Category: Gardens

Where Flowers Bloom…

My part of Texas is awash in wildflowers right now. In the past month I have taken numerous trips to Austin’s Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to walk and to marvel at the bounty of Spring. So much beauty to ooh and aah over, especially our Texas Blue Bonnets.

Texas Blue Bonnet

On some of the outer trails my eyes are drawn to the large patches of blue. I am reminded of our ubiquitous Blue Bonnet paintings.

Trail At Wildflower Center

Go to an art gallery showcasing Texas landscape art and you will find paintings of Blue Bonnets…Longhorn cattle in Blue Bonnets…barbed wire fences and Blue Bonnets…old trucks and Blue Bonnets. These have been popular for years and they sell well. People ooh and aah over them. Somewhere there is probably a painting of a T-Rex in a field of Blue Bonnets.

And then there are the photos. People trample swaths of these flowers to pose their children and dogs next to them. The Wildflower Center does have a couple of designated areas where visitors can pose with the Blue Bonnets without destroying them. I have done this myself with family and friends. They are pretty, but this kind of gets boring after a while. I seek out the other flowers sprinkled among and near the blue ones. The real Texas landscape has many kinds and colors of flowers. Every color you can imagine.

Tansy Aster (?)

Chocolate Daisy (leaves smell like chocolate)

Orange Mallow and Texas Yellow Star

Texas Paintbrush With Other Flowers

Texas Paintbrush and Blue Bonnets

Variety is the spice of life. Each living creature adds to the beauty of the world. I like to think of each human as an individual flower with a unique beauty. What if, in our urban and suburban landscapes, we celebrated the diversity of the people we see as we walk through our towns and shop in our stores? What if we oohed and aahed at the beauty of each person? It might be a bit weird if we did this out loud, but we can do this inside ourselves. And maybe we would greet them with a smile and the world would be a better, more loving place…at least for that one day for those people…the admired and the one admiring.

(I was going to subtitle this month’s blog “Pollyanna on her soapbox with pretty pictures”…I do believe each of us who model this sort of love for our fellow creatures can influence others. )

Texas Paintbrush and Blue Bonnets

*(All photos taken by the author at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center except for the last photo which was taken at McKinney Falls State Park)

Check out the website: wildflower.org

Natural Saviors

According to The Austin American-Statesman newspaper, we had 21 days of at least 100 degree highs in June, including 12 days in a row of this nastiness. We got a break late Monday the 27th with some much prayed for rain. Yay! I can now sit comfortably on my shaded porch and enjoy my coffee and read. It is still hot, but bearable.

As I get older I do not handle the heat as well as the younger me could. And our summers are getting hotter. June was not all bad. The beauty of nature carries on and helps me carry on. It sustains me. Here are some photos from my yard taken this month:

Water Lily

Crepe Myrtle

Turk’s Cap

Rock Rose

Beauty Berry

Purple Blooms (id unknown)

Mexican Petunias

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly

Crab Spider on Pokeberry Blooms

Mint Blossoms

Englemann’s Daisy

Little Blue Flowers

I want to express my gratitude to Mother Nature for sharing this beauty.

(photos by B. McCreary)

Small Blessings

As New England gets hit hard by winter storm Kenan, we Texans are keeping our fingers crossed that we make it through the rest of winter without a repeat of last February’s tragic freezing storm. That prolonged cold snap inconvenienced so many of us with loss of power and loss of running water. It also maimed and killed so many people.

But, instead of rehashing that event and being anxious, I am going to share some of the little blessings of nature that I got to enjoy in December and on New Year’s Day.

On December 14, 2021 I spent some time in my yard snapping photos of insects on still blooming flowers.

True Bug (unknown species)

The insect pictured above was on a chrysanthemum flower. I googled the symbolism of these flowers and white ones are associated with death in some cultures. They can also represent happiness, love, and longevity, and rebirth. I see them as representing both death and rebirth.

Two weeks later, on December 28th I spotted this little fly on a dandelion flower

Flower Fly

And this lovely butterfly on a milkweed plant

Queen Butterfly (Danaus gilippus)

And this majestic being visited on December 30th

Hawk (immature Cooper’s?)

And on the first day of the new year

Crab Spider on Salvia

and

Sphinx Moth (Nessus?) at lantana blooms

And last, but not least in beauty

Blow Fly (?) on dried chrysanthemum

I am thankful I got to see all of these sweet critters and am looking forward to more blessings from nature in 2022

*All photos taken by B. McCreary in her yard

* The following reference books were used to identify the critters (Don’t hold these books accountable for any mistaken ids on my part):

Kaufman Filed Guide to Insects of North America-Eric R. Eaton and Kenn Kaufman

A Field Guide To Butterflies Of Texas (Texas Monthly Field Guide Series) – Raymond W. Neck

Peterson Field Guides- Eastern Moths- Charles V. Covell, Jr.

Peterson Field Guides- Birds of Eastern and Central North America (fifth edition)- Roger Tory Peterson

Nature’s Distractions

I turn away from the once again worsening pandemic, the sadness of refugees and war, and the tragic realities of life in our world. I want distractions from the worries of the day. Despite what we continue to do to her, Mother Nature gives us plenty of things to enjoy and be in awe of. I especially appreciate her gifts right now. I am not turning away from reality. Her gifts are part of our reality too.

I am distracted by the colors…

Red

Blue

Green

Yellow

And the Interesting…

I even appreciate the distraction of the annoying…

Thank you delightful distractions! You help me make it through the tough times.

(photos by Betty McCreary)

Madrones and Memories

There are two of you red barked madrones near the Emma Lowe Country Stream, a peaceful area on the grounds of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Your bark is a deep, brick red. The gurgling, perpetual stream runs down hill from you and along side your paler barked sibling. Did Lady Bird know you as a child?

Texas Madrone ,Arbutus xalapensis (A. texana) Ericaceae, Heath Family

I move closer to you. Your cream colored blooms are just past their prime. Your green leaves are so heavenly soft to stroke.

Your curving, delicate, yet strong, branches take me back to drives in the hill country outside Austin. My Dad, at the wheel, is proud to point you out. “Look kids! A Madrone!” You were on a hillside to the right of the steep road leaving town. Are you still there? Or were you chopped down to make room for a driveway into a subdivision. You are not common here. But, you are the more valuable to me for being such a rare sight.

Seeing you always brings back the happier memories of being with my Dad. But, you also bring me sadness for these past times. I love you and I will remember.

(Photos by Betty McCreary)

Fact Source: A Field Guide To Wildflowers Trees & Shrubs of Texas by Delena Tull and George Oxford Miller (Texas Monthly Field Guide Series)

The Voice of the Spiderwort

I am two and a half months above ground and about two and a half feet tall. My sturdy stalk and alternately placed, elegant leaves are a beautiful emerald green.

Up top, my face is soft and purple with pretty, yellow projections that are kissed and tickled by native bees…

And Honey Bees…

They like my sweetness. I look around and see many others that look like me and I wave my leaves to let my siblings know I see them.

I have been told that we are the descendants of beings that lived millions of years ago. I am a happy being and I know I bring joy to the mammals that live in the house nearby. The female mammal told me that her mother brought my ancestors here from her own yard twenty years ago. The female mammal planted them over there by what is now a pond. And from those few beings we have become many.

I acknowledge the other grounded ones, my cousins. They are different and yet the same as me. We are beautiful in our own way. Just like the mammals, especially the human ones, our differences make the world richer.

Each morning I open my three petaled face to a new day and close up and am done by evening. The next morning a new trio of petals opens. I am happy to be alive after almost perishing in the bitter, cold of last Valentine’s day. I think some of my family did not make it and that is sad. There are a few less of us this year. But, we will not be destroyed and we will probably outlast many of earth’s other, more mobile creatures.

I will lose my above ground body in the heat of the summer and lay dormant until my green shoots push, once again, up into the sky.

May I bring you joy and peace this season and in all the years to come. And may I inspire you to kindness.

(All photos by Betty McCreary 2021)