When I moved to Texas in 2014, one of the first places I wanted to visit was the The Dallas Arboretum & Botanic Garden in October. I had seen mesmerizing images of pumpkins used to create spectacular villages online from friends who had gone. During my first summer in Texas, I met SFA alumna Jenny Wegley who is the vice president of horticulture operations at the arboretum. I told Jenny that I was interested in coming to visit later that fall and wanted to bring students along. She said we were welcome to come and to give her a heads up when we made our way to Dallas.
A few months later, a handful of students and I left Nacogdoches around 6 am to get to Dallas as early as possible. We first headed to the Pecan Grove to meet up with Jenny before the big crowds of people arrived. Pecan Grove, where the core of the autumn display is housed each year, was covered with pumpkin pointillism. Jenny told us that some years 90,000 pumpkins are used to decorate the arboretum, and each year different designs are used to enchant both new and returning visitors.
The pumpkin display is concentrated in Pecan Grove, an open area that allows the gardeners to install whatever suits their artistic pallet.
What a foundation planting for this pumpkin house!
A close up of the wall of squash reveals the delightful diversity of textures and colors from the cucurbit family.
Our crop of students standing amongst a crop of pumpkins. Even Jenny Wegley (third from right) was an SFA grad from back in the day.
The staff at the Dallas Arboretum were hard at work making sure that the displays were “stuffed” with enough pumpkins.
I found these pumpkin garlands adorable! They were made using wire and had ornamental corn hung from them, too.
A river of steel blue pumpkins meanders through a tapestry of orange.
Piles of cucurbits surrounded by vining ornamental sweet potatoes created the illusion of a pumpkin patch.
After we left Pecan Grove, we walked to see other parts of the arboretum. Along the way we saw other places where the gardeners had integrated pumpkins into the landscape displays.
Pumpkins were used as edging along side these beds of Pachystachys lutea and Strobilanthes dyerianus.
Pumpkin edging fades into pumpkin piles here in front of Hamelia patens and Manihot esculenta ‘Variegata’.
These pumpkin cairns add a pop to this bed of Tagetes.
I liked how the white pumpkins picked up the hints of white in the fading Begonia petals.
And, then other parts of the arboretum were planted for fall color.
This alley of juvenile trees was planted with Tagetes and Ipomoea for fall color.
This bed featured quite a contrast between the yellow Chrysanthemum and Acalypha wilkesiana ‘Kona Gold’ and the purple Torenia.
We saw Lespedeza thunbergii subsp. thunbergii 'Little Volcano' at the arboretum. I love this fall flowering shrub; for weeks the branches are covered in lovely magenta flowers that are held amongst glaucous blue leaves.
My first trip taking students to the Dallas Arboretum was a wonderful time. And, while most of us can’t have 90,000 pumpkins at our homes, I hope that some of these photos have helped to inspire you to be a bit creative with how you create your autumnal displays!