Spring has done sprung, y'all

First up, we have the little volunteer species tulips that spring up around my mulberry tree.






And the redbud, which gloriously blossomed...





The bees have been hard at work on the peach blossoms...




As well as the little grape hyacinths that people always mistake for bluebonnets... No, people, the much-heralded Lupinus texensis won't come along for another couple of weeks or so.

More signs have appeared!

More signs of spring in my yard:



The peach tree, which just this weekend didn't even appear to be considering blooming anytime soon, has adorned herself in a lovely new pink frock!

Down the street in the yard on the corner:



Forsythia!

And across the street, juuuuust beginning to break buds:



Redbud tree!

Yay! It's like the end of Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, when the Forest Spirit re-inhabits the brown, dead land and you see the gradual creep of green become more and more colorful and lush on the faraway hillsides. I'm not trying to rub my northern pals' nose in it -- I'm just sending encouragement to the troops behind enemy lines that reinforcements really ARE on the way!

In the yard

The big crape myrtle in the southeast corner of the yard has decked itself in brilliant fall plumage.

Local color

Some thistle I haven't been able to identify yet... doesn't have hugely prickly leaves like most thistles, though. I dunno.



A happy little patch of allium next to a big windmill.



Male Checkered White (Pontia protodice) on Firewheel (Gaillardia pulchella)



I love walking through a patch of this stuff (horsemint, or Monarda citriodora) and getting the aromatics stirred up around me. Lovely smell!!


Plain old daylilies... are anything BUT plain!

Around our yard

Tow Maders!!!





The Dusty Miller is blooming... kind-of an odd plant and not my first choice, but it's interesting, so it stays. I like interesting.




Little fig, little fig, let me come in!!




It's a beautiful day in north Texas today. If you show up, I'll have a big glass of iced tea for ya.

A little local color

Autumnal brilliance comes to Texas, too.

Weekend wildflowers

On the way home from my hair appointment yesterday (which began as one of the most beautiful days I've ever seen), the fall wildflowers were out in profusion and I couldn't resist stopping by the side of Highway 82 between Sherman and Gainesville to capture a few of them.

Here we have an Engelmann Daisy (Engelmannia pinnatifida). They're quite abundant in ditches and roadsides right now.



This cute little seedpod is a mystery to me right now, but I'm on the trail of finding out what it is. It belongs to a long, skinny vine and it was out amidst the Johnson grass in the middle of nowhere. The seedpods were abundant, and when they ripen they're brown but the same triangular balloon shape.

UPDATE: I'm quicker than I thought. This is a noxious weed called a Balloon Vine (Cardiospermum halicacabum). Some folks also call it "Love In A Puff"... bwaha!! Anyway, I can see how it would develop into something rather annoying in a yard, but out in the middle of nowhere it's kinda cool-looking.



This little gem is called a "Leavenworth Eryngo" (Eryngium leavenworthii)... it's so unusual-looking, I just had to stop and catch some photos of it. Apparently it's tempting enough for a bumblebee, too. The color on these things is nothing short of amazing.



And this beauty, which in its clumps looks like an exploding fireworks display, is a "Gayfeather" (Liatris spicita).

As soon as I'm able to get a good photo of my new 'do (hint: I'm now a brunette), I'll post it.

Fairy Rings!

After a week of soggy weather, the fairies have been dancing on lawns all across north Texas:

Notice how the toadstools are making a nice little circle all around this Crape Myrtle?



These toadstools are called Green-Spored Lepiota (Chlorophyllum molybdites). They're the number one most common cause of wild mushroom poisoning in the United States.

A fairy ring, traditionally, was the circular pattern of toadstools left behind after the fairies and pixies danced on your lawn in the middle of the night. If you sit inside the fairy ring at night and sleep there, the fairies are compelled to leave and never return.

This particular kind of fairy ring doesn't harm your lawn, but you'll want to be sure to keep little children and pets from ingesting any of these poisonous fellows. Other types of fairy rings *do* harm your lawn, though there isn't a great deal you can do to control them other than removing the dirt they're growing in, because they're coming from an underground mycelium. The mushrooms you see are just the fruiting body of a much larger underground organism.

Regardless of all the science and folklore, I love seeing the fairy rings popping up all over. Either way you look at it (scientific or magical), it's evidence of the unseen.

Crape myrtle

One of the very best flowering shrubs anywhere, the crape myrtles (Lagerstroemia indica, hybridized with L. fauriei and/or L. speciosa) are in full force around north Texas right now. They range from white to pink to red to purple (no yellow or blue spectrum to speak of). Once highly susceptible to powdery mildew, more updated crape myrtle varieties have been developed which are resistant to disease. They are as ubiquitous here as the rhododendrons in Seattle or the azaleas in the South.

Hibiscus syriacus

Also known as Rose of Sharon or Althea. This big double purple one is thriving in my yard.

A little local color

A nightclub on the east side of Denton, Texas. No, I've not been inside it. I just thought the name was humorous enough to merit a blog post.

Double Daylily

My daylilies are just about finished. After the "common" ones bloomed, I got a flush of these weird and cool double-petalled ones:





I'm waiting patiently for my crape myrtle to start up. It must be a later-blooming variety, because pretty much everyone else's crape myrtles are up and running already.

I am going to put in a call to the ear, nose & throat doc that did Isaac's tonsils last summer. My hearing is just getting worse and worse and it's driving me nuts. Nothing sounds normal; everything is enveloped in a loud roar and put through that metallic synthesizer sound I keep coming back to. It's extremely difficult to make it through a Sunday morning service and play the piano when what I am playing and what is being sung is being distorted this badly. GRRRRR!!

Pachystachys lutea

Golden shrimp plant. My mom planted a few of these in one of the front flowerbeds; I've always thought they were funky and fun.

Little Twin Stars

Blackeyed Susans, or Rudbeckia hirta for those into the Latin. I like Latin, personally... somehow the Latin name for something makes it sound more important. That, and I grew up watching Roadrunner cartoons every Saturday morning. Carnivorous vulgaris, anyone? How about Roadrunnerus digestus? hehe

Oh! Leander

Nerium oleander, a semi-tropical shrub that a lot of folks take a chance on growing up this far north. My mom's yard has a number of them, in various shades of pink and white. They're much more common down where she and my dad have taken Isaac, along the gulf near Corpus Christi, but when they're put in a fairly protected sunny spot and given the right conditions, oleanders do okay up here.

And they really lend a lush, tropical, exotic feel to a landscape. I like 'em.

The resident Texas garden-guy, Neil Sperry, doesn't like them so much, but I think that's because too many people just willy-nilly plant them up this far north when they're really not adapted to this zone. I figure, though, if you want to take the risk and you're aware of the possible consequences of a complete freeze at some point in the future, you might as well go for it. It certainly won't happen every year, or even every other year. We just don't get that cold here, at least not for long enough to do real damage. My mom's an expert gardener, anyway, and has a real knack for green growing things.

I love Neil Sperry, by the way. He has had a radio call-in program in the DFW metroplex area since 1980 and the man just knows what he's talking about... a reasonable, mature, smart guy with a lot of gravitas and integrity who's worth listening to. When we lived in Iowa for eleven years, I lamented that there just didn't seem to be any resources available that were geared specifically for Iowa landscapes -- I had been accustomed to Neil Sperry and his devotion to Texas-specific gardening, and even though I didn't expect there to be a radio host, I did sort-of hope there was at least a BOOK or a magazine or something that I could refer to. No such critter existed, though, that I could find. And that's a shame. Every state should have its own Neil Sperry. We're really lucky in Texas to have him.

Thorny Wednesday

One thing we have in great abundance here is the lowly, weedy mesquite tree. You almost can't even call it a tree; it's shrubby and thin and scraggly and has lovely huge shoe-leather-piercing thorns all over. And once it takes hold in a pasture, good luck ever getting rid of it again. Mesquite can regenerate from less than a CENTIMETER of root left in the soil. It's just that pervasive.

Interestingly, though, it's a legume... which means it's actually GOOD for the soil. Legumes tend to have an effect called nitrogen-fixing. They also tolerate arid climates very well, needing little water to survive, so they don't suck up a water supply. And once a tree is established, the thorns drop off (only coming on the new growth).

Plus, I am very fond of beef that's been smoked using mesquite wood. I prefer its harsher taste to the sweetness of hickory, personally.

Whatever your opinion of the humble mesquite tree -- noxious weed or Texas treasure -- it probably is here to stay.

Cirsium texana onna Tuesday

Thistle get you going! heh

Seen on Highway 290 east of Austin, Texas. I was bummed that we wouldn't be around later that evening to enjoy it... it sounded like a lot of fun. And it would probably have been blues music. Dangit.

Pretty!!

There was a rather nasty storm that just blew through the NoTx area, and now look what we get treated to:





Yay! I love rainbows. And I love power lines unless they block my shot. Oh well.

Sunday driver

I went on a wildflower photography junket this afternoon after attending the baccalaureate service for North Ruralville (where I taught two years ago). The wildflowers have taken over with abandon, and there were so many lovely ones to show you!



This is one of my favorites. It goes by "horsemint", "beebalm", and "lemonbalm" most often. The scientific name is Monarda citriodora and the plant contains Thymol (which apparently is used in some mouthwashes). I do know that it is very aromatic when crushed or brushed.





The prickly pear cacti are blooming right now, too.





The sunflowers were well over a foot taller than me!





The Indian Paintbrush is still blooming profusely.





The Butterfly Weed was literally covered with butterflies, including this Common Buckeye.





Prairie Verbena... lovely!


Check back here tomorrow for some more very interesting photos I took today.