Back yard peek

The lanceleaf coreopsis and lyreleaf sage that I transplanted and relocated in April 2015 have survived another year!

Becky and Tim gifted us with a kalanchoe for our 10th anniversary last year. It's blooming!

Evening primrose

Sedum

Square-bud primroses

Blue curls

Snake herb

White avens

Zexmenia

Lyre-leaf sage

More square-bud primroses

Engelmann daisy

Front yard peek

 Death camas

 Death camas

A wildflower corner that James lets me keep natural.

I spotted some blue curls in bloom in the wildflower corner!

The wildflower corner is beneath a hackberry.

 Pink mint is flourishing in a built-in flower bed.

 Past gifts of amaryllis in bloom!

Cedar sage

Texas betony

New additions

And a PLANT SALE! Today was my favorite sale, the Cibolo Nature Center's Mostly Native Plant Sale in Boerne. I was there bright and early before the official 9 a.m. opening. But they let me in any way. Ha! James had to work, but he trusted me to go alone and unsupervised. As you can see, I was very restrained this year. I came home with six new friends (one I bought last week from a fellow Master Naturalist). Here they are:

Balsam gourd (Ibervillea lindheimeri) *

Bee balm 'Jacob Cline' ***

Heartleaf skullcap (Scuterllaria ovata) *

Showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) **

Talayote (Cynanchum racemosum)****

Texas greeneyes (Berlandiera betonicifolia) *

Texas milkweed (Asclepias texana)**

*Native Plant Society of Texas Boerne Chapter

**Madrone Nursery, San Marcos

***Nature's Herb Farm, San Antonio

****S. Childers, Master Naturalist

Happy birthday, me!

Thank you, Brock!

Happy birthday to me today! So to celebrate, we headed north to Hill Country Water Gardens and Nursery in Cedar Park, where we originally bought everything for our stock tank pond back in May 2012. My 'Indiana' dwarf water lily needed to be divided. I thought this would be the third time since we've had it, but turns out this was the second time since 2012 that the poor thing has been worked on. I think you're suppose to divided every year. Oh, well. Brock (above) was the nice young man who took care of my lily.

 Hill Country Water Gardens is a pretty place to hang out.

They've even got a cool fairy garden (hard to tell by this photo, though).

For my birthday lunch, we stopped at the Oasis in Austin, the "sunset capital of Texas." No sunset for us, but we did enjoy my free birthday brownie after a fish taco (me) and beef enchiladas (James).

There's James, flirting with Ophelia at the Oasis!

On the way home, we stopped to visit a dear friend at a rehab hospital in Lakeway. Volunteers Sue, Julia and Betty with Minis and Friends were visiting patients with Mr. Wiggins and B.B., a pair of friendly miniature ponies. B.B. willingly laid his head in my lap for some photos and head scratches. What a hoot!

Back at home, time to get to work! I set my newly divided water lily into the water and released a dozen (actually 11) gambusia we bought at Hill Country Water Gardens. We already had more than 10 in our stock tank, but new genetics is always a good thing, I figure.

And finally...this is so exciting (to me, at least)...

MY GREEN MILKWEEDS ARE COMING BACK! 

Happy birthday, me!