Tanglewild Gardens merges passion for daylilies with tropical wow factor
Every time I visit Tanglewild Gardens, an Asian-influenced, daylily-hybridizing, future-wedding-venue garden in North Austin, I’m impressed by the energy and ambition of its owners. Skottie O’Mahony and Jeff Breitenstein, 13 years into the making of Tanglewild, continue to expand on its garden rooms and are in the process of remodeling a detached garage into an ADU with a tiki bar. Skottie calls the 1.7-acre property in the Wells Branch neighborhood a “private (for now) north Austin botanical garden & National Daylily Display Garden.” It’s a botanical fantasia unlike any other garden I’ve seen in Central Texas, with tropicalesque palms, bananas, and cannas galore. Oh, and lots and lots of daylilies.
I was there a week and a half ago, when the daylilies were popping with the arrival of May’s heat. But let’s start our tour in the moon garden, a black-fenced courtyard filled with white- or pale-flowering plants for evening enjoyment. Thai rice goddess figures and a carved wooden doorway in a stucco wall give you the sense of entering another country.
A tiered fountain on a gravel patio adds the music of trickling water.
Variegated bamboo stands out against the dark-stained fence.
Framed view into the moon garden
Skottie and Jeff were hybridizing daylilies in Seattle before they relocated to Austin, and they brought a bunch with them. They soon learned that many of the best performers in Seattle’s mild climate couldn’t make it here. But others grow well in our hotter climate. The couple built multiple raised beds to display their collection, with each plant carefully labeled.
I didn’t write down any cultivar names, but here’s a pretty sampling.
Fellow visitor Lori Daul checking them out
A few crinums and cannas share space with the daylilies.
Griffin guardian of the daylilies
The property slopes steeply down to Tar Branch Creek. Skottie and Jeff took advantage of the grade change by running a long stair down the slope and up the other side, creating a strong axis. A large patio with a stone fire pit is the focal point of the sunken garden.
Skottie and Jeff have arranged branches in the fire pit, giving an effect of crackling flames even in the off-season.
Let’s head down.
Pairs of Adirondacks flanked by silver-stump drink tables offer room for a crowd. You can see the ADU under construction in the background.
A sword in a tree — existing when Skottie and Jeff bought the property — has been dubbed Texcalibur by the couple. There’s a whole legend about that sword, which you can read about in my original blog post about Tanglewild.
Tar Branch Creek winds lazily through the garden. It’s home to a big snapping turtle, which I’ve not yet been fortunate enough to see.
Jeff and Skottie love big, bold foliage and have the water to support it, thanks to the creek and a well.
Check out the vivid red foliage on this Japanese maple, and it’s not even autumn.
Dwarf orange cannas march up the steps on the other side of the creek.
Looking back at the creek-crossing bridge and fire-pit patio
Smoldering cannas
An arbor with formal busts marks the entrance to the future wedding-venue garden.
A large, circular lawn makes a lovely space to exchange vows.
White prickly poppy
Cannas
Arbor view
Bull thistle
A windmill adds a little Texas flair to the garden.
Mexican hats
This elephant sculpture (unless they’ve acquired a second one) used to live in the moon garden, but now he’s frolicking in a bed of Mexican hats and cannas.
He looks happy here!
More daylilies
Beyond the wedding lawn, a patio backs up to a dramatic bamboo forest.
Now let’s go back to the fire-pit patio and take a side path to the rest of the garden. I especially enjoy this view of the lushly planted creekside garden.
Looking back toward the fire-pit patio…
…and the creek as it widens around a bend.
An Asian sculpture greets you along the way.
Heading back up toward the house, where a vitex shows off its pretty purple spires
Skottie and Jeff invited us to see the work-in-progress inside the ADU and pointed out this view from one of the windows. That’s the back of their main house and pool courtyard, with the moon garden behind the white wall on the right.
And here’s the reverse view from their back porch looking across the pool toward the ADU.
Courtyard wall with laser-cut Moroccan-style screens. What a retreat this place is!
Thank you, Jeff and Skottie, for sharing your beautiful garden with me again!
My previous posts about Tanglewild Gardens:
- Tropicalesque Tanglewild, where bananas and palms grow big and bold
- Life is beautiful at Moroccan-inspired Tanglewild Gardens
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A lot has changed since I saw it during the 2018 Fling! It looks great!
Yes on both counts!
Thanks so much, Kris. Always a work in progress and so much planned for this Fall.
What a wonderful garden, thank you for sharing it! I can imagine a wedding there, how perfect.
I can too. It’s a beautiful setting.
What Kris said! I was having trouble placing many of those vignettes, however photo “53_Garden_Pool_Wall” immediately took me back to standing right there are marveling at the use of tetrapanax as a ground cover plant. How do they do it!?!
I do not know. Lots of heat and the ability to water as needed? They said it’s a spreader.
But they should be so much taller, that’s the odd thing. Heat and water should make them grow and they should be 3, 5, 7 ft tall.
Ah, I see. Maybe Skottie or Jeff will clue us in.
Hey there, It is still early season. Those Tetrapanax papyrifer, the rice-paper plant, will be 7+ feet tall by fall and if the season is long enough, they should bloom. Our bananas are only about 3 feet right now and some of those will tower to 25 feet+ by fall. Everything dies back to the ground here in the cold winters we have been having. When we moved to Tanglewild 10 years ago, the Tetrapanax made it through the winter with just a bit of frost burn, but it dropped to 11 degrees F last year and leveled everything to the dirt. We had a small Tetrapanax in Seattle and it never got more than 3 feet tall and after 5 years, it was still looking the same. Here in this Texas heat and with our well, it has spread like wildfire. We pull out hundreds of plants every year to contain it and it returns with a vengeance.
What a magical garden and great photos! But you must have used an entire can of bug spray ):
I have to spray to keep mosquitoes away in every garden in an Austin summer, including my own. It’s worth it. 😉
Thank you so much for the kind words about our garden. I believe that most gardens are magical, born from sweat, passion, and a love for all things flora and fauna. It’s rare for me to encounter a garden I don’t like. I’m not a fan of the skeeters, though. I get bitten all the time, but my body has finally become pretty much immune to them. I used to get welts from bites, and now they don’t even itch.
A beautiful garden. I can see why someone would choose to wed there.
Me too, Lisa.
Thank you kindly, Lisa! It has become a great garden for making memories for sure.
This is one gorgeous garden, full of creative imagination. The elephant ‘frolicking in a bed of Mexican hats’ made me smile: it’s wonderful. I love, love, love the creek running through the property and the bridge going over it! There may very well be a downside but not knowing about it makes me wish I had both (creek and bridge).
The creek is a unique feature, and they’ve made the most of it. I love that elephant in the wildflowers!
Thank you so much! Our garden is a bit of a mishmash, but it’s full of things we love, so it works for us. The elephant is in memory of my mother, who collected thousands of them in her lifetime. She always encouraged us to wave whenever we saw one, whether living or sculptural.
We moved Scarlett, our male bronze elephant, from the moon garden to the back so that kids could see it from the street through the chain link. Kids love to wave at it. When we had it in Seattle, kids used to wave to it from the street as well, even though it was up on a bit of a cliff—they always managed to find it.
By the way, Scarlett was one of my mom’s many nicknames since her name was Charlotte and it rhymed. Eventually, I called her O’Hara in her later years as the nickname evolved over time.
Growing up in Pittsburgh, there was an elephant between two homes near the Highland Park Zoo, and as kids, we used to wave to it on the way to our grandparents’ place. When I went to Penn State, I found out that others from Pittsburgh also used to wave to that same elephant as kids. So when my mom passed, it seemed fitting to place it where kids could see it.