Quick Takes With: Christine Ten Eyck

We are longtime admirers of Austin-based landscape architect Christine Ten Eyck—so much so that her works are featured in both of our books: 2016’s Gardenista: The Definitive Guide to Stylish Outdoor Spaces and our upcoming The Low-Impact Garden (in bookstores fall 2025). She has deep roots in Texas, and her landscape designs—artful, rambunctious, ecology-based, perfectly imperfect—celebrate the region’s rich plant diversity. Current projects include a campus transformation plan for University of Texas at Permian Basin and a new master plan for the Lady Bird Wildflower Center.

Below, Christine reveals her best gardening hack, favorite public garden (it’s not in Texas!), and more.

Your first garden memory:

My grandparent’s vegetable garden at their lake house. We would go fishing and my grandpa would put everything he cleaned out of the fish back into the garden soil. I was fascinated! He grew the biggest tomatoes.

Instagram account that inspires you:

@terremoto)_landscape. [See Quick Takes With: Terremoto.]

Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.

Tough, wild, immersive.

Favorite go-to plant:

Eupatorium havanensis.

Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

Invasives like King Ranch Bluestem, Arrundo, Vinca major.

Plant that makes you swoon:

Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum.

Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:

The garden will not always look perfect.

Unpopular gardening opinion:

People need to appreciate resilient gardens that wither, turn brown and gold in response to drought.

Gardening or design trend that needs to go:

Fake lawn.

Favorite gardening hack:

Throwing my coffee grounds out to add acid to our alkaline soil. Also letting the leaves stay in planting beds as mulch.

Every garden needs a…

A mirror of water and the simpler the better—think about the brimming bowls of the Alhambra in Grenada, Spain.

Favorite way to bring the outdoors in.

Big windows with gray green painted mullions.

Favorite hardscaping material:

Gravel and weathered stone or brick.

Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:

Native American Seed.

On your wishlist:

Spend more time in New Mexico!

Not-to-be-missed public garden/park/botanical garden:

Portland Japanese Garden.

The REAL reason you garden:

It brings me joy, exercise, and a sense of accomplishment. It is meditative and restorative for me to prune, rake, and just be immersed in the garden along with all the birds and butterflies.

Thanks so much, Christine! (Follow her on Instagram @cteneyck and @teneyclandscapearchitects.)

For our full archive of Quick Takes, go here.