Hurricane News

August 29, 2017: after the rains stopped at Peckerwood Garden. Photo by Adam Black.

Hurricane season opened with a vengeance this year, as all of our members, friends, and public gardens in the Houston area know well. We checked to see how our contacts in the area—both people and gardens—fared in the recent torrential downpours from Hurricane Harvey.

Initial reports from Peckerwood Garden, our preservation partner garden in Hempstead, Texas, are that the garden’s creek overflowed and flooded a quarter of the woodland but that flooding has now receded at the garden. They were even able to host a garden tour last Saturday, September 2.  Garden founder John Fairey and his house are fine.

In the heart of Houston, we hear that staff members at Bayou Bend Gardens, a historic garden and collection of American decorative arts, are all fine, but the gardens and the basement of the historic house were flooded and Bayou Bend is temporarily closed. The art collections were not affected. Just north of Houston, Mercer Botanic Gardens reports “overwhelming floods” and is closed indefinitely.

Our Open Days regional representative in Houston, Frank Brown, says he is fine and his garden was not flooded. We do not yet have word about our other local Open Days gardens in Houston.

Further afield in Texas, our upcoming Open Days gardens in Fort Worth and San Antonio were not severely affected and plans for fall Open Days are still moving ahead as planned.

New Orleans also experienced tremendous rainfall and flooding, but fortunately our preservation garden Longue Vue is fine. Amy Graham, Longue Vue’s director of horticulture, reports that they are trying to make a plan to help public gardens in Houston.

We extend our sympathies and best wishes for a speedy recovery to all affected by Hurricane Harvey—and our very best wishes to all in the path of Hurricane Irma and any further storms this fall. We will keep you posted as we learn about further developments.