Totally Texas -- Fling into spring!

From the many spring festivals in North Texas, I’ve picked a sampling to help plan your season. As always, I favor outdoor events, preferably free. This post lists annual or semi-annual festivals. A selection of recurring events follows next week.

March:

Currently through April 7 -- Dallas Blooms, at Dallas Arboretum, 8525 Garland Road. Sixty-six acres of gardens decked out for spring, on the shores of White Rock Lake. Open 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. daily. For ticket information and discounts, see www.dallasarboretum.org/.

Currently through April 7 -- Tyler Azalea and Spring Flowers Trails. Miles of self-guided driving trails begin at the Tyler Convention and Visitors Bureau, 315 N. Broadway. Related events include walking tours and arts and crafts exhibits, many free. For map and schedules, see www.tylerazaleatrail.com/.

April:

April 6 -- The Celebrate Nature Festival, Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary, 1 Nature Place, McKinney, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Includes interactive animal presentations, music, nature-inspired arts and crafts, and more. The Heard’s spring sale of native plants also returns April 5-7. Free for members. For schedule and nonmember ticket prices, see www.heardmuseum.org/.

April 6 - May 27 -- Scarborough Renaissance Festival, Waxahachie at 2511 FM 66. Thirty-five acre “village” with events drawn from the reign of England’s King Henry VIII. Saturdays, Sundays and Memorial Day, 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. Adult admission $24, but numerous discounts available. See www.srfestival.com/.

April 20-21 -- Spring Festival in the Japanese Garden, Fort Worth Botanic Garden, 3220 Botanic Garden Boulevard, Fort Worth. Traditional Japanese dance, music, martial arts, and more. Open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. April 20, noon - 5 p.m. April 21. Tickets $6 for adults, $3 for children ages 4-12. See
http://fwbg.org/.

April 20-21 -- Ennis Bluebonnet Trails Festival, Ennis, various locations. Arts and crafts, food, entertainment, and of course, bluebonnets. The bloom season usually starts the first week of April. Free. For information and to check on bloom, see www.visitennis.org.

April 20-21 -- April in Edom, downtown Edom (at the crossing of FM 279, 314 and 2339, southeast of Canton. Old-fashioned street fair with children’s activities, music, car show and pet parade. Free. Hours 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., with April 20 street dance until 8 p.m. See www.aprilinedom.net/.

May:

May 4-5 -- Cottonwood Art Festival, Richardson, at Cottonwood Park, 1321 W. Belt Line Road, one block east of Coit Road. A juried art fair with food, music, and children’s activities. Free. Open 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. May 4 (music until 8 p.m.) and 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. May 5. See www.cottonwoodartfestival.com/.

May 17-19 -- Wildflower! arts and music festival. Richardson’s Galatyn Park Urban Center, at U.S. 75 and Galatyn Parkway. Art, music, food, and kids’ activities. Ticket sales start April 15. Adult one-day pass $20, children 5-12 $3. Discounts for multi-day passes and for Richardson residents. See
www.wildflowerfestival.com/.

Totally Texas -- Dallas in bloom at Arboretum

Dallas Arboretum

8525 Garland Road

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Easter comes early this year, but not too early for the flowers already primping for the Dallas Arboretum’s annual Dallas Blooms festival. Tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, and a host of smaller bloomers carpet the grounds with color. Overhead, cherry blossoms vie with the pink and purple blooms of deciduous magnolias during the festival running Saturday, March 2, through April 7.

While you’re admiring the flower color, take time to appreciate the Arboretum’s other sensory delights. Fountains temporarily stilled to protect last year’s Chihuly glass sculptures are back on full splash. And the perfume of hyacinths, winter honeysuckle, and sweet olive wafts through the gardens.

On my visit yesterday, workers scurried through the grounds, replacing winter flowers in the many large containers with spring blooms, and finishing the Dallas Blooms signature playhouses. This year’s playhouse theme is “Adventures of Great Explorers” -- a child-size Aztec pyramid for Cabeza de Vaca, a Fountain of Youth for Ponce de Leon, and an Asian pagoda for Marco Polo, among others.

Love the Arboretum but can’t afford to go as much as you’d like? Several admission discount options are available during the festival. Visitors age 65 and over get discounts on admission and gift store items on Thursdays. Free garden tours are scheduled for Wednesday and Saturday mornings at 11 a.m. through April 7. The free offer is limited to 20 guests each day. Wednesdays except during spring break (March 13) are also BOGO days -- buy one admission, get one free. Some limits apply, and you’ll need a coupon for the BOGO discount, available at www.dallasarboretum.org/.

You’ll still pay to park, but parking is easier to find, as the Arboretum expands lots adjacent to the garden.

A highlight of the festival is the hanami -- Japanese-style cherry blossom viewing, presented by the Japan-America Society of DFW. Music and family activities are scheduled for Sunday, March 17, from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Or come early -- the first trees are already in bloom.

For complete schedule of festival events, discount details and pricing, see
www.dallas.arboretum.org/.

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Want more flower power? I blogged last week about Mrs. Lee’s Daffodil Garden near Gladewater, open through March or until the daffodils stop blooming. See “A host of golden daffodils” and the website, www.daffodilgarden.www.daffodilgarden.com/.

Also in East Texas, Tyler’s Azalea Trail is set for March 15 through April 7. See
www.tylerazaleatrail.com/.

(Next Friday -- spring break staycations in North Texas.)

Totally Texas -- Dallas Arboretum: pretty as a picture

Dallas Arboretum

8525 Garland Road

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Between huge crowds for the Dallas Blooms festival, a traffic-blocking marathon race, and drought-busting rains, yesterday afternoon (March 25) was the first day I’d made it to the Dallas Arboretum for a couple of weeks. So it was nice to check the public garden’s website, www.dallasarboretum.org/ and learn there was relief from at least one of those issues. The Arboretum’s new rainy day policy offers another day of free entry if rain falls during a visit.

It comes just in time for the climax of the Arboretum’s annual spring festival, Dallas Blooms. The festival continues through Easter Sunday, April 8. And though there are special activities for the next two weeks (see the site for complete schedule), you may want to avoid the crowds by getting the family out for a spring photo opportunity before the final day.

Unless the weather is truly inclement, the grounds will be packed on Easter. I write this from experience. Although the people-watching can be as fun as the flower watching, if your aim is a portrait of children or grandchildren without crowds passing between them and the camera, go early.

Yesterday, the tulips were still surprisingly strong, although some were passing their peak. Best spots for pictures with close-up tulips were in shady areas, such as a bed in the Palmer Fern Dale full of luscious lemon sherbet-colored tulips with fringed petals.

For backgrounds, the tulip beds around the main lawn between the fern dale and the DeGolyer House still look great, especially when viewed across grass so green it almost hurts to look at it.

The up and coming show, of course, is the azaleas -- pink, white, red, and even orange-flowered. Some beds are in full bloom now. There’s even a small planting of Texas’ state flower, the bluebonnets, in the Dry Bed. With a frame of yuccas and agaves, it makes a great picture. Be sure the children sit or stand on the paved walkway in front of the flowers, not on them. Agaves have thorns.

Or picture anybody you love at the “Small Houses of Great Artists” playhouses, such as the Monet-themed garden and bridge illustrating this post. If you can’t get there before Easter, the playhouses will remain in place through the end of the year. There are several others, but the boys particularly loved back and forth over the little bridge with this one. The Calatrava’s not the only bridge in town!

If you need help making your pictures as perfect as your visions, see the Arboretum’s adult education offerings on photography and painting at its website. I’m looking forward to a lecture later this month from Allen Rokach, photographer for both Southern Living magazine and the New York Botanical Garden.

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Note to my British readers -- Thanks! You’ve now looked at these posts more times than viewers from the Netherlands. But can you beat the French? I’m baffled but delighted at how many times readers from France view this blog.

Totally Texas -- a fairy tale without ogres

I’m beginning this blog about everything Texas in a place that feels out of this world – the Dallas Arboretum’s spring festival, Dallas Blooms.  Recognized by MSN.com as one of the greatest places in the world to see spring flowers, Dallas Blooms runs through April 10 this year.  The current theme is “It’s a Fairy Tale World,” with seven playhouse-like castles based on classic stories such as Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and Rapunzel.  But for gardeners in Texas and the Southwest, the Arboretum, in the spring and all year long, is a place to experience beauty designed to deal with our alkaline black clay soils and weather that can change from icy wind chills to subtropical breezes within the same month.

The loveliness opens outside the Arboretum’s gates with a laser-brilliant display of tulips and other spring bulbs.  (Yes, we like color in Texas.)  Once inside, I usually turn right, toward the Paseo de Flores, the main walkway through the gardens.  I’ll detour to check the displays of native and drought-adapted plants and, at this time of year, some of the fairy tale displays.  One of these is the thatched-roof cottage from years past, now transformed into Jack’s house – as in Jack and the Beanstalk.

I’ll visit the toad fountain, where bronze statues of the amphibians spout streams of water.  Beyond the Arboretum’s trial gardens is the circular fountain donated by the late actress Greer Garson in honor of her husband, Dallas oilman Buddy Fogelson.  When my daughter visits with her twins, the only way to lure the boys away from the fountains is to urge them to roll down the well-grassed hill behind the gazebo on the White Rock Lake side of the Arboretum.  They’re never the only kids taking advantage of the soft turf.  Grass stains fade.  Memories last a lifetime.

Which brings us to another joy for the young in age or spirit – the “Texas Town” exhibit near the Arboretum’s entrance.  We’d get there first if we turned left instead of right at the entrance plaza.  The small buildings – think playhouses, not miniatures – include houses, a church and schoolhouse.  Nearby are replicas of early Texas dwellings, including a tepee, covered wagon and sod house.  Still tiny by today’s standards but big enough to let imaginations soar.

The Arboretum is located at

8525 Garland Road

in Dallas.  For more information, see www.dallasarboretum.org/  Let us know where your favorite places are.