Xeriscape & The Hundredth Meridian

Shake off those umbrellas! On this episode, Austin-based garden designers Colleen Dieter and Leah Churner discuss Central Texas’ climate and its consequences. Specifically, rain. And the lack thereof. Leah explains how longitude is destiny, and Colleen examines how “Xeriscape” became “Zeroscape.” But first, a garden update: Leah’s ripping out landscape fabric and Colleen has a misadventure with a skid-steer. 

Mentioned in this episode: 

“Austin’s on the Wrong Side of the 100th Meridian,” by Christopher Collins in The Texas Observer, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Path to Power by Robert Caro, Southwest Gardening by Rosalie Doolittle and Harriet Tiedebohl, and “Gravel in the Garden: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly” with Elizabeth McGreevy on KLRU’s Central Texas Gardener. 

Map of the hundredth meridian from Beyond The Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West by Wallace Stegner