From Golf Course, to Botanical Garden ..A new place for Houston Plant lovers..

[Silas_Sancona]

Not sure if anyone had seen this but wanted to pass along  news of the opening of a new Botanical Garden in Houston.. Nice to see something positive come of  abandoned space.  Hopefully this is becomes a trend for Golf Courses that are failing and/or no longer profitable. More Green space, accessible to everyone, benefits everyone.  Will have to add a visit here to the "future trips" list.

Story here: https://inhabitat.com/from-golf-to-gardens-houstons-new-botanical-garden-opens/

[Fusca]

Yes, my sister sent me the following link a few weeks ago.  https://abc13.com/community-events/houston-botanic-garden-opens-to-the-public-today/6424092/ 

I had a chance to walk around the grounds a couple of years ago and looking forward to seeing the final product!

[Silas_Sancona]

1 hour ago, Fusca said:

Yes, my sister sent me the following link a few weeks ago.  https://abc13.com/community-events/houston-botanic-garden-opens-to-the-public-today/6424092/ 

I had a chance to walk around the grounds a couple of years ago and looking forward to seeing the final product!

Will definitely be interesting to see how the garden evolves over time.. The article states the garden covers 132 acres, which is roughly 10 or so acres larger than the Huntington's..  And we all know what their collection has become. 

 

[Fusca]

16 minutes ago, Silas_Sancona said:

Will definitely be interesting to see how the garden evolves over time.. The article states the garden covers 132 acres, which is roughly 10 or so acres larger than the Huntington's..  And we all know what their collection has become. 

 

They didn't have many palms planted when I was there but hopefully that will change!  Mercer Arboretum in Spring has added a lot of new palms to their collection in recent years and this new garden is in a warmer part of 9a but with less established overhead canopy.  Like you said it will be interesting to see the evolution over time.  I believe they smartly started out with a bunch of native plants.

[Xenon]

2 hours ago, Fusca said:

 Mercer Arboretum in Spring has added a lot of new palms to their collection in recent years and this new garden is in a warmer part of 9a but with less established overhead canopy.  

Compared to Mercer, this area of Houston is much much warmer. There are no queen palms near Mercer but the area around this new garden is full of large robust queen palms, many of which did not fully defoliate after the worst freeze in 30 years. Not even a handful of times below 25F in the last 30 years. The avg minimum is somewhere in the 28-30F range, so 9b/10a the vast majority of years. Definitely lots of potential for zone pushing. 

Edited September 30, 2020 by Xenon