Sentiment means a lot to Jackson Broussard. Through Sprout Landscape Architecture, he unites beauty, function, and memories in every design. As a child, he picked up landscape impressions
through family vacations. Now an architectural designer, an especially poignant project landed him in his Austin childhood home. As a kid, he watched planes land at the historic
Mueller airport beyond the back fence. – My mom and dad bought it in 1980 for $28,000
which is kind of funny to think about now. My dad and my mom asked me if I was interested
in buying it about six years ago. – Eventually he built a narrow tree house
home for himself in the backyard he shares with new renters up front. – There was nothing here. So it was literally the two oak trees in the back,
the sidewalk in the front, and some grass. It’s a blackland prairie. What we do is we add a lot of thunder dirt
or gravel when we plant here. I knew I wanted something that was halfway formal,
reminded me of Italy or reminded me of traveling and that I could show all of the different
little pieces that I’ve found. – After renovating the house, he headed to the yard, breaking up lawn with a broad entrance patio and an allée of bradford pears. – I think when you’re coming up to a house,
it’s very important to establish a sense of entry and to know where to go. I love walking through pathways of plants
with borders that are five feet tall on both sides and kind of dragging
my fingers through them. – Thick limestone pavers atop washed pea gravel
replace the old sidewalk that Jackson chopped up for other destinations. – The pedestals that hug the front pathway
– those are me finding little things, little scraps from jobs and stuff, but it’s also
friends of mine that are donating things. A friend of mine went to help after Katrina happened,
and he found this piece just laying around in New Orleans,
and he brought it back. – Architecture and plants collaborate to vary
both lines and viewpoints. Strategic placement creates a gently shielded
patio near the front door. – I wanted to be able to create little nooks and mystery so that you don’t see everything in half a second. So in order to do that, you have to create layers,
so you have to plant things that block your view, so you have to work to get around it,
and that’s what that front patio is about so that it gives a little bit of privacy
from the street. It’s not saying, “Keep out”
by any means. – Jackson pops in surprises like with a technique
he saw in France. – I thought,
“Man, I’ve always wanted to do that.” And beach vitex, I thought, “Well, it might be
the perfect solution because it grows really fast.” It’s incredibly hardy.
It’s called stripping, really. I just snip off everything that I don’t want. – Jackson and his neighbors are great friends
in this sociable neighborhood, so his low wall between properties
wasn’t for division. – It’s to help a little bit with drainage
so everything doesn’t wash out the driveway. But it’s my love of found things, you know. It’s fossils and bricks and all sorts of little
things that are incorporated in. A wall like that, or a pedestal like that
– it’s not just leftovers and junk. Those are all very intentional pieces that
I’ve saved over time, found over years. – You’ll find lots of memories in the
car port’s wall too. – I know the story of all those different pieces. It’s a nice reminder of those trips for me. – To enclose one side, he attached cedar to
the old chain link fence post. – If you’re working on ranches and stuff,
that’s called a coyote fence. – He turned the garage into a car port that’s
become a charming neighborhood hangout. – Functional things – tools, found objects and things –
can be very very beautiful and also sentimental. – From the car port, he proclaims entry into
his own abode via carefully chosen scraps for footing and regal columns. – Trying to put little pieces of things together is
really what this place is about. – An altar of plants, viewed from either side,
unites the spaces even while designating separation. – It’s a beautiful piece of concrete. It’s helped to create the sense of entry. The terracotta that’s on the property –
we found it all. So meaning that I go to Italy once a year,
and I’ve found different sources, and we bring back an entire shipment. They come from a place called
‘Impruneta’ in Italy. It’s the strongest terracotta in the world. – A mission olive tree graces his backyard
entrance. – The house does protect it from the north wind,
which I think is really kind of the important thing, at least for the first two or three
years when it’s getting established, and after that, they’re pretty hardy, but if we do have
a winter when it’s super cold and it gets down into the twenties, low twenties,
then parts of it will freeze back. That gate and fence idea started with
the sliding hardware. That sliding hardware came out of a butcher
shop in Seguin, Texas that’s no longer around. It was Mr. Grind’s Butcher Shop, and I wanted
to make a sliding gate because it’s a tight little spot. If you have a normal gate that opens up on a hinge,
it kind of starts running into the olive or the trashcans or whatever. And the fence itself is really just made out of rebar.
That’s all it is. It’s from a scrapyard. – In back, Jackson carried on his style of
turning spaces into destinations. Backed by the cedar coyote fence technique,
curves break up straight lines. Geo zoysia segues into pea gravel under post
oak trees, contributing definition and semi-shaded playground for Daisy May. He chose bay laurel to hedge the grassy arena
after mixing gravel into the soil for good drainage. To elevate the view, Jackson designed
a deck big enough to entertain. – I didn’t want to just have steps that came
directly out of the back door. I wanted to step out onto a level surface,
and so you’re still kind of looking down on things, and it gives an interesting perspective. The concrete pond – that stems from my love
of furniture as strange as it sounds. It’s a bench. It’s another way to get furniture into a space
without adding actual chairs or benches or anything. Whenever anybody comes over and hangs out,
everybody’s sitting on the side of the fountain. – Steps down, Jackson tends the grill while guests disperse in their seat of choice, especially near the fire pit on cool nights. – I did want to separate a little bit the
grass from the entertaining area. I didn’t want to put a gate or anything, you know,
I wanted you to be able to flow through, but it’s the same concept of walking
through something. It feels like you’re literally
changing spaces. – He chose a classic ranch-style entrance
topped with a sentimental heritage bell. These days, his back gate opens to a view quite different than childhood when he watched Mueller’s runways. – My fondest memories of that is you could sit up
on the roof, and you could count the jackrabbits because it was just an open field,
so there were jackrabbits everywhere. All you see is just these ears poking up
over the grass. The whole thing is is that when you walk through
the fence that leads to a greenbelt – that greenbelt leads to the Mueller Lake. So I wanted you to be able to see through
that gate and kind of see what was going on because in the springtime,
when all the wildflowers are blooming, then you actually get hints of that. – Found objects turned into
a tower of interest. – That goes back to the same concept of creating
sight lines and destination and visually and physically moving someone
around the property. It’s something that sparks interest,
so when you’re moving around the garden, you’re looking at every different thing
and that spurs the question of, “Hey! What is that?” – Hedged boxwoods peppered with foliar contrast
embrace the narrow strip. An old boat chain hauled by lots of landlubbers
anchors the other side. Rounding the corner of the screened in porch,
Jackson adds height with a quite different purpose. – It started from the gate, and that was the
piece that I found in New Orleans years ago, and then one day I thought,
“That would be a great gate” and “That would be a great gate
for the shower.” We were building the deck at the same time,
and so I thought, “Well, we’re going to have a few extra pieces of wood from the deck”
so that’s what spurned the shower walls. – Sentimental good finds even creep into a
utilitarian spot overlooked by rangoon creeper. – Something that I really really believe in
is a middle ground. What I mean by that is a lot of landscape
architects and designers – they’re either plant-heavy or they’re hardscape-heavy,
and I really think that the best projects that I’ve ever worked on are
somewhere in the middle. I love plants,
but I also love stone and architecture. That’s where that middle ground, I think,
is really really important.