Letter from the Executive Director and Artist in Residence

Greetings!

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2026. We're almost two months into the new year and we've already experienced a wide range of weather. The Garden experienced another severe winter freeze in January, with a couple continuous days of below freezing temperatures. The Garden's characteristic resiliency resulted in damage contained primarily to the usual suspects – most notably our cycads. Because we had a fair number of young plants that were planted in fall, we did cover more plants than usual in advance of the freeze, and in the cases of a relatively young Quercus insignis and a Decatropis bicolor, we also installed a light under the freeze cloth for further protection. This extra insurance appears to have been worth it. Next year it will be time for many of the plants we covered to face winter on their own. Following John Fairey's lead, if they don't survive, they aren't appropriate for the Garden.

The Gardeners have been diligently doing the pruning required between winter and spring, and now that the weather has warmed up considerably, they've also begun planting. I think for our Director of Horticulture and Living Collections, Wally Wilkins, it's his favorite time of year. Wally gets to "shop" in our nursery and place plants throughout the Garden for planting. We've already added plants to the Sierra Madre bed near the Garden office and in our new bed showcasing plants found in the Sonoran desert. There are many more to be placed and planted around the Garden. No matter how brief its duration in our area, or, maybe because of that very reason, spring is a celebratory and welcome time when the Garden gives the appearance of setting its intentions for the year. 

The Budding Out Plant Sale & Festival is a little over a month away. Ashlyn is hard at work propagating and growing plants for the sale. She's excited about the new offerings. You can read more about her preparations for the sale below.

You'll find lots of plant vendors sending a wide array of plants, artisans, food and drink, information tents, demonstrations, and this year we'll have bluegrass music from the Texas Cyclone Band. Keeping it in the family, one of the members of the band, Andrew Vrana, was a student of John Fairey's and he also designed our bridge. 

I also want to announce five new board members of The John Fairey Garden Conservation Foundation who were seated at our Annual Meeting in February. Our new board members are Mary Barone, Louise Jamail, Sheryl Kolasinski, Steven Matthews, and Sandra Tirey. We are so grateful to them for their willingness to committ their time and talents toward preserving, sharing, and advancing the horticultural and artistic legacy of John Fairey.

One last bit of news – we've extended our Open Days to every Saturday, and members can also visit the Garden at their leisure on Saturdays from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. We hope this will be an incentive for you to visit the Garden often this year. The Garden changes from week to week, so you're sure to see something different each time you visit, no matter how frequently. 

Warm regards,

Letter from the Nursery Manager and Horticulturist

I can’t believe that Budding Out is already so close! I’ve been working hard in the nursery to bring you some really interesting plants this year, and you can find a list of them here. Please note that this list is subject to change, and that quantities are likely to shift the week leading up to the event.

 Our acorn crop this autumn was especially rewarding, so if you’ve been itching to bring home one of our unique Mexican oak species, this is your chance! A few interesting plants that I’m excited to make available include Ageratina hernandezii, Aloysia macrostachya, Anemone x 'Alice Staub', Dyschoriste linearis, Hesperocyparis arizonica, Pseudocydonia sinensis, Salvia ballotiflora, and Tradescantia pallida, plus many more. We’re certainly going to have a full tent this year!

Prior to Budding Out, I will be hosting a workshop aimed towards beginner and intermediate gardeners who want a more intimate understanding of how to choose plants that will thrive in their yards. This program, titled, “Selecting Plants for your Yard,” will be held on March 7th, and will consist of a 45-minute presentation on soil types, light and water requirements, and USDA zones. After this presentation, attendees will be given the opportunity to shop an exclusive pre-Budding Out selection of plants, guided by a chart that will categorize each of these plants. If you’re interested in attending, you can book your ticket here! 

I look forward to seeing all of you at Budding Out this year on March 28th. If you have any questions regarding inventory or availability, please contact me at ashlyn@jfgarden.org.

All best,

New Plants from the Sonoran Desert Bed

As we continue to extend our xeric plant collections, gardener Luke Kelley has been hard at work building and preparing a planting bed dedicated to plants found in the Sonoran desert which spans across southeastern California, the southern third of Arizona, and the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California. The new Sonoran bed is adjacent to a bed of plants from the Trans Pecos region of Texas, and separated by a pre-existing zig-zag fence put in by Carl Schoenfeld during the YuccaDo Nursery days.

We've just planted a preliminary round and now we are awaiting the installation of more plants, a shipment of expanded shale for our top dressing, and an 8" steel edging to border the bed between rock outcroppings.

Director of Horticulture and Living Plant Collections, Wally Wilkins, has identified almost sixty plants for inclusion in the bed, twenty of which we currently have in our greenhouse and listed below:

Shrubs/Woody Lilies

Agave parryi

Agave chrysantha

Dasylirion wheeleri

Simmondsia chinensis

Calliandra eriophylla

Berberis haematocarpa

Rhus aromatica

Rhus microphylla

Barkleyanthus salicifolius

Cactus & Succulents

Ferrocactus cylindraceus

Herbaceous perennials

Datura wright

Bouvardia ternifolia

Aristolochia watsonii

Asclepias bracystephana

Salvia lemonnii

Trees

Quercus arizonica

Quercus grisea

Quercus turbinella x

Chilopsis linearis

View of the Sonoran Desert bed

Quercus grisea, collected by Wally Wilkins in Greenlee County, Arizona

View of the Sonoran Desert bed

Pellaea atropurpurea collected by Wally Wilkins in

Bandera County, Texas

Visiting Artist in the Garden

This year's visiting artist, Jeffrey Blondes, has arrived from his home in France's Loire Valley, and has spent the last ten days filming in the Garden. The foundation of Jeffrey's art practice is observation, primarily manifesting in long duration films comprised of video he has recorded over time in a single location. For his most recent project, Sancai Peak, a 7 hour, 45 minute long film, Jeffrey filmed for several hours each day at a different time of day, positioning the camera at a fixed vantage point overlooking Wuyishan National Park, with Sancai Peak in the distance. The work begins at sunrise and concludes at sunset, with a slow pan across the landscape that ultimately comes to rest on the tea plantations terracing the hillside to the right. The film was created in October 2025 during a three-week residency in Fujian Province, China where Jeffrey focused on landscape, time, and cultural conceptions of space as expressed through Chinese artistic and craft traditions.

Intrigued with the possibilities suggested by our Garden, I invited Jeffrey to make a film here. Jeffrey was immediately captivated by the shadows in the garden and is making a film of those shadows. This seems apt to me as John was also keen on the shadows in the Garden and once noted that one of his reasons for using pea gravel was that he liked the way shadows looked when cast on its surface. Artists traffic in their own specific realms, and I'm pleased to see an unintentional overlap between John's and Jeffrey's eye.

Jeffrey is a rigorous observer of nature, and his films give us the opportunity to see for ourselves the potential well being we can experience through the close observation of beauty. The element of time is an essential ingredient in Jeffrey's films as it is in the Garden, and Jeffrey's work gives us a small, albeit potent, sampling of the passing of "earth time." Images below of Jeffrey working, and studies (16 x 9 format) he shoots as stills before shooting video.

Selecting Plants for your Yard Workshop

If you're looking for some hands-on gardening instruction, consider a workshop at the Garden on Saturday, March 7th, given by Nursery Manager/Horticulturist, Ashlyn Mashburn, called, "Selecting Plants for your Yard" and tailored for beginner and intermediate gardeners who are looking to learn how to garden more effectively in their yards. 

The event will start with a 45 minute presentation on determining soil types, explaining light requirements, and understanding how often to water your plants. The presentation will be followed by a short Q&A session. You will be given a chart which lists a range of garden conditions and plants suitable for those conditions. 

After the demonstration, you will have the exclusive early opportunity to shop our pre-Budding Out inventory for plants suitable for a range of garden conditions. Using the chart, you should be on your way to successful gardening. The workshop will last 1.5 - 2 hrs.

Hop on the Bus, Gus!

Houstonians, have you wanted to visit the Garden but were deterred by the prospect of getting on Highway 290 and driving to Hempstead? We may have a solution.

Board member, Adele Bentsen, and Garden supporter and Co-Chair of the 2024 Taking Root Luncheon, Betty Newton, are organizing a spring event at the Garden called, "Hop on the Bus, Gus." On Saturday, April 18, 2026, we're chartering two luxury coaches from Houston to the Garden – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. All you have to do is board the coach in Houston and ride in comfort to the Garden where you will be taken on a docent-guided tour, have either lunch (morning bus) or margaritas and nosh (afternoon bus), shop for plants in our nursery, and get back on the bus for the ride back to Houston. 

We're looking forward to seeing lots of new faces at the Garden on the 18th. Tickets are $75 per person, limit 56 people per bus. If you're interested, you may get more information and purchase tickets on the Events page of our website.



“A garden is a place where you can slow down enough to see the small changes that would otherwise escape you.”

Michael Pollan, "Second Nature"