RIP Howard Nursery: Another Victim of Austin’s Relentless March Toward ‘Progress’

The Tragic Tale of Austin’s Lost Nursery: A Karen’s Lament

Oh, the horror. The absolute travesty. Once upon a time, in the halcyon days before avocado toast and $8 oat milk lattes, Austin had something truly precious: a family-owned nursery. Not some soulless big-box garden center where the employees look at you like you’ve asked them to perform open-heart surgery when you inquire about native plants, but a real, wholesome place where they served iced tea and gave actual advice.

But, like all good things in this city—affordable housing, parking, common sense—it’s gone. Vanished. Reduced to an overgrown, fenced-off relic, much like my dreams of ever finding a decent school district that doesn’t indoctrinate my children with history.

Let’s pour one out for the Howard Nursery, a place where people once bought plants without first checking their carbon footprint or whether the seeds were ethically sourced from a free-range, gluten-free farm. Eugene Howard, a man of vision, didn’t just sell roses—he sold dreams. And occasionally, he threw his burning brother into a pond to save his life (a true family business if I’ve ever heard one).

Now, what do we have instead? A wasteland of condos and food trucks. The nerve of these so-called 'urban planners,' tearing up perfectly good nursery land to build yet another luxury apartment complex with a 'rustic-chic' aesthetic. I bet they don’t even know what a hican is. (For the uninitiated: a hican is a cross between a pecan and a hickory, and no, it’s not edible, but it will concuss you if it falls on your head—nature’s way of punishing you for not shopping local.)

And let’s talk about the real tragedy here: the loss of service. Back in the day, you could stroll into Howard Nursery, sip some sweet tea, and get actual horticultural advice from someone who didn’t roll their eyes when you asked if a fiddle-leaf fig would survive in your north-facing sunroom. Now? You’re lucky if the part-time cashier at the big-box store even knows what a plant is.

So here’s my call to action, Austin. Let’s do something about this. Let’s form a committee. Let’s write strongly worded emails. Let’s demand that the city preserve what’s left of Howard Nursery before it’s turned into yet another artisanal kombucha taproom. Because if we don’t, what’s next? Losing the other sacred Austin institution: the right to complain about Californians moving here?

Heather Worthington is a concerned citizen, a mother of three, and the self-appointed guardian of all things 'the way they used to be.' She can usually be found drafting lengthy Nextdoor posts about 'suspicious individuals' (teenagers) or organizing petitions to ban food trucks from her neighborhood.