Quick Takes With: Stephanie Saulmon

It is with great pleasure that we present Stephanie Saulmon’s Quick Takes. Stephanie is managing principal at longtime Gardenista favorite Ten Eyck Landscape Architects, which this year won Cooper Hewitt’s National Design Award for landscape architecture. (Not too shabby!) She also happens to be an old friend of Fan. The two worked at Allure magazine when they were in their 20s and remained close when Stephanie left media to pursue her interest in plants. “I admired her so much for being fearless and exploring a new path,” says Fan. “And now our professional lives are crossing again.”

Stephanie went on to receive a horticulture certificate from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, followed by a degree in Landscape Architecture at the City College of New York. At the Central Park Conservancy she oversaw renovations of “historic adventure-style playgrounds and the historically significant Forts Landscape.” In 2015, she moved back to her hometown of Austin, where she designs ecological-based landscape projects across the Southwest. 

“Stephanie has impeccable taste. Always has,” says Fan. “You’ll want to pay attention to what she has to say.” 

Without further ado…

Photography courtesy of Stephanie Saulmon.

Your first garden memory:

I don’t know what my first garden memory is, but my first garden was a rag-tag vegetable bed that I installed in the backyard of a rental house in college. I used old screens that I picked up from the Habitat Restore as fencing and made plant ID labels from playing cards. It was a great experiment that actually yielded an impressive harvest considering I had no idea what I was doing.

Garden-related book you return to time and again:

I Am A Bunny by Ole Risom with illustrations by Richard Scarry. This is one of my favorite children’s books and I love to give it as a baby gift. It’s a gorgeously illustrated celebration of the seasons, with accurate depictions of the plants that grow in each. In the end, the bunny, Nicholas, curls up in his hollow tree on a snowy night to dream about spring. If that’s not a classic gardener story, I don’t know what is!

Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.

Wild, native, serene.

Plant that makes you swoon:

A whale’s tongue agave in bloom is a stunning sight. The flower stalk can reach over 15’ high and the silvery blue foliage with the peach and yellow blossoms is a gorgeous combination. Their form is striking, and the fact that it signals the end of the plant’s life is beautifully bittersweet. It makes you want to stop and appreciate every fleeting second of it.

Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

Nandina—a.k.a. heavenly bamboo. Please stop planting this obnoxious invasive.

Favorite go-to plant:

Northern sea oats, Chasmanthium latifolium. They just seem to be happy anywhere and are one of the few that will thrive beneath a mature live oak.

Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:

Patience! I tend to plant everything too close at installation rather than leaving room for mature growth.

Unpopular gardening opinion:

When I see a perfect green lawn it looks lifeless to me. There is certainly a place for turf in the landscape, but it provides almost zero ecosystem services and the water and maintenance demands are ridiculous.

Gardening or design trend that needs to go:

In Texas we see a lot of water-conscious folks cover their front yard in gravel—sometimes black gravel—with a handful of plants here and there. It’s possible to design a low-water, low-maintenance garden that is inviting and beautiful. These gravel “gardens” are just hot.

Favorite gardening hack:

If you define your garden beds with clean, straight edging, you can get away with chaotic planting, and it still somehow feels organized.

Every garden needs a…

Sequence of seasonal interest and structural plantings that form a backbone to more ephemeral blooms.

Favorite hardscaping material:

Salvaged or terra-cotta brick as pavers. Their rich texture, craftsmanship, and orange tones are a lovely complement to deep green foliage.

Tool you can’t live without:

The Uprooter Weed Wrench. We get hackberry seedlings in our garden and this is the only tool that can pull them out from the roots!

Go-to gardening outfit:

My family teases me because I get easily distracted and start weeding anytime I walk through the garden, no matter what I’m wearing. When I intend to be out there I wear a long-sleeved denim shirt, jeans, and thick gloves. Too many thorns and mosquitoes in Texas.

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

The Huntington Garden in Pasadena blew my mind. I always love to visit the Brooklyn Botanic Garden when I’m back in New York because that’s where I really learned about plants. And Enchanted Rock State Natural Area is a jaw-dropping landscape in the Texas Hill Country.

Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:

Barton Springs Nursery in Austin is a special place that I love to visit even when I have no intention of buying plants. They have tortoises and an axolotl.

On your wishlist:

I want to experiment with a pocket prairie in a small section of our garden.

The REAL reason you garden:

I get so much joy seeing my garden teeming with birds and insects and other critters. I love creating habitat and being reminded that we’re just a small part of this incredible world. It also feels restorative to get lost in the activity of gardening and forget about everything else I “should” be doing instead.

Thank so much, Stephanie!

For our full archive of Quick Takes, head here.