Here's a fact from the Texas Hill Country.
Should you ever pass a 30-acre field of red corn poppies surrounding a massive farm store at 70 mph, it is acceptable to brake hard enough to give your husband whiplash.
To call Wildseed Farms a "farm store" is like calling the Sistene Chapel a community church. A huge retail section at the entrance is home to every lavender and bluebonnet product the mind can imagine. Garden art, architectural elements, clothing, jewelry candles and gourmet kitchenimplements fill this beautiful "barn." Shop cats snooze in box lids on the checkout counter but you don't even have to buy anything, you're welcome to just soak the place in. (As if!)
Outside, walking paths wind through an impressive nursery collection of herb starts and ornamentals and cactus in full bloom. Did I mention the bier garten and the gourmet food section - brimming with local, artisan delicacies. After snacking on samples of sweet potato butter and peach salsa, one can sidle up to the bar which serves Shiner Bock and homemade peach ice cream from Gillespie County peaches.
But the best part is the 1/2 mile of walking paths that meander past shady benches and fountains and row after row of deliberately cultivated (and labeled) wildflowers.
In 1983 a Texan named John Thomas began converting his turf business into a wildflower farm. At that time, buying wildflower seed was prohibitively expensive. Thomas invented equipment for large scale wildflower cultivation and seed collection. Today, Wildseed Farms boasts 200 acres under cultivation and another 800 acres in production. Pause and calmly consider that - I'll wait.
The company sells 88 varieties of wildflower seeds on line and in the store and you can even buy mixes for your particular region of the US. Wildseed Farms is the largest working wildflower farm in the US and more than 350,000 people per year stop by.
As luck would have it, Ranch Boss struck up a conversation with a lovely woman named Marilyn - who happens to be married to John and owns this rolicking, extravagant whoop-de-do of a business. She said part of their inspiration was Former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson who was a neighbor and friend. They built the business row by row and hired a local builder who sucessfully translated John's architectural vision into an absolute masterpiece.
She said a few years of drought really hurt their fields but after all the rain Texas saw this winter, the fields of black-eye-susans and larkspur and cosmos and bluebonnets are positively orgiastic. (My word not hers).
To me this is evidence that you can build something sublime and miraculous from absolute scratch if you are doing it out love for the task. John and Marilyn have been at it for 25+ years and their place is love incarnate. Go see it!
If you can't swing that, here's a virtual tour. May 1, 2010
Should you ever pass a 30-acre field of red corn poppies surrounding a massive farm store at 70 mph, it is acceptable to brake hard enough to give your husband whiplash.To call Wildseed Farms a "farm store" is like calling the Sistene Chapel a community church. A huge retail section at the entrance is home to every lavender and bluebonnet product the mind can imagine. Garden art, architectural elements, clothing, jewelry candles and gourmet kitchenimplements fill this beautiful "barn." Shop cats snooze in box lids on the checkout counter but you don't even have to buy anything, you're welcome to just soak the place in. (As if!)
Outside, walking paths wind through an impressive nursery collection of herb starts and ornamentals and cactus in full bloom. Did I mention the bier garten and the gourmet food section - brimming with local, artisan delicacies. After snacking on samples of sweet potato butter and peach salsa, one can sidle up to the bar which serves Shiner Bock and homemade peach ice cream from Gillespie County peaches.
But the best part is the 1/2 mile of walking paths that meander past shady benches and fountains and row after row of deliberately cultivated (and labeled) wildflowers.
In 1983 a Texan named John Thomas began converting his turf business into a wildflower farm. At that time, buying wildflower seed was prohibitively expensive. Thomas invented equipment for large scale wildflower cultivation and seed collection. Today, Wildseed Farms boasts 200 acres under cultivation and another 800 acres in production. Pause and calmly consider that - I'll wait.
The company sells 88 varieties of wildflower seeds on line and in the store and you can even buy mixes for your particular region of the US. Wildseed Farms is the largest working wildflower farm in the US and more than 350,000 people per year stop by.
As luck would have it, Ranch Boss struck up a conversation with a lovely woman named Marilyn - who happens to be married to John and owns this rolicking, extravagant whoop-de-do of a business. She said part of their inspiration was Former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson who was a neighbor and friend. They built the business row by row and hired a local builder who sucessfully translated John's architectural vision into an absolute masterpiece.
She said a few years of drought really hurt their fields but after all the rain Texas saw this winter, the fields of black-eye-susans and larkspur and cosmos and bluebonnets are positively orgiastic. (My word not hers).
To me this is evidence that you can build something sublime and miraculous from absolute scratch if you are doing it out love for the task. John and Marilyn have been at it for 25+ years and their place is love incarnate. Go see it!
If you can't swing that, here's a virtual tour. May 1, 2010
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