7 Garden of Sheryl Williams
  2303 Spring Wagon Lane, Austin 78728

Sheryl Williams moved to Austin from Oregon only a bit over two years ago. In her brief time in her new home, she's stripped her Wells-Branch-area yard – both front and back -- of its St. Augustine lawn. In the front space, she's planted native sedge grasses. Her back yard resembles a small farm, with everything from vegetables to herbs to fruit trees.

Everything about Sheryl's gardens demonstrates water-wise technique. About the periphery of the property, she's used trenching and mounding to retain water during rain showers; Sheryl notes, "The ditches hold the water so it can seep into the ground instead of running down the slope into the street." Her two rain-collection systems – one driven by gravity, the other by pump – provide water to all of her gardens. The harvested rainwater reaches plants that need it via a collection of soaker hoses and drip systems.

Sheryl remembers, "We moved to Austin from Oregon in March of 2009 – right at the height of a drought and just before the hottest summer of record. I lived in an apartment for a few months while house hunting and stood on my balcony in awe during my first Central Texas thunderstorm. I couldn't believe the amount of water that poured out of the sky and ran like a river into the street. I realized that water is a very precious resource and I needed to somehow harness these storms for my garden."

Gardening Demonstrations / Education Sessions:
9:30 Ed Parken - Rainwater Harvesting
10:30 Ed Parken - Rainwater Harvesting
11:30 Ed Parken - Rainwater Harvesting
1:30 Sheryl Williams - Keeping All Your Rainwater & Collecting Some of the
Neighbors'

See plant list