Happy birthday to me!

Last Friday, I celebrated yet another birthday (every year's a gift!). So I'm Fifty-Again. For the fourth time. I had so much turning 50, that I do it again every year. I requested a day trip to Medina to visit Natives of Texas, a Hill Country native plant nursery owned by David Winningham. His late wife, Betty, established the business originally. The main reason I wanted to go was to purchase a Blanco crabapple tree, which is indigenous to our area. Mission accomplished! It was a GREAT day! My mother came along, too. As you see above, I came home with a CROWD of new green friends to plant... 

  

 

A Blanco crabapple grows at the nursery.

My mother, Marcelle, and me.

I had to get a shot of the bluebonnets.

After our nursery visit, we had BLTs and a burger for lunch at Love Creek Orchards in Medina. Mom bought us two slices of apple pie to take home. Then we headed to a new-to-me native nursery, one I'd run across while on the Internet–Medina Garden Nursery. There we met partners Ernesto Carino and Ysmael Espinoza. Oh, my, Ysmael is PASSIONATE (like me) about protecting and perpetuating Texas native plants! Both he and Ernesto are VERY knowledgable, too. Two hours there just zipped by!

Ysmael gave us a great tour of their nursery.

They live on site so visitors can tour their home gardens, too.

BLISS...I'm among friends.

My husband James, Ysmael and Mom

Ernesto, me, Ysmael and Mom

My new friends from Native of Texas: one (5-gallon) Blanco crabapple, three Texas betony, two golden groundsel, one scarlet clematis and two square-bud primroses. 

From Medina Garden Nursery: two brownfoot, three Lindheimer's morning-glory, one Texas barberry (with a winecup and two tiny cedar elms aboard) and one fragrant honeysuckle (not a native but one of Ysmael's favorites for pollinators).