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Tarrytown, Austin

Landscaping Under
Tarrytown's Heritage Oaks

The Ground You're Working With

What a Tarrytown Lot
Comes With

Red Agave designs for Tarrytown's mature-tree lots: landscape lighting that shows the oaks at night, steel planters that add plants without digging into roots, and patios set outside the critical root zones. Every tree 19 inches and up is protected under Austin's code and every oak 24 inches and up is a heritage tree, so the design starts from the trunks. Owner-designed, built by our own crew. 5.0 stars across 86 Google reviews.
1915

Platted on Its Oaks

Tarrytown was platted in 1915 and sold in the 1930s under the line "Where oak trees charm the eye." About 2,800 homes, most built between the 1930s and 1960s, sit under that canopy today. The trees were the selling point then and they are the design constraint now.

19" / 24"

Austin's Tree Code Applies

Inside Austin city limits, any tree 19 inches or larger at 4.5 feet is protected and needs a City Arborist permit to remove. Oaks, pecans, elms, and other listed species at 24 inches and up are heritage trees, and removal is prohibited except as the code allows. In Tarrytown that covers most of the canopy.

Scale

The House Is Capped

Austin's McMansion ordinance limits the size of new construction and additions on Tarrytown lots. The square footage you cannot add inside has to come from the yard, which puts a premium on outdoor rooms that work after dark.

What That Means for the Design

Light the Canopy,
Leave the Roots Alone

Working under heritage oaks sets three rules: no trenching through the critical root zone, no grade change over the roots, and no irrigation spray on the trunks. Most landscape upgrades break at least one of them. Lighting breaks none. A 24V system runs in shallow surface channels and conduit routed around the drip line, COB uplights mount at grade, and the payoff is the one thing a Tarrytown lot has more of than any other neighborhood: canopy.

We light it with two tools. FCOB, flexible chip-on-board ribbon, gives a continuous line of light with no hot spots along paths, steps, and planter edges. COB point fixtures at CRI 90+ uplight the trunks and branches so the oaks read true to color at night. Our COB vs. standard LED comparison explains the difference, and the landscape lighting guide covers layout. See the full landscape lighting service.

For planting color without root disturbance, cantilevered steel planters sit on the existing surface, so the beds live above the roots rather than in them. Read about them under custom steel planters.

Case Study · Tarrytown

Tarrytown Glow:
Six Zones, 420 Feet, 10 Days

A Tarrytown property with a full canopy and no presence after dark. Red Agave installed 420 linear feet of 24V FCOB continuous ribbon lighting along paths, steps, and bed edges, COB uplights at CRI 90+ on the trunks, diffused steel light boxes for soft fill, and integrated pathway lighting. ESP32 WLED controllers run six independent zones across the front yard, side yard, patio, and rear garden, with scenes programmed from a phone. No trench crossed a critical root zone.

Ribbon420 LF 24V FCOB
UplightsCOB, CRI 90+
FixturesDiffused steel light boxes
ControlESP32 WLED, app scenes
Zones6 independent
CoverageFront, side, patio, rear garden
Root zonesNo trenching
Build time10 days, one in-house crew
Diffused steel light box casting soft light across a Tarrytown garden bed at night
COB uplights on live oak trunks in Tarrytown showing true bark color after dark
24V FCOB ribbon lighting tracing a Tarrytown path edge in a continuous line

Read the full Tarrytown Glow case study →

Planting

Plants That Live
Under Live Oaks

Dry shade is the Tarrytown condition. Live oaks take the water first, and anything beneath them has to accept what is left. Inland sea oats, Turk's cap, cedar sage, American beautyberry, and Texas sedge all do, and all of them are on our native plants list for Austin.

For sun at the edges of the canopy, agaves in steel planters give structure without a bed cut into the roots. Our cold-hardy agave guide covers the species that take a Central Texas winter in a container.

Questions From Tarrytown

Oaks, Roots, and Light

Can I remove a large oak in Tarrytown?
Any tree 19 inches or larger at 4.5 feet is protected and needs a City Arborist permit. Oaks 24 inches and larger are heritage trees under Austin's code, and removal is prohibited except as the code allows. We design around them instead.
Will landscape lighting damage tree roots?
Not the way we install it. 24V FCOB runs in shallow surface channels and conduit routed around the drip line, and COB uplights mount at grade. No trench crosses a critical root zone.
What is the difference between FCOB and COB lighting?
FCOB is a flexible continuous ribbon that gives an unbroken line of light with no hot spots, used along paths, steps, and edges. COB is a point fixture used for uplighting trunks and walls. Both run on 24V.
How is the lighting controlled?
ESP32 WLED controllers, one per zone, driven from a phone app. The Tarrytown project runs six zones with saved scenes for everyday, entertaining, and late night.
How long did Tarrytown Glow take?
10 days for 420 feet of ribbon, the COB uplights, steel light boxes, pathway lighting, and six zones of control, by one in-house crew.
Explore

Nearby Areas & Related Services

RollingwoodWestlake HillsMuellerBarton CreekLandscape LightingCustom PlantersPatios

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Tell us about your Tarrytown lot and its trees. We'll design for the canopy and keep the roots untouched.

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