A niche for mosses

Two years ago, I learned about bryophytes at the Texas Master Naturalists state conference. Instructor Dale Kruse, the curator of the Tracy Herbarium at Texas A&M University, is passionate about mosses, liverworts and hornworts. I enjoyed his class very much.

At home in our back yard, I found a nice crop of moss, probably some species of Bryum, and got on my knees to get a closer look. Cool! Then earlier this year, I dug up a few patches and transferred the clumps to their own designated (safe) area. Two days ago, I officially named the little garden! Every time it rains, the mosses revive and green up. Amazing!

Transplanting native natives

In the past few years, I've really gotten more into saving "native" natives, as in those that were here before us. Scarlet spiderling (above and below) is one plant. I'd identified this species in our Wildscape but never paid much attention to it. It grows by our back yard patio by the garage door. A very vulnerable place to get walked on. Yet year after year, there it grew. I looked up the species profile on the Native Plant Database...a perennial. So I decided to transplant them. Which I did yesterday...both in the ground and pots. I've also transplanted....

Gray vervain (Verbena canescens)

Drummond's woodsorrel (Oxalis drummondii)

Rain lilies

Lantanas, flame acanthus (from one we planted), spider lily

More flame acanthus, a pipevine (from ones we planted), unidentified seedlings from pea family (far right)

Got a little warm in the sun while I dug up the spiderlings so I grabbed an umbrella.

September 2014 in our Wildscape

 

 Recent rains have REALLY GREENED UP our Wildscape! Thank you, Lord! Pssst....if you look REAL close at the huge live oak, you'll spot a black roundish object in the upper leftish side of the canopy. That's a .....

.....turkey vulture lurking on a high limb! 

And now to the back yard...(below)

Oh, I wish you could see everything in bloom for REAL!

That's James thinking out a new project...another brick patio for our back yard!

Second spring has sprung plus a frog

Meet my little froggy friend that lives now and then in a potted plant on our rock patio. I think it's a gray treefrog. I love to check and see if he/she is there. I have a plastic pot of pigeonberry set inside a larger porcelain pot. This frog likes to scooch between the two and probably enjoy the water that collects at the bottom (no drainage holes on the large pot.

Yes, all the rains have triggered our fall "spring," another beautiful time of the year! My tropical milkweeds (above) are nearly as tall as me! And the Linheimer senna is flowering (below). 

A jungle of turk's cap

Texas milk squeezed in one more bloom

Zinnias are faithfully reseeding and blooming

Love the sedums

Volunteer salvia coccineas blooming.

September surprises

Time again for those beautiful oxblood lilies to bloom. (Some folks call them September surprises, but I think those are really spider lilies.) These bulbs were given to us and also dug up from ditches. So pretty!

Photos below by my sweet husband, James.