Human Flower Project

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Garden as Doorway through Time

Speaking in California on her new book Yard Art and Handmade Places, Jill Nokes gets a pointer from a friend—backward in time, down a well-beaten trail in old San Antonio. Thank you, Jill!

Mission San Francisco de Espada, San Antonio, TX
Photo: Jill Nokes

By Jill Nokes

Late last spring, while I was visiting California to give a book lecture, someone asked if I had ever noticed “that charming little swept dirt yard just outside the entrance to the Mission San Francisco de Espada” in San Antonio.  Like most people’s visits to the eighteenth century missions in San Antonio, mine had been limited to taking out of town guests to see the Alamo, and, once, a quick drive-by tour of Mission Concepciòn de Acuña.  Somehow I had never taken the time to explore the eight-mile “Mission Road.” This concrete trail connecting seven missions begins downtown with the mythic shrine of the Alamo, and follows the San Antonio River to the southernmost Mission Espada.  Although I have spent countless hours looking at ancient churches all over Mexico, I had only a vague understanding of the old presidios and religious compounds established less than one hundred miles from my home.

Soon after returning from California, with another lecture scheduled in San Antonio, I used that as an excuse to shanghai my good friend and preservationist architect Morgan Price to go with me to search for the vernacular garden that had so intrigued my California friend.

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