Zilker Botanical Garden

As seasonal transitions and climatic extremes continue to challenge Central Texas gardens, it becomes more important than ever for gardeners to explore the question: “How do plants thrive in the wild without our help?” Matt Welch, a horticulturist, farmer, and plant ecologist, spends entirely too much time pondering this very question. Join us for the monthly Garden Club of Austin meeting as he shares his best answers, exploring the hidden ways the incredible plants and plant communities of the Hill Country survive the seasons, and how you can take cues from these tough Texas plants to build wild beauty and resilience in your own garden. Matt Welch has spent the last 35 years enamored, mystified, perplexed and often confounded by the plant kingdom. He has worked in orchards, nurseries, botanical gardens, academia, and now lives and works on the Pedernales River, canoes to work every day, and is learning how to farm vegetables and grow cut flowers. An East Texan by birth and by disposition, Matt left Nacogdoches for Austin in 2005 after working several years at the SFA Mast Arboretum and the Pineywoods Native Plant Center, two gardens affiliated with Stephen F. Austin State University, where he received his BS in Horticulture a hundred years ago. While there, he happened upon the only thing he’ll be remembered by, a pink fruited form of American Beautyberry, known in the trade as Callicarpa americana ‘Welch’s Pink.’ This will take place in the auditorium. Open to the public, free to attend.