Beetle Parade

Driving home from the grocery store yesterday, I noticed some small black shapes crossing the highway. They weren't hopping like crickets, but moving at a slow and steady pace. From this I deduced that they were beetles. Some were heading right to left, some left to right.

They were busily trundling across the highway, obviously on a mission. Were they looking for love (in all the wrong places)? Food? A new home? I tried to look up these beetles on line later. Did you know that Texas A&M lists 82 different kinds of beetles in Texas? Trying to identify a beetle by typing "moving in November" doesn't work. Perhaps they were a type of ground beetle. They were on the ground, after all.

I had a choice before me that morning: drive blithely on ignoring the crunch of carapaces under my wheels, or attempt to avoid as many of the little creatures as possible. I consider myself a good person, a protector of life, a respecter of all species (except maybe fire ants), so I opted for dodging.

Caveat:  This was not a full-speed highway. I was on Kohlers Crossing between Kyle and Buda, where the speed limit is 40 or 45. Luckily, there was not much traffic. I proceeded down the road making careful course corrections so as not to flatten the busy beetles. Occasionally, I couldn't dodge in time, and I cringed at the imagined "crunch."

I saved many beetles yesterday. Well, at least my car was not the instrument of their deaths. I hope they made it safely to their destinations. (Taking food home to beetle children? Shopping at the HEB trash bins?)

It's a good thing a policeman wasn't following me. He would have undoubtedly pulled me over on suspicion of intoxication. I'm not sure he would have appreciated the explanation for my weaving: "Officer, I was respecting the sanctity of beetle life."

Favorite spot in the garden today:

Choosing a favorite spot has much to do with the vantage point. This is the view from my office window, and it is so cheerful, that I must pick it today!

You are looking at Copper Canyon Daisy (Tagetes lemmonii), which blooms in late October into November. Occasionally it freezes before it can bloom. Some years it is even more eye-catching than this, but I pruned too late (I can see my mother-in-law shaking her head at me). This happy plant will continue blooming, drawing scads of butterflies and moths, until the first freeze. It is one of my favorites; it requires little to no water, has a strong scent (discouraging deer depredations), and looks absolutely stunning in a good year. So stunning, in fact, that it is worth having even if it doesn't bloom every year.

According to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website, this is a desert plant native to Arizona, Mexico and Central America. It works great for the hardscrabble soil here!

Oh, and according to A Field Guide to Texas Insects, the beetle on the daisy is a spotted cucumber beetle. It has an incredible species name for such a little bug, so I'll share it just for fun:  Diabrotica undecimpunctata howardi Barber.

Perfection

Several weeks ago, I spied a perfect natural tableau in my neighborhood, occurring without the help of a human gardener.

As I walked with my beautiful dog, Iris, this scene caught my eye, and on my return I stopped to lean on my neighbor’s white board fence to examine it more closely. Sure enough, there it was. It was perfect.

I did not have a camera with me, so I had to observe with my own eye instead of the mechanical one. Here goes!

Just inside the fence, with the midday sun illuminating all its details, was a large, flat limestone slab, dark, with some rubble scattered across the top. It was probably 4 foot by 2 foot in size. Behind it was a gnarled old prickly pear - no blooms, no colorful tunas, just a weathered cactus. Surrounding the slab and the cactus were zexmenia shrubs (Zexmenia hispida). As a result of our ample rains and moderate temperatures, this native is blooming all over my neighborhood.  The combination of light green/dead cactus pads, dark gray rock, and the dark green foliage and cheerful orange blooms of the zexmenia was just lovely.

Lovely groupings like these seem to occur most often by accident of nature. No matter how I try, I cannot pull off such scenes as successfully as Mother Nature does.  But I do keep trying!

Favorite spot in the garden today:


Okay, I did plant this grouping, and it has turned out even better than I hoped! By the stone walkway to the parking area, my husband and father made a bed that circles the bases of a cedar and an oak growing cheek by jowl. With the aforementioned good weather and rain, this bed is lovely right now. It is filled with white cherry sage (Salvia greggii), blue mistflower (Eupatorium coelestinum), and dark blue/purple Salvia ‘indigo spires.’ Queen butterflies (and an occasional monarch) adore the mistflower. As we walk to and from our cars, we disturb them. On a quiet day, we can hear their wings flapping as they flutter around us.