Home on the hills

Built on the edge of the escarpment over Spring Lake natural area — one of six such areas in San Marcos — the Cole family home on Norcrest Street in Spring Lake Hills has panoramic views of the beautiful natural landscape between their property and the boundary of the natural area at Lime Kiln Road. Along with this impressive view, the Cole home enjoys a very quiet location, with the exception of coyotes vocalizing down in the canyon or occasional snippets of music from outdoor band practice at the nearby Texas State campus. This handsome home is Spring Lake Garden Club’s yard of the month for November.

A large motte of oaks shade mountain laurels and irises along driveway beside the house.

Many homes on the perimeter of Spring Lake Hills subdivision, first platted in 1954 east of LBJ Drive, overlook the natural area adjoining the back of their properties, but rely on traditional landscaping in front yards facing the street. The Cole home, built in 1964 and purchased in 1973, is no exception, with a large front lawn and native trees — oaks and mountain laurel — lining a long driveway from the street. Planting beds near the house entry come alive with colorful periwinkles, one blooming plant not appetizing to deer. A red sage near the entry is also deerresistant, as is a nearby rosemary and a watermelon red crape myrtle at the end of the driveway. A small Mexican buckeye tree behind the periwinkle bed offers privacy to the front of the house and provides white flowers in springtime.

A dark green holly tree contrasts with gray weeping conifer in the front planting bed. 

On the opposite side of the entry steps, one decidedly deer-proof installation blends into the house architecture and fills a small corner space not hospitable to plants: an abstract composition of stones and pebbles set in stabilized sand. This ingenious addition to the landscape by Robert Weaver, who maintains the Cole’s gardens, makes the best of a difficult spot and adds unusual interest to the entry.

A larger planting bed lining the tall rock wall of the garage extension begins with the reliable spiky green fronds of a sago palm joined by a small holly tree and other larger scale plantings behind colorful bedding plants. This foundation bed includes bicolor iris, mealy blue sage and red Mexican honeysuckle, with pink skullcap and hardy sedums edging the display. But the most striking part of this collection is a weeping juniper whose gray leaves hug the rock wall as if the tree is growing out of its surface.

Entry to the Cole home features colorful periwinkles in a flower bed and fall pumpkins on the steps.

More irises line the parking area of the driveway, shaded by large oak trees, and a viburnum hedge lining one side of the property provides privacy for the Coles and their next door neighbor. Newly planted black bamboo — restricted by a concrete enclosure — mirrors the hedge on the opposite side of the yard.

For more information about Spring Lake or other San Marcos Natural Areas (and printable trail maps), visit the San Marcos Greenbelt Alliance’s website.