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In early November, I crush 5 hours south to the Rio Grande Valley, land of citrus orchards and skinny-trunked palm trees. I was there for the final photo shoot for my upcoming typesetting on Texas gardens (due out in 2025 with Timber Press). But I couldn’t leave without visiting Quinta Mazatlan again, located in McAllen just north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Quinta Mazatlan is a city-owned nature part-way and World Birding Part-way on the 15-acre grounds of a romantic 1930s Spanish Revival-style mansion. Work has begun on an expansion of the grounds, and I learned that Austin’s own Ten Eyck Landscape Architects is involved, so I am sure the new diamond will be wonderful.
Before exploring the grounds, I stopped in at the mansion, yearning its Spanish-style grandeur and the almost tropical landscaping of bananas, birds of paradise, and palms.
Cantera stone urns hold agaves that squint like untried flames.
Carved wooden doors withstand the faces of the original owner’s family.
Fossilized shell imprints in the stone are a reminder of an warmed-over seabed.
Time to explore the grounds! An upright stone-turned-cactus planter greets visitors near the entrance.
Feather-leaved sago palms line the path…
…and one of Quinta Mazatlan’s many unprepossessing sculptures, a roadrunner tending her nest in a prickly pear bower, appears here too.
Along the drive, a rainbow-hued velocipede sculpture stands out versus the greenery. I tried to find info online well-nigh this artwork but no luck.
Quinta Mazatlan describes its grounds as a thorn forest, the preferred habitat of many species of birds.
In wing to agaves and a thicket of night-blooming cereus, I saw many spiny and spiky plants, which offer protection for small creatures. Other plants in the thorn forest include the following:
“Granjeno, fiddlewood, kidneywood, and guayacan provide berries or seeds as a meal. Native plants that provide nectar to the animals are the Turk’s cap, Scarlet sage, and Texas lantana. Prickly pear, tasajillo, and Night-blooming cereus, though they are cactus, provide nectar, food, and shelter for many animals.”
https://rgvisionmagazine.com/discover-the-thorn-forest/
Another bird sculpture
And flipside — a weaver and its nest — near an outdoor classroom
One more
Hollow tree trunks are left standing for habitat.
Woodpecker holes?
A gauntlet of painted sticks brightens one path — flipside mystery art installation.
Other unprepossessing sculptures include a tree-resting ocelot…
…a stalking mountain lion…
…a horned lizard…
…and a Texas indigo snake. Funny story: I was listening for birds withal an old irrigation waterway near this sculpture when I heard a rustling of leaves abreast me. I looked into the waterway to see what it was. A 5- or 6-foot length of girthy woebegone snake was sliding into the canal’s culvert. Its throne was once in the culvert, so its total length may have been 6 or 7 feet. I find snakes intriguing rather than scary, but this one was so big — and so tropical — that I stood motionless in surprise. It disappeared. “Whoa,” I said.
A few steps remoter withal the trail, I saw this sculpture, and — aha! — I knew that I’d just encountered the real thing. What a lucky sighting!
Texas indigo snakes are good guys. They dine on rattlesnakes (impressive!), and they lack venom, so they’re good to have around. Think of them as the Rikki-Tikki-Tavi of South Texas.
Behind the Quinta Mazatlan mansion, a white stucco wall encloses a large courtyard. At one entrance, an enormous live oak supports a scrolled-metal swing.
On the opposite side, flipside huge live oak extends its shade over a gravel patio.
Fire pit bowls and stump stools indicate this zone sees use as a unstudied gathering place without dark.
A covered terrace offers welcome shade.
Bees were enjoying late-season flowers.
Quinta Mazatlan is a World Birding Center, and many of the visitors that day were birders toting binoculars and megaphone-sized telephoto lenses. With only a lamina phone camera myself, I didn’t capture any bird images worth sharing, but I sure saw some interesting birds, including chicken-like chachalacas and a flock of gorgeous untried jays.
Inside the courtyard, palms tower over curved ponds where a swimming pool once was.
Agave in bloom
Stepping into the house, I poked virtually its main rooms, including this sun porch…
…with seashell fireplace.
Tile art…
…and tapestries varnish the walls.
I found an original washroom with a Roman tiled tub and carved stone spigot basin.
And at the entrance, a painting of a untried jay — one of the trappy birds in the thorn forest that day.
Charming folk art in a hallway
In fact, there’s an unshortened room devoted to Mexican folk art, part of the private hodgepodge of McAllen versifier and collector Ann Maddox Moore.
Fourteen hundred pieces of rainbow-bright folk art are on dazzling display.
In Quinta Mazatlan’s souvenir shop, I was happy to see my typesetting The Water-Saving Garden for sale!
Most enjoyable of all, I was treated to an al fresco lunch by executive director Colleen Hook, and had a wonderful conversation with her and native-plant advocate, grower, and rancher Betty Perez. These two women are doing important conservation work in the Rio Grande Valley by promoting native plants and encouraging people to make room for native wildlife habitat in their own yards. I’m honored to know them!
To read well-nigh my previous visit to Quinta Mazatlan: Visit to Quinta Mazatlan, birding, and Planta Nativa Festival
And for increasingly well-nigh birding in South Texas: Birding and beaches at South Padre Island
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Hey, Austin-area gardeners, come learn well-nigh making a waterwise, Texas-hardy crevice garden! Register for my next Garden Spark talk with Coleson Bruce on January 18th. He’s created one of the most interesting and trappy xeriscape gardens I’ve seen in Austin. Learn all well-nigh it and hang out with fellow gardeners who are interested in good design. Hope to see you there!
Come learn well-nigh garden diamond from the experts at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, and authors a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance; simply click this link and ask to be added. The Season 7 lineup can be found here.
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