The Landscape
The Elisabet Ney Museum’s Landscape was planted very specifically in 2010 to recreate something approximating what drew Elisabet Ney to this site in 1892. The resulting Native Prairie Landscape Restoration has been carefully managed over the time since to result in what you see now. This was based on a Landscape Restoration Master Plan designed by Heritage Landscapes, a renowned landscape restoration planning firm. Numerous invasive species were removed and replaced with plants that are largely native to the area.
THE LANDSCAPE AND ECOLOGY OF THE ELISABET NEY MUSEUM--NATURE, DISTURBANCE, AND RESTORATION
a. Post oak savannah - The post oak savannahs of Texas are characterized by native grasslands with scattered post oak and other hardwood trees. In bottomlands in these areas (like the north side of Waller Creek near the Ney), the canopy grows thicker with large hardwood trees over an open understory.
b. Plant communities and the soil - The plants communities (that is, the arrangements of different plant species) that grow today at the Ney are partly the result of restoration efforts begun over a decade ago. They are also the result of the wild processes that take place season after season-- the actions of rain falling, plant roots growing, animals bringing in seeds, dead plant material being decomposed back into the soil. The soil is a big part of what makes it possible for different kinds of plants to grow: Is it deep or shallow? Is it soft enough for plant roots to grow in? How long does it hold water? These are some simple elements of what the soil is like, but by answering them we can start to understand why some plants might grow one place but not another.
c. Disturbance, development, and the soil - Since the time that Elisabet Ney built Formosa, the soil on the Ney grounds began to be affected by humans in a way that it had never been before. Through seemingly simple actions like regularly walking across the ground or mowing the grasses, the soil is affected. Ecologists generally call these temporary changes which have prolonged effects “disturbance.” Actions like walking, and even more so driving vehicles, compact the soils in a way that natural processes take a long time to uncompact. Regular mowing adds a kind of disturbance that many native plants are not adapted for. Over time, these kinds of disturbances-- ones particularly caused by human presence and development-- shifted the plant communities at the Ney. Because these changes have their roots (if you will) in the soil, restoring the plants communities that existed historically on the Ney grounds is not a matter of just “switching out” the plants--the soil, too, must be restored.
d. Fire, periodic grazing, and drought - The term “disturbance” doesn't just refer to things that humans do. Various patterns of disturbance shape various ecosystems in different ways. The ecology around what is now the Ney grounds was shaped by particular cycles of disturbance prior to Anglo settlement in the 19th Century. Three regular kinds of disturbance created the landscape of grasses and occasional trees that defined the post oak savannah: drought, fire, and infrequent (but heavy) grazing. All three kept the land from becoming dense woods and favored the native grasses that grew here. The fire (in the form of regular wildfires started by both lightning and humans) and the grazing (by migratory herds of herbivores like the American bison) also helped return nutrients from the plants back to the soil, in the form of ashes and manure. Drought, of course, still happens.
e. Grasses, the foundation of prairie and savannah ecosystems - In place of the trees and woody shrubs that form the foundation of forest ecosystems, prairies and savannahs are anchored by grasses. In response to drought, perennial native grasses spend years establishing strong and incredibly deep root systems. In response to fire and grazing, they are adapted to lose their above-the-ground parts now and then-- be it to flames or hungry herbivores.
THE ELISABET NEY MUSEUM -- HISTORY OF THE LAND
a. The Lipan Apache, The Tonkawa, and the Comanche - What is now the Austin area has been inhabited by Indigenous peoples for at least 10,000 years, if not more. When the City of Austin was founded in 1848, those people were the Tonkawa, whose lands extended south and east; the Lipan Apache, whose lands extended to the north and west; and the Comanche, who arrived from the north in the early 19th century and whose raids of early non-Indigenous settlements cemented them in the minds of Texans to this day.
b. Ney’s Purchase - In 1891 Monroe Shipe began developing Hyde Park for the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Land and Town Company on the former grounds of the State Fair of Texas. The site had previously been used by the US army for training. Shipe advertised this new suburb to affluent Austinites. After finding it hard to market due to its distance from downtown, he established a street-car line to provide its residents a timelier commute. Though restrictive covenants were an unfortunate part of the reality of property ownership in this area at the time, Ney purchased 6 lots in the Northeast corner of Hyde Park--effectively the very edge of town--in 1892.
c. Formosa - Ney constructed her studio space, which she christened Formosa, in 1892, and expanded it in 1902. Throughout the rest of Ney’s life, the grounds of Formosa had vegetable gardens, a stable, and pasture for her horses. It was fenced simply, with cedar posts and barbed wire, and almost all of it remained "unimproved." Next to her studio, Ney grew banana trees that reached as tall as the roof (we have not been able to get them to grow quite so high again).
d. “Bullfrog Lake” - When Ney purchased the property, Waller Creek, which bisects it, had been dammed into a small body of water then called “Bullfrog Lak," and later, “Lake Ney.” Local people would fish, swim, and even canoe in the lake. In 1898 it was drained, but the original dam, built by the Army in the 1870's, still stands, with the addition of an archway through which the creek now flows.
e. After Ney - After Elisabet Ney’s death in 1907 and its transition into the first home of the Texas Fine Arts Association in 1911, the landscape was subject to a series of modifications typical for an urban park. In addition to the wildly sprouting “weeds” and trees, continued wildlife use, and the countless happenings of the insects and soil food web-- there were the human ones. Landscape plants, both native and exotic, were planted again and again. Green spaces were used by people and, in some cases, parked on by cars and other vehicles. Open areas were mowed. Ligustrum, a non-native, took over the banks of the creek, as they have in many places in the city. All of these took a toll on the landscape here. Mitigation of these alterations began in earnest in 2010, resulting in what you see today--a Native Prairie Landscape Restoration.
In 2017, the historic 1939 stone wall, donated by the Violet Crown Garden Club of Austin, and its wrought iron gate, fabricated by the famed F. Wiegl Iron Works, were restored with funding from the City of Austin's Heritage Grant program.
Sources:
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
Native Prairie Association of Texas
This content was written by Mino Giunta, the Elisabet Ney Museum’s Environmental Educator and Oliver Franklin, the museum’s Site Coordinator.
