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Quick Takes With: Christine Ten Eyck

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Quick Takes With: Christine Ten Eyck

August 18, 2024
Christine Ten Eyck

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We are longtime admirers of Austin-based landscape architect Christine Ten Eyck—so much so that her works are featured in both of our books: 2016’s Gardenista: The Definitive Guide to Stylish Outdoor Spaces and our upcoming The Low-Impact Garden (in bookstores fall 2025). She has deep roots in Texas, and her landscape designs—artful, rambunctious, ecology-based, perfectly imperfect—celebrate the region’s rich plant diversity. Current projects include a campus transformation plan for University of Texas at Permian Basin and a new master plan for the Lady Bird Wildflower Center.

Below, Christine reveals her best gardening hack, favorite public garden (it’s not in Texas!), and more.

Your first garden memory:

Christine, with her first ever catch, at her grandparents&#8\2\17; lake house. Photograph courtesy of Christine Ten Eyck.
Above: Christine, with her first ever catch, at her grandparents’ lake house. Photograph courtesy of Christine Ten Eyck.

My grandparent’s vegetable garden at their lake house. We would go fishing and my grandpa would put everything he cleaned out of the fish back into the garden soil. I was fascinated! He grew the biggest tomatoes.

Instagram account that inspires you:

@terremoto)_landscape. [See Quick Takes With: Terremoto.]

Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.

Above: Christine swapped a lawn and driveway for tiered garden beds. “Our neighbors think we are nuts living in our own wild native habitat—but we love it,” she wrote in an Instagram post. Photograph by Marion Brenner.

Tough, wild, immersive.

Favorite go-to plant:

Eupatorium havanensis.

Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

Invasives like King Ranch Bluestem, Arrundo, Vinca major.

Plant that makes you swoon:

A Rusty Blackhaw in bloom on Christine&#8\2\17;s property. Photograph by Christine Ten Eyck.
Above: A Rusty Blackhaw in bloom on Christine’s property. Photograph by Christine Ten Eyck.

Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum.

Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:

The garden will not always look perfect.

Unpopular gardening opinion:

People need to appreciate resilient gardens that wither, turn brown and gold in response to drought.

Gardening or design trend that needs to go:

Fake lawn.

Favorite gardening hack:

Throwing my coffee grounds out to add acid to our alkaline soil. Also letting the leaves stay in planting beds as mulch.

Every garden needs a…

Above: A rainwater fountain at The Capri in Marfa. Christine led the landscape design there. See How to Transform An Abandoned Parking Lot Into a Wildlife Habitat, Marfa Edition for our 2013 story on this project. Photograph by Caitlin Atkinson.

A mirror of water and the simpler the better—think about the brimming bowls of the Alhambra in Grenada, Spain.

Favorite way to bring the outdoors in.

Big windows with gray green painted mullions.

Favorite hardscaping material:

Above: “The entry to our house where a driveway used to go right over the tree roots at the base. We created a sedge frame around this spectacular live oak,” says Christine. Photograph by Marion Brenner.

Gravel and weathered stone or brick.

Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:

Native American Seed.

On your wishlist:

Spend more time in New Mexico!

Not-to-be-missed public garden/park/botanical garden:

Portland Japanese Garden.

The REAL reason you garden:

Christine is an avid traveler. Here she is in Monterey, Mexico.
Above: Christine is an avid traveler. Here she is in Monterey, Mexico.

It brings me joy, exercise, and a sense of accomplishment. It is meditative and restorative for me to prune, rake, and just be immersed in the garden along with all the birds and butterflies.

Thanks so much, Christine! (Follow her on Instagram @cteneyck and @teneyclandscapearchitects.)

For our full archive of Quick Takes, go here.

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