A storybook meadow of wildflowers awaits you at 39th and Avenue B. But make haste, because it's in its prime right now! It is the passion project of Karrie League, co-founder of Alamo Drafthouse. Karrie and husband Tim bought the Baker School in Hyde Park in 2017, and Karrie has been hard at work transforming the landscape around it ever since.
An interview with Karrie:
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Q: Does your love of wildflower meadows stretch back to your childhood, or is it a more recent interest?
I’ve always enjoyed nature, but I became very interested in gardening when I volunteered at the LBJ Wildflower Center way back in my early 30s.
Q What did the landscape at Baker School look like before you took it over?
It was all weedy lawns, full of burrs and stickers. It was not irrigated, so it was dead in the summer.
Q Can you tell me about Steven Hebbard’s role in the meadow? Was it a collaboration between the two of you?
Steven helped to build the community garden. The meadow came later. Originally it was just to be an orchard. I have a lot of peach and plum trees planted there.
Q How did you prepare the soil for the wildflower seeds? That always seems one of the hardest things for gardeners. Did you solarize the area, spray it… or what?
I solarized the entire field with large farm tarps for about 6 months. Then I covered the entire thing with cardboard and dumped mulch on top of that. That sat for another 3 or 4 months, then I planted the fruit trees. But with the small sapling trees, the area looked so bare that I knew I had to do something. That’s when I decided to make it into a wildflower meadow.
Q Is it a perennial meadow, or is it annual - that you re-sow each year?
It still hasn’t properly established itself yet, so I re-sow every year. But I use a mix of perennial and annual seeds. I’m still experimenting, so at this point it’s just a hope that it will eventually become self-sustaining.
Q Can you share some info on the seeds that you used? Was it a custom blend or did you purchase them as a mix?
I buy seeds from
American Meadows and
Native American Seed. I mostly buy large quantities of flowers that I like from the selections they have suitable for our area. I am also trying to get native grasses established as part of the effort to make the meadow year round and self-sustaining.
Q Once a meadow is established, can you talk readers through the calendar year, in terms of the jobs you have to do.
Right now, I’m just enjoying the show. I expect that it will get dry and hot at the end of June, and everything will die. (I haven’t got good grass cover yet.)
As all the nice plants die, I’ll start seeing a lot of plants that I don’t want. I’ll go out and pull the things that are spikey and/or invasive. Goats head, sand burs, silver nightshade, and lots of others that I don’t know the names of - I’ll pull weeds all through the summer and fall. Again, it’s my hope that by getting the native grasses established, there will be a huge reduction in weeding.
In previous years, the ground has been mostly bare by re-seeding time in late September, so I’ve just been able to throw the seeds out onto bare soil, and trample it down a bit. As I get more grass, the reseeding will get more finicky, as I’ll have to get down to the bare soil between grasses. But then, maybe eventually, the seeds will just be there, and I won’t have to reseed.
Q What lessons have you learned from your project?
It’s a lot more work than I expected! I made a mistake the first couple of years not thinking about the need for grasses, and I’m hoping that rectifying that mistake will make the whole thing a lot easier.
Q What advice would you give gardeners who want to, say, dig up their lawn and have a wildflower meadow?
Be prepared to do a lot of labor intensive work, but I’d say that it’s worth it!
Q Since you’re in the world of film, are there any movies that gardeners should look out for that feature wildflowers?
There’s always the Wizard of Oz, with the amazing poppy field scene. There’s a Chinese TV show that I love called
7 Plums It’s not in English, but there’s not much talking anyway. It features a woman just gardening and cooking what she collects from her garden. It’s amazing.
Q Are there any problems that you are facing with your meadow this spring?
Yes! Some people come to admire the flowers... and also pick them. Don't pick my flowers please! Thank you.
Thank you very much Karrie!
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