Later, he became her boyfriend—Mr.

She wanted wildflowers to be planted along the roads and highways of Texas. In elementary school, I earned multiple ribbons in the 50-yard dash during the annual field day. The tips of the prairie grass gently undulate. This led him to an epiphany: Natives, which were blooming in the countryside near his nursery at that time, were the future.In 1989, Neiman and his wife, Jan Neiman, founded Native American Seed in Argyle but moved to Junction in 1995 on a site that’s both a production facility and a destination for flower lovers. “The song of the wind in the upper branches of the pine trees is the most evocative symphony I’ve ever heard,” she recalled in 1988, at the age of 76. Throughout much of my life, nature has offered up solace and comfort when my mom hasn’t been able to. Native American Seed has partnered with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to create “Lady Bird’s Legacy,” a seed packet comprised of nine species, including Indian blanket, black-eyed Susan, annual winecup, purple coneflower, and Texas bluebonnet. I feel the cool air travel into my lungs.

Downtown and the Capitol building are only 4 miles away. And, down here in Texas, I have the birds, the wildflowers, the open sky.

All of this wildness and natural splendor in the middle of the city. She considered being among native plants in an undisturbed habitat akin to a spiritual communion. Photo: Frank Wolfe/LBJ LibraryJohnson described nature as her daily companion. The current campus, renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in 1997, opened in 1995 on a 42-acre site in Southwest Austin, nine miles from downtown. Nonetheless, the savanna, ponds, and prairies of the Mueller Greenway still reflect the original landscape of Central Texas.

Each morning that I take to the trail, I begin again.

Despite this, I found a sort of unspoken consolation in the familiar landscape, the matching rhythm of our footfalls, the profusion of blooming flowers. When you find good soil, you throw your body on top of it and protect it because it’s really hard to build back. I remember, during the shock-filled days that followed 9/11, running amid the multitudes of New Yorkers seeking solace in the immense green space of the Great Lawn. In the voice-over of her familiar East Texas accent, Johnson says: “Notice the handsome live oak trees.” Her head cocks to one side, a dimple punctuates her left cheek. During the spring, the wildflower show is particularly dazzling, its explosions of color like a glorious Monet masterpiece: the sturdy heads of bluebonnets with their elegant fluted leaves; the whimsical pink of evening primrose that crawls down the side of a hillThis is what makes me appreciate this particular sweep of blooming flowers even more—how it lives side by side amid the persistent traffic, big-box stores, and slipshod storefronts. But once I began, I always felt better. It was another day. He worked with the Mueller development team, until his passing in 2015, to restore 30 acres of the greenway to its native grasses and plants, and transform it into one of the few wild lands in urban Central Texas.“More or less, we have a functional prairie in the middle of Austin,” explains Michelle Bertelsen, ecologist and land steward with the Wildflower Center, who worked on the restoration with Simmons. Neiman use to own a nursery in Flower Mound, but the heat wave of 1980 crippled his nonnatives. The area is a dense community of new urbanism with much of the neighborhood featuring attractive residential homes as well as several shopping areas, commercial buildings, and the Dell Children’s Medical Center. There is an ease, a relief, and a reminder: Nature—and life—changes, and so do we. “Beautification was an easy door to open for people,” explains Lee Clippard, director of communications at the Wildflower Center. “It’s important that we don’t lose this biodiversity, so we don’t lose Austin,” says John Hart Asher, senior environmental designer for the Wildflower Center. For me, I played sports. Plant spring-blooming annuals in the fall; perennials in the spring or fall.Expose soil; remove weeds without disturbing dormant native seeds. Throughout much of the state, millions of acres of the original prairies—featuring deep, fertile soil and a mix of tall grasses and wildflowers—have fallen to construction and other human uses. Later, I discovered my passions of reading and writing, and then teaching creative writing. The annual revolution of wildflowers emerging along the sloping shoulders of Texas’ highways and then dying away. Passing clouds obscure the sun’s brightness.