Marigold (Baileya multiradiata) slowly multiplying, as they sway and dance in the daily breezes.

And within the week, I was able to spend a couple hours returning to looking at my design ideas here and throughout the property.

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Intersection After a Rain

Seeing clouds many mornings with afternoons less hot, I enjoyed my workout hikes and the drives through my old design once again. Last summer, that is.

Photos from 8/30/2023:

Dasylirion wheeleri and Yucca faxoniana shine for the drive north on Anthem, along with a volunteer Chilopsis linearis tree.

The masses and pops of color are Leucophyllum zygophyllum ‘Cimarron’. Their spicy but sweet fragrance through open car windows is what the doctor ordered.

While flowers are fleeting, and my work is about how gardens and landscapes shouldn’t rely on flowers for interest, their response to milder, wetter weather mirrors the human response.

At the intersection to enter the neighborhood, moisture-fueled flowering compliments the more static wildscape and plantings.

The low entry wall or monumentation once shown in plan may have been deleted by the developer, but I might add it back using Adobe Illustrator!

Framing my photos to avoid maintenance pitfalls is needed more than I prefer, but the sins of add-ons that ruin their investment, such as out-of-place boulders or plant clutter, have another techie solution: Adobe Photoshop. The only person who should be ashamed of such photo edits is the doer of the sin, not the clean-up crew!

Photoshop and cropping worked well, at least to my eyes.

Even without my entry wall, repetition of plants and their forms, plus some randomness, proved the winner here.

The same ‘Cimarron’ Ranger plants had already finished flowering inside the entry median, while they were at peak bloom on the sides and longer median on Anthem.

On the other side of the Las Estancias neighborhood entry, the drip emitters may no longer be functioning. That’s based on the declining vigor of the yuccas and Nolina greenei.

The new maintenance contractor, directed by their association instead of the developer, seems more qualified to do productive maintenance.

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Almost home and back to work, a nearby neighborhood is where good luck made its rare appearance.

Front yard landscape photos aren’t easy to get, where mostly retired people live. But that day, this couple’s land-scraper hadn’t yet chopped back their Rose of Sharon / Hibiscus syriacus, and there was no sign of either person.

Just me for some covert photos, except for their (probably) door camera!

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Gladly, we’re slowly warming up into what looks to be a pleasant, longer spring.

Though it’s months from our area’s plant growth peak, even the hottest and driest weeks of summer prior are nowhere in sight. Meaning there’s time to enjoy more of these past and current drive-bys.