Yard of the Month

A front yard filled with colorful Texas flowers and a backyard garden producing vegetables is still a San Marcos scenario as the year draws to a close and our northern neighbors deal with freezing weather. As December’s Yard of the Month, Spring Lake Garden Club features the home of Richard and Aleene Howser on Crystal Cove in the Hills of Hays neighborhood, east of Iinterstate 35 on Staples Road. A showy front garden is the result of hours of planning and tending, but also the advantage of location — an area of fertile farmland and grazing acres before new homes were built in the late 1980s.

Richard Howser notes that their house, purchased in 1988, was number 33 in the new suburb where he and Aleene raised their family. Richard began his career of 40 years with the San Marcos Fire Department, and Aleene, a volunteer dedicated to numerous community groups and projects, was cataloging at Texas State University library when she was inducted into the San Marcos Women’s Hall of Fame in 2018. Both are dedicated to gardening, which Richard calls “a work in progress,” and also therapeutic to work through the stresses of being a firefighter. Since he started his career in 1980, San Marcos’ population has increased two and a half times, the number of fire stations has almost doubled and the number of staff on a shift has increased to serve additional multi-story buildings in the area.

As colder weather slows plant growth and blooms, the Howsers prepare for regrowth after winter weather. Aleene will harvest the last of the tomatoes and peppers but continues to make compost in a mobile bin. A collection of potted plants near the front door will be moved into the garage when freezing temperatures are predicted. Richard will trim back or cut to the ground many of the plants in front yard beds so they are ready for a new season. Plants growing so closely together act as their own mulch during the year, so winter “bedding” is mostly leaf cover.

A tall wooden fence separates the Howsers’ front yard from the fenced back yard and provides a backdrop for a long bed filled with flowering plants. The wall supports a huge trumpet vine or cross vine near the house. Confettiflowered lantana in front of the trumpet blooms are surrounded by shorter white chrysanthemums and wine-colored begonias along a low rock wall edging the bed.

Next in line are purple flowered Mexican petunias, opposite purple phlox in the center bed. The fenceline bed continues with red-tip photinia and yellow bells or esperanza near a crape myrtle tree at the end. Tall broad-leaved canna lillies and diminutive fall asters have their own beds circling front yard trees.

More plant varieties grow in an enlarged central area surrounding a bottomless metal tank that Richard first dragged into the yard to define an area for plants and a flagpole. Stone edging for the expanded planting circle is hardly visible now, covered with deep red bougainvillea, pale blue plumbago, red and white begonias, red turk’s cap,and multicolored lantanas. Taller plants including bird of paradise and orange canna lillies offer background for shorter bloomers. Even a small chile pequin bush joins the mix on the sunnier street side of the circle.

The Howsers’ landscape has survived severe weather events, which can be a learning experience as well as a challenging crisis. A “rain bomb” in spring 2017 demonstrated the need to control water runoff from properties uphill, so Richard dug a french drain to divert water away from the garage and house. The devastating freeze in February 2021 tested people as well as plants, but the only loss was a large elderly ash tree, replaced with a Monterey oak planted nearby. Other front yard plantings were cut back severely but have rebounded over the summer and fall. The Howsers welcome back hummingbirds, butterflies, bumblebees and honeybees, as well as flashy red cardinals and jays, to share their colorful gardens.