The Capri, Marfa

Two years ago, John and I ventured out to Marfa and stumbled across the Capri event space, which is directly across from the Thunderbird Hotel and owned by the same folks. The gardens were designed by Christy Ten Eyck, and they are really very amazing. The space once held a hotel and parking lot and it has been transformed into a West Texas garden wonderland.

Ten Eyck made ample use of native grasses, such as blue grama and side-oats grama, as well as West Texas stand outs, like Mexican elder (if anyone knows where I can get this small tree, please let me know!).

Here's a fantastic clump of blue grama in bloom:

Here you can see the crushed stone paths weaving through the grass plantings to connect visitors with steel fire pits ringed by stones. I can only imagine how magical those fire pits are on a cool starry night in West Texas.

Side-oats grama edges a limestone path:

A very Donald Judd-like geometric cement pool is nestled among tall gabeon walls:

Here's a few shots from a recent 2011 visit. A lot as grown in 2 years. It was really cool to see how everything filled in. (These three photos are from my my iPhone after the batteries died in my SLR...bummer.)

This is a lovely little scene with freestanding steel posts standing in a row among big fluffy grasses. Fantastic idea.

Ten Eyck is a landscape architect with offices here in Austin and in Phoenix.

Airstream Studio

I've seen this landscape architect's Airstream studio in other design mags before. Pretty neat. I love Stavropoulous' analogy that beginning a landscape design is like stepping into a jazz trio where all the musicians are already improvising; that you have to figure out where you fit into that scene.

Video courtesy of The Werehaus via The Atlantic.

Falling Waters

In a pause from our usual programming - ack! the drought - a regale you just a sampling of with beautiful and very liveable California gardens from Ryan Prange and Falling Waters Landscape.

Bernard Trainor California Landscapes

I could spend hours drooling over just about every landscape designed by Bernard Trainor + Associates from Monterrey, California. They are particularly good, in my opinion, in breaking huge spaces into smaller living rooms and taking advantage of killer, billionaire views.

Here's a sampler of images, but check out the website for the full monty, especially the landscapes with views.