Scenes from the Wildflower Center's Garden Tour

 

This garden's standing cypress was stunning.

While we were on the Great Nursery Tour of 2013 (last week), I commented to my friend that we should definitely go on the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s next Garden Tour. It was sure to have many interesting gardens, and would feature lots of native plants. 

Later that day, I popped open Facebook, and a notification jumped out at me:  the Wildflower  Center’s tour was the coming weekend (May 11). Mind you, my entire family was coming to celebrate my dad’s 75^th birthday on this day.

I love this combination!

Did that deter me? Oh no.

Bright and early Saturday morning, we (Lona, my dad and I) jumped in the car and headed to Austin on a schedule. We were determined to see two, maybe three of the gardens and be home by lunchtime.

Detail of the fern wall (on the left under the porch
overhang in the large photo above). A/C condensate
provides water for this feature, according to the handout.

After a lengthy discussion, not only about which gardens to visit and in what order, but also about how much trouble we have making decisions, we made a plan and then executed it. We managed to visit three gardens, and had a lovely morning communing with plants and other gardeners.

And yes, we made it home by lunch and before the other guests arrived. I even had time to spiff up the bathroom!

Hope you enjoy a few pictures of what we saw. I really would like to visit more of the gardens on next year’s tour.

 

This area is beyond the pool in the photo above.

More detail from the same garden.
Because the lot was steeply sloped,
the garden required extensive terracing (left).
I really liked this bird watering station (above).

My dad, enjoying the deck. Behind him is a view of the Austin skyline.
We also liked the succulent garden centerpieces.

This succulent garden literally stopped me in my tracks. It greeted visitors at the last house we visited, which also was sited on a steeply sloped lot, with a wildflower meadow, orchard, vegetable garden, pond, buffalo grass lawn, etc.

April showers bring . . . April flowers

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Garden Bloggers Bloom Day has come and gone, but since so much is blooming at my house right now, I’m posting for it anyway! I took these pictures on April 16, on a beautiful, sunny spring morning. It’s a good thing, as today it is drizzling and much cooler after the passage of a late cold front.

Although we are in the middle of a drought, we have received just enough rain to fuel my garden and wildflowers. The grass is green, and not just over the septic tank. The oak trees have leafed out for the most part (though a green haze of oak pollen continues to build up on cars and inside surfaces). In summary, it is a beautiful spring in Central Texas!

This scene is just purty:  Nierembergia (Nierembergia gracilis "Starry Eyes") blooming in the pond bed. Do you see the tiny yellow flower in front? That is common groundcover called straggler daisy (Calyptocarpus vialis). In places, it is my lawn – and it does not need mowing.

It's spring in Texas so there must be bluebonnets (Lupinis texensis). Our best bluebonnet patch is out by the burn pile. It was looking puny until a good rain three weeks ago. Now, as you can see, the bluebonnets are happier. Blooming alongside them is our main resident wildflower, the prairie verbena (Glandularia bipinnatifida).

 On the left is some sort of wildly beautiful iris. My iris bed has donated and one-off purchased irises, so I’ve got no idea what this one is. That does not stop me from appreciating it. On the right:  columbines (Aquilegia chrysantha var. hinckleyana, I think)!

I’ve posted a picture of this area recently, but since then these Texas stars (Lindheimera texana) have taken over their corner of the bed. You get to see them again. These grow in uncultivated areas of my yard, also, but do not get quite so large.

Last year I noticed this plant blooming in the wild area in front of my house. On closer inspection, I realized it was a damianita (Chrysactinia mexicana). It was the only one on my property, to my knowledge, and I did not plant it. This year a second one has appeared in the same area. Yay!

The anacacho orchid tree (Bauhinia lunarioides) is lovely, as it is every year, with its spring blooms.

This little area is one of my favorites right now. In front, cedar sages (Salvia roemeriana) shoot up stalks of deep red, with yellow accents from the four-nerve daisy (Tetraneuris scaposa, I believe) against a backdrop of white autumn sage (Salvia greggii cultivar).

Out in the rock bed (which looks rather grassy at the moment), a volunteer fragrant mimosa (Mimosa borealis) has put on its pink and white puffballs. This plant occurs naturally on my land. Yellow Dahlberg daisies (Thymophylla tenuiloba) are blooming all over my yard, as is prairie verbena. The daisies are not natives, but after I planted some one year, they have self-seeded all over the front yard. This is okay by me, as I like the wildflower meadow look.

Looking out my French doors yesterday, I noticed the sun shining through the fresh green leaves of the crape myrtle and ran for the camera. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), purple oxalis (Oxalis triangularis?) and wandering Jew (Tradescantia pallida) live underneath. The red bloomer is tropical sage (Salvia coccinea). This and the following picture are really more foliage shots, so I will be posting on Digging's Foliage Follow-up, also.

Last but definitely not least, I present this grouping out by the parking area. The only plant blooming here is the Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa - not a native), but isn’t it pretty with the century plants (Agave americana), nolina (Nolina lindheimeriana), woolly butterfly bush (Buddleja marrubiifolia) and cenizo (Leucophyllum frutescens)? 

Spring blooms in my garden

Bridal wreath (Spirea prunifolia)

Well, I really missed Garden Bloggers Bloom Day this time. I meant to post on the 15^th . . . no, really, I did! But a family emergency put the kibosh on those plans.

And yet . . .

Plants are blooming in my yard, despite our drought. Truly, nature is amazing. Plants will bloom in spring, no matter the lack of rain or unseasonable heat or drying winds. Some of my bloomers are rather exciting (at least to me), so I'm posting today.

Spring! Hurrah!

This is one of my prizes:
I think it's a potato vine
(Solanum jasminoides). It
grew over winter, and is
blooming gaily now!

We are on the tail end of bloom time for the agarita
(Mahonia trifoliata) and the berries are forming.

Texas stars (Lindheimera texana) reseed freely in my beds and yard. These are native wildflowers.

The irises responded nicely to their spa treatment last fall.
These are the first blooms I've seen in three years.

Blackfoot daisies (Melampodium leucanthum)

This is my other prize! A neighbor bought this for me last year and it's finally blooming.
The desert globe mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua) is native to the southwest (not Texas).

This awesome plant is death camas (Zigadenes Nuttallii). Yes, it's poisonous.

What's blooming in your garden? To see other GBBD reports, visit May Dreams Gardens.

Windfall (not the monetary kind)

Wow, it was blowing dogs off chains a few days ago! If you live anywhere in the middle of the country, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  I’m not complaining, mind you. Compared to the blizzard conditions experienced in other places, we got off easy.

Wind gusts exceeded 50 mph in our area. According to the National Weather Service (From Jim Spencer’s weather blog on KXAN), Hays County’s highest measured gust was 53 mph.

I am amazed at how strong trees are, and how much movement and stress they can take. Looking out the window the other day at the trees thrashing about, I expected more damage. But those trees are tough. Our damage was limited to occasional broken Ashe juniper branches, though one of those was quite a large branch in a tree directly in front of the house.

Besides the woodpile, a few branches fell, also.

One unforeseen problem emerged. In a recent tree-cutting spree we stacked wood five feet high between several moderately sized cedars. When the winds started gusting, the trees started swaying – and a good bit of our woodpile toppled. Now we get to stack that wood twice. Live and learn.

Did you notice the noise of the windstorm? Even inside the house, I could hear a low sustained roar. Outside, the roar was intense:  an amalgam of wind whistling through branches, leaves rustling, limbs crashing against each other, and trees creaking and groaning – for miles around.

“Awesome” – though overworked – is just the right adjective!

Favorite spot in the garden:

The violets have begun blooming, few and sparse right now. These little darlings appeared without my help and began proliferating under the roof overhang and live oak tree. According to the Wildflower Research Center they are “Good for the moist but well-drained woodland shade garden.” Well, that’s not exactly what I’ve got, but I’ll take ‘em! I think they are Missouri violets (Viola missouriensis).

For some reason, I thought of poetry when writing about the violets, and I found this sweet little poem to share.

Who hath despised the day of small things?

By Cristina Rossetti

As violets so be I recluse and sweet,

            Cheerful as daisies unaccounted rare,

Still sunward-gazing from a lowly seat,

            Still sweetening wintry air.

While half-awaked Spring lags incomplete,

            While lofty forest trees tower bleak and bare,

Daisies and violets own remotest heat

            And bloom and make them fair.

GBBD: A day late and many blooms short.

 

Lantana montevidensis

As usual, I am posting for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day a day late, and this time it’s many blooms short, too.

Yesterday was very cold and gray, and I chose to stay inside near the woodstove. The lighting was terrible for photography, I told myself.

Today is still cold but quite beautiful and sunny, so I set out in search of blooms. They were sparse. I guess that’s to be expected in the winter, especially in a drought year.

Last week I saw a lone prairie fleabane bloom, but found none today. I’d hoped to see a wood sorrel blooming, but alas, it is too early. The only wildflower even attempting a bloom was a thistle I’ve yet to identify, because it is pesky and I don’t like it. No identification.

White trailing lantana.

The only other blooms were in my garden and on my porch:  trailing lantana. A freeze nipped the white awhile back, but it continued blooming. It is quite striking with its white blooms and blackened leaves. The purple lantana grows in pots by my south-facing front door, where it has been just warm enough to weather the light freezes we’ve received so far.

That’s all I’ve got.

You should visit May Dreams Gardens, host of GBBD, because I’m sure flowers are blooming somewhere in the world, and her site will lead you to them!

Here comes the sun.

After two weeks or so of cold, gray, drizzly weather, followed by a nice rain, the sun has emerged!

One of my favorite parts of winter:  the little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) turns rust! I did not realize this grass grows nationwide, and throughout much of Canada.
I bet it's lovely against a white backdrop . . .

Sickness engulfed my household over the holiday break. Day after day of that Oregonian weather did not help matters. I would go off the deep end if I had to put up with such weather for months on end. Apparently I live in the right geographical state for maintaining a healthy mental state.

Some thistle - this is likely its prettiest phase.

Spider web adorned with moisture.

But a bountiful rain (a relative term) over the last two days has led to a beautiful day, with everything looking fresh and clean and sparkly. My sense of well-being is directly related to the amount of sunshine I’m exposed to, so I’m feeling pretty good right now!

I have always just called this nolina 
(Nolina lindheimeriana), but it has a really fun
common name:  Devil's shoestring!

This morning I ventured out with the camera to see the sights and enjoy the sun and cool breeze. I was astonished to find a single wildflower in bloom, took pictures of drops of water beading on leaves, checked on the bluebonnet seedlings (yes, they have germinated!), listened to a few ecstatic birds, and thoroughly enjoyed communing with nature.

Winter is not over, of course. More rain is forecast for this weekend along with a “polar” cold front, as a weatherman termed it. Of course “polar” in Central Texas does not mean the same thing as it does in Alaska. Perhaps we will get a freeze out of it, perhaps not.  My daughter might feel moved to wear her boots rather than her preferred footwear:  flip-flops.  Or not.

The Texas redbud (Cercis canadensis var. texensis) is so confused.
It normally blooms in March, but it misunderstood the recent warm weather!

I hope wherever you are the day is as gorgeous as it is here, and you get to spend some time enjoying it!

Plains or prairie fleabane
(Erigeron modestus) -
the first wildflower
of the year!

Prairie verbena (Glandularia bipinnatifida - left) and
bluebonnet (Lupinus texensis).

Fall beauties.

The white mistflower (Agaratina havanensis) is blooming in my garden, in a profusion not seen here before. The mistflower is native from Central Texas south into Mexico. In and of itself, it is beautiful when in bloom. But when butterflies flutter all around it, drawn by its heady fragrance wafting on a breeze . . . well, it becomes sublime.

Red admiral (Vanessa atalanta)
is the most common visitor.

I've never seen this butterfly here before;
it is a bordered patch (Chlosyne lacinia 
adjutrix). The adjutrix  is a Texas subspecies.

I have spent time the past two days sitting on a pile of rocks next to this bush with camera in hand. I can’t really describe how fabulous this is: perched two feet away from buzzing bees and fluttering butterflies, including some new-to-me types, all so intent on this little bush with its multitude of tiny white blooms that they quickly forget I am here.  They are busy harvesting the last nectar of the year before cooler weather arrives.

Queens (Danaus gilippus) are frequent visitors on our blue mistflower; guess they like this, too!

This was one of those transcendent natural experiences.

Well, I'm not sure but I think
this is an American painted lady
(Vanessa virginiensis).

The Texan crescent (Anthanassa 
texana) is new to me, also.

Have you ever had one of those experiences? While outside somewhere, you happen upon something so cool, so beautiful, so interesting that you will never forget it? For me, it usually happens when it is very quiet and I am alone.

Twenty years ago we lived in the middle of a 10-acre hay pasture. Bluebonnets covered the pasture in the spring; it was absolutely beautiful. One quiet day in early summer I stepped outside and heard the oddest popping sounds all around me. I stopped and looked around, trying to determine the origin of the sounds. I saw nothing, but quickly realized that I was hearing bluebonnet seedpods popping open all over the pasture. I stood there listening with a big grin on my face, looking over the pasture in amazement. Yes, I still remember that moment.

My first i.d. of this one, too:  pearl crescent (Phyciodes tharos).

This tattered fellow appears
to be a variegated fritillary
(Euptoieta claudia).

This memory of communing with and observing butterflies on the mistflower will stay with me, also. When I’m looking out the window on a cold gray winter day, wishing for summer, I will unpack this memory, and relive those joyous moments, sitting with butterflies under a warm November sun.