Cultivating the garden without: Bayou Bend Gardens & new visitor center marrybeauty with brains

Editor's Note: A new 18,000-square-foot sleek and modern visitors center for the Bayou Bend Collections and Gardens opens Saturday, providing easier access and a centralized starting point to get to the estate of Houston-changing philanthropist Ima Hogg. In this series, CultureMap examines the impact of the transformation and the public unveiling, which is a free event from 1-5 p.m. that includes tours, performers, colonial-era games and refreshments.

In this edition: Bayou Bend's too-often overlooked outdoor gardens and the effect the new center's had on creating a vaster green oasis.

What if we told you that a historic, secret garden existed in Houston that was all yours for the enjoying? Right in the middle of the city, although you'd feel like you're miles upon miles away when immersed in it?

Well, there is, you can, and you will.

One caveat: If we share this serene space with you, you must promise to tell everyone you know with any sort of affinity for the outdoors.

Deal?

Good. Then join us for a virtual tour of the luxuriant gardens at Bayou Bend.

More than plants

You might be asking yourself, "What's there to see at Bayou Bend besides the fruits of privilege housed under the roof of a stately manor and a sleek new visitor center?"

Bart Brechter, curator of the Bayou Bend Gardens, would chastise your skepticism.

"These historic gardens reflect the Hogg family garden from 1927 through the 1950s," Brechter explained. "In 1958, when Miss Hogg realized she was never getting married, she turned her attention and focus to other things."

"Other things" included the landscape architecture and garden design of a particular 14 acres of land just west of downtown, nestled on three sides by the Buffalo Bayou.

"The East Coast Garden Movement — particularly the Country Place Era — heavily influenced Miss Hogg's design," Brechter told CultureMap. In this age, according to Brechter, tycoons on the eastern seaboard were building abodes outside their urban settings. These new homes-away-from-home featured gardens skirting the perimeters of the estate, and were used for entertainment purposes.

Hogg, giving heft to the innate Texan in her, was not about to be creatively upstaged by East Coast folks, so she structured her grounds with this new American garden design in mind. As a result, Hogg's home featured the gardens that were farthest west in the United States to meet the criteria for Country Place Era designation.

Amidst the watchful goddess gazes of Clio, Diana, and Euterpe, Hogg kept an eye on the past, present, and future of Bayou Bend. She kept a mindful balance of vintage and native species in the gardens, such as camellias, magnolias, azaleas, and daffodils, which lead to national recognition among the most significant and encompassing gardens in the South.

In essence, Hogg turned what she deemed "nothing but a dense thicket" into outdoor rooms for living and entertaining, adapting the plant life to a domestic scale as well as the Houston Gulf Coast climate. In keeping with Hogg's forward-thinking approach, the immaculate gardens are still considered the largest all-organic public garden in the state of Texas.

"She designed the garden so she felt like she was coming home twice," Brechter said. "Miss Hogg was from East Texas, and wanted the redbuds and dogwoods to be reminiscent of the area she so loved."

Hogg knew a thing or two about melding beauty and functionality, and it shows.

The tie that binds

But the gardens at Bayou Bend don't end at the bridge that traverses Buffalo Bayou.

What about that state-of-the-art architectural masterpiece at the end of the drive? Well, it's in on the foliage fun, too.

But it wasn't an easy feat.

"We wanted to connect the two sites through the bird sanctuary," said Kevin Steed, project manager at McDugaldSteele, the landscape architects that made the gateway a reality. "But a lot of the native vegetation was invasive material. We wanted to make the area look like native woodlands, instead of a giant weed patch."

"The overall thought was to become an urban park as a connection between the two," Erick Hanson, the owner of McDugaldSteele, elaborated. "The land that would become the connection is property of the City of Houston, so the challenge was marrying private and public property seamlessly."

Via a link between the Hogg estate gardens, the Lora Jean Kilroy Visitor Center grounds combine to create an 18-acre metropolitan wonderland between Buffalo Bayou and Memorial Drive. MFAH, in collaboration with the City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department, worked diligently to link the two design marvels with the Ima Hogg Bird Sanctuary, and provide a lush, parkland stroll from the new visitor's center to the house museum.

"We were aiming for a woodsy feel with an urban facade," Hanson said.

Tucked away off a bend in Memorial Drive at Westcott St., the Bayou Bend Gardens are right on target. The seeds of history and modernization have bloomed into full-scale ecological elegance.