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Perimeter Bed Complete!
Back in February I wrote about the latest garden project we had going on. Well, last Sunday Chris finished it up in between mist showers by planting the azaleas we’d purchased in Nacogdoches the day before. We’d bought two native azaleas for our main flower bed from Cook’s Nursery just outside of Nacogdoches when we were there in February and kicked ourselves for not buying more. The plants were a good size and had only been $20, plus finding native azaleas can be difficult. So, since we were already in east Texas for a plant sale we went and bought five more azaleas for the back side of this perimeter…
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The Magic of Little Slough | Part II
More swamp and ghost orchid magic…. Nurse logs are one of my favorite parts of the swamp! How could you not fall in love with this place??? I mean, really???
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Finding Texas’ Famous Trees | Trees 135 & 153
The last time Chris and I went to Westcave Preserve I was browsing through their small library of local and natural history books. I picked out one called Famous Trees of Texas. Even though it was published in the early 70s, the book looked pretty cool and I told Chris we should try to find it. Lo and behold a few weeks later one arrived in the mail that he had bought off of Ebay. It had been sitting on our coffee table for the last few months when I decided last minute over the weekend to bring it with us to Nacogdoches when we went to theSFA plant sale.…
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The Magic of Little Slough | Part I
It had been four years since I had been to Little Slough. (More background on what the slough is on that link.) Chris had been in the summer of 2011, but otherwise we weren’t sure what we would find when we returned to our ghost orchid oasis. Because the water levels had not dropped as they normally do during this time of year, we were in for a lot more water than we were expecting. Navigating in was a bit hairy too, the usual pathway in quickly disappeared once we began. That’s a good sign that the area does not receive a lot of traffic, something we’ve tried to protect…
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Sunday Thoughts
+It never fails that this time of year I get wistful for the Appalachian Trail. I didn’t really follow any hikes last year, but I’ve got a couple I’m keeping an eye on this year. +Renee Tougas and her family of five just recently started the trail. I’m particularly interested in seeing how their hike goes as a family. It also looks like they may have started just late enough to not deal with a lot of snow. +Then there’s Wired who is working on finishing the Triple Crown by September by hiking the AT. +Chris’ mom has an aquaintance hiking the trail as well. I’m a little concerned about…
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A Toad Friend
We have quite a population of toads at our house, which is a good thing. Anywhere there’s a nook or cranny we can find a toad or two….or sometimes a whole colony as we did when we were building the beds around Chris’ man-cave. There had been a pile of wood and other miscellaneous items on one corner of the house and as we moved the debris out of the way we found a small colony of toads. We carefully carried them over to a different section of the yard where they would be able to hang out undisturbed. This little juvenile toad was hoping around the columbines as I…
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McKana’s Giant Columbines—Putting on a Show
Last year we planted several packets of ‘McKana’s Giant’ columbines. This year they have really put on a show for us and I’ve been very impressed with them. The columbines themselves, at least last year, went a bit dormant in the hotter part of the year, only to regrow by leaps and bounds in the last two months and send up spikes for blooming. I was pleasantly surprised with this pale blue flower when I stepped outside at lunch for one of our daily garden walk-throughs. It’s quite amazing how much we either miss or see something that changes from morning to night in the garden. Along with this hybrid…
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Iris In Bloom | Wordless Wednesday
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The Garden Waking Up
Dividing onions about to bloom. The dogwood in full glory. A red columbine. A yellow columbine. Forget me nots….finally a mystery plant solved. They came in the seed packet we spread last year and just now bloomed. Creeping phlox from my mom. Trilliums coming up after we put them in the ground last spring. Thought they had just disappeared but they waited a year to make an appearance. An iris about to bloom. We lost one blossom that came up too early and were knocked over by the freeze so I’m glad this one decided to come up.
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A Bear Story
I took this photo of Chris when we were in Florida three weeks ago. It is at the location where he was chased out of the swamp by a Florida black bear. Yes…you read that right! Back when we lived in Florida, Chris was out exploring an area in the swamps in search of ghost orchids and also to see what might be out in that area. Many of these sections in the wildlands of Florida are very little explored, particulary the wet cypress domes and sloughs. As he was approaching what he now calls ‘Bear Slough’, walking through dense vegetation and only seeing tall ferns and brush up ahead…