February 05, 2025
Central Texas gardeners, join me on Thursday, March 6, at 7:30 pm for a Garden Spark talk by Danny Bravens, founder and lead landscape designer of Native Son Gardens. Danny will share field-tested insights on making a successful xeriscape garden and explore what “low maintenance” really means. I hope you’ll come out to learn, be inspired, and enjoy an evening of community with Garden Spark. Tickets are on sale now at this link. This is an in-person event and seating is limited, so grab your spot today.
Searching for a Low-Maintenance Yard: Views on Xeriscapes in Central Texas
Everyone wants a low-maintenance yard, but what does that really mean? For four years, Danny Bravens’s design company, Native Son Gardens, has been yanking out lawns and installing native-plant gardens that can be used more while requiring less maintenance than a traditional lawn-filled landscape. In this talk, he’ll cover the many failures and successes they’ve had along the way, as well as the specific practices that they’ve adopted in their search for a lawn-free Texas yard.
Speaker Bio
Danny Bravens is the founder and lead landscape designer of Native Son Gardens and has always been drawn to nature. A few years ago, after a decade in the film industry, he started taking landscape design and botany courses as a fun hobby. When the pandemic hit and he lost a good-paying job, he decided to ditch film for landscaping and started this company the next day. It was a good decision. On the company’s first project, he met his partner, Hector, who manages the crew. Native Son Gardens has since installed well over a hundred landscape designs, redesigned the Long Center’s main entrance, experimented with seeded meadows, and grown a small company into a slightly less small one. It’s been both fun and hard, but also incredibly rewarding turning outdated lawns into sustainable and beautiful native landscapes. You can follow Native Son Gardens on Instagram.
When/Where: March 6 at 7:30 pm
Danny will speak on Thursday, March 6, at 7:30 pm. The approximately 1-hour talk with Q&A will be held at Leaf Landscape Supply’s North Austin location on Pond Springs Road. Seating will be inside the main building.
Tickets
Purchase your ticket at this link. Ticket price is $35.50, plus a small fee that goes to the ticket-processing website. Tickets must be purchased in advance.
Refund Policy
Tickets are nonrefundable. Your purchase helps cover a fair speaking fee for our presenters and other expenses, and collectively we’re able to bring talented design and ecology thinkers to speak to us!
Thank You to Our Sponsor!
The 2025 spring season of Garden Spark is sponsored by Leaf Landscape Supply, which brings the visions of Central Texas gardeners to life through superior quality, an excellent selection, and individualized customer service. Check out their website and online store for pricing and availability.
Subscribe to Garden Spark
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Digging Deeper
Attend the annual Budding Out Plant Sale & Festival on March 15th at the John Fairey Garden in Hempstead. Shop for rare plants from the garden’s nursery and select plant vendors. Local artists and artisans as well as food, drink, and demonstrations will also be featured. Admission: $5 for members, $10 for non-members, children under 12 free. Hours: 10 am to 4 pm; members get early admission at 9 am (memberships available on day of event).
Come learn about gardening and design at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, authors, and gardeners a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance; simply click this link and ask to be added. Read all about the Season 8 lineup here!
All material © 2025 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
