Central Texas gardeners, join me on Thursday, November 14, at 7 pm for a Garden Spark talk by Michael McDowell, better known by his Instagram handle @PlanoPrairieGarden. It’ll be a great learning experience and a fun opportunity for community with fellow garden lovers! Tickets are on sale now. This is an in-person event and seating is limited, so grab your spot today.
I’ve admired Michael’s homegrown prairie garden in the ‘burbs of North Texas for more than a decade and have photographed it several times: here, here, and here. I’m also featuring it in my forthcoming book about Texas gardens, due out in Fall 2025.
Michael’s mostly native garden of prairie plants is a monarch waystation every fall as they make the long flight to Mexico, and it’s a pollinator’s paradise throughout the growing season. Michael is bucking the tired tradition of a monoculture of lawn, with spectacular results: a diversity of plants with little watering and no mowing required; habitat for wildlife and native plants; and beauty across the seasons.
Michael will talk about how he accomplished all this on a budget and what it takes to keep it going.
Lawn Free: How I Transformed My Lawn into a Prairie Garden
Why settle for a boring, thirsty lawn when you can create a dynamic prairie garden that changes with the seasons and benefits the environment? That’s exactly what Michael McDowell thought when he set out to create his Plano prairie garden in the suburbs 20 miles north of Dallas. Michael will show how he transformed his yard from a lawn-dominant landscape to a lawn-free prairie garden and how his vision continues to evolve as he and the garden mature. He’ll share his tips for gardening on a budget (hint: propagation and patience), explain how he’s stayed on good terms with neighbors and off the radar of property standards officers, and show how resilient prairie plants are in spite of extreme weather and other challenges.
Speaker Bio
Michael McDowell started gardening at a young age and planted many rows of evenly spaced marigolds and petunias. When he got his hands on a copy of Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by Region by Sally and Andy Wasowski, it changed his perspective of what a garden could be and, perhaps, should be in Texas. He began searching for the Texas native plants that he read about in the book and incorporated them into his landscape when he could find them. As native plants became more available and water became more scarce, he decided to focus solely on the plants that evolved to thrive on the Texas prairie with only the water and nutrients that nature provided.
Michael gained familiarity with the ways of prairie plants in the privacy of his backyard. When he started removing his front lawn, an unconscionable act in Plano, he documented his progress on his blog Plano Prairie Garden. He thought his blog posts would provide evidence that his non-traditional landscape was intentional and not the result of laziness, should a property standards officer knock on his door. They didn’t. He now posts as Plano Prairie Garden on Instagram. His blog archives date back to 2009, and he regularly refers people to the Resources and Plant List pages.
Michael spends his work days as a compliance manager in the highly regulated insurance industry. He researches insurance statutes, regulations, and case law to ensure his employer’s business practices are compliant. Creativity with insurance laws can get you fined or imprisoned, so gardening is his creative outlet.
When/Where: November 14th at 7 pm
Michael will speak on Thursday, 11/14 at 7 pm. The approximately 1-hour talk with Q&A will be held at Barton Springs Nursery in Austin. Seating will be outdoors under the big live oak. In the event of rain, seating will be in the event barn.
Tickets
Purchase your ticket at this link. Ticket price is $35.50, plus a small fee that goes to the ticket-processing website.
Refund Policy
Tickets are nonrefundable. Your purchase helps cover a fair speaking fee for our presenters and other expenses, and collectively we’re able to bring talented design and ecology thinkers to speak to us!
Thank You to Our Sponsor!
The 2024-25 fall season of Garden Spark is sponsored by Barton Springs Nursery, which has been serving the needs of Central Texas gardeners since 1986 by offering one of the best selections of native and well-adapted plants for this area.
Subscribe to Garden Spark
To be notified about future Garden Spark talks, join my email list. Simply send me an email with “Subscribe” in the subject line.
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Digging Deeper
Come learn about gardening and design at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, authors, and gardeners a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance; simply click this link and ask to be added. Read all about the Season 8 lineup here!
All material © 2024 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
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