Saturday, December 26, 2015

Spring in December

Firecracker plant 'St. Elmo's'
What an amazing winter this has been! Temperatures in the 70s, and enough rain to keep the grass growing (James has mowed twice this month). Christmas Eve, I took my camera outside in the back yard and snagged a few shots of BLOOMS. We'll see what this weekend's storm brings.
Plateau goldeneye
Salvia 'Eyelash'

Oxalis
Shrimp plant
Rubeckia

 Lantana 'Lemon'
Fennel
Lantana 'Lemon'

Salvia coccinea
Fragrant mistflower

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

December 2015 in our Wildscape

 Green green green! We've even got a few flowers blooming.








Wednesday, November 25, 2015

"The Enchantment...of the Water Garden"

Last Monday, Kenneth Childers, who lives in Chicago but hails from Texas, emailed to say that he was in love with my miniature pink water lilies. Turns out he's quite the expert on lilies and water gardens. With his permission, I'm sharing his informative article on the topics. Thank you, Kenneth!
 





Friday, November 20, 2015

A walk in the Meadow

Since this could have been the last of warm afternoons for a while, I headed outside to nose around. I ended up in the Meadow. Still lots going on, like a few flowers still in bloom, like a stray cowpen daisy (above).
 I also spotted a tiny wolf spider mama, carrying her eggsac in her spinnerets. She was about the size of a dime.
At one point, the wolf spider paused and ran the long way around this indentation in the ground. I went back and looked to see why. There's a jumping spider lurking on the stick that's cross ways in the larger upright stick. Look hard. See her? She blends in with the dirt.
Alas, I saw a dead beetle. 
 I harvested and distributed more purple milkweed vine seeds (Matelea biflora).
 Yeah, we've got white-tailed deer. Yay. Hence, the indentations and pockmarks in the Meadow.
A beautiful dragonfly sunning on a rock let me snap some photos with my point-and-shoot.
The bees are still hard at work.
('Indigo Spires' in bloom in the front yard.)

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Bluebonnet seedlings!

Oh happy day! While throwing out milkweed seeds in the Meadow this afternoon, I found LOTS of little bluebonnet seedlings!



Spreading those milkweed seeds

Purple milkweed vine (Matelea biflora) seedpods are still popping open in the Meadow. So I helped Mother Nature out a bit this afternoon and spread some seeds around. It'll be interesting next year when I inventory our milkweeds (like I did last April) and see if the numbers have gone up. While I was out there, I noticed tiny bluebonnet seedlings coming up! Yee haw! Separate post to come.

November 2015 in our Wildscape