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Autumn Chill
+Plant sitting an old favorite, staghorn fern, for Chris’ dad. Not that we’re much warmer here in Houston, it is a bit better than Dallas over the winter. +Digging out the long, patterned socks is one thing to look forward to in winter. I found the patch of leaves that were the greatest around the yard—don’t mistake that we have a yard of leaves. +Twilight moon. Probably taken at only 5:30ish pm. +I did a doubletake at an oak leaf and found a gall. Love them. +Daikon radishes are growing in thick. +African blue basil prior to being chopped down and turned into pesto. Chilly temperatures here, by far not…
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Nature In The City | Burroughs Park Part II
Part I in case you missed it. After scoping out the fungus I saw a very interesting swamp area, an area that reminded me of Little Slough, substituting water elm for pop ash and pond apples. And of course no epiphytes covering the tree branches. It also reminded me of months of tromping around the Big Thicket 2.5 years ago. I’m definitely a wetland and swamp person. Ilex opaca, American holly. I love, love, love to see these plants when they become well-formed trees. Their trunks are so thick and sturdy, they look like they’d be a good tree in a landscape. After meandering through the wetland for a little…
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Bits & Pieces
Life has been full of doing other things besides hiking or outdoor adventuring lately. Mostly we’ve been working on projects around the house. Recently we started working on renovating the laundry room. I hated the floor, the walls were crap, and there was no hot water running to the washing machine. Now there’s hot water, 3/4 of a new floor, the wall painted with touchups needed, and a few other items to do such as install cabinets. We’re waiting on the cabinets to come into the store we ordered them from so that we can finish the painting and the flooring. But, the whole room already looks much better. After…
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Nature In The City | Burroughs Park Part I
It has been awhile since I’ve done any Nature In The City posts so yesterday I got outside to a local park to explore. Burroughs Park is part of the Spring Creek Greenway project and part of the larger Houston Bayou Greenways around the metropolitan area. In the spring of 2012 I visited another park further east down Spring Creek, the George Mitchelle Preserve. I took a lot of photos so I will be breaking it out into two posts, with the second post coming later this week. First off, I was surprised by the size and activity in the park when I arrived. There’s a long, winding road that…
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Quiet Evening on Barton Creek
Last week I was in Austin for a conference and on Wednesday evening I tried to capture what was left of the daylight at the end of the day for a little exploration around town. I had contemplated driving out to Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge but didn’t think I had enough time to get out there and do anything useful so I opted to head downtown to Barton Springs and Zilker Park. It was smooth sailing south down the Mo-Pac expressway until it wasn’t and then I found myself ducking off the highway and heading down the still congested Lamar Street that leads towards the west side of downtown.…
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Clematis crispa | Texas Native Plant Week
It wasn’t until we moved to Texas that I discovered the awesomeness of native clematis species. We encountered this species while working Big Thicket National Preserve two years ago and since then we’ve become enamoured with the plant, looking for them in nurseries we visit. Ours is growing well on a trellis in our garden having put on blooms multiple times this summer. The bottom photo is from a seed pod we found in the Big Thicket. In Texas the species is located in moist areas in the southeastern section of the state, while the similar appearing Clematis pitcherii is found in the central and western portion of the state…
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Gaillardia aestivalis var. winkleri | Texas Native Plant Week
I have to admit, I’m a huge fan of Gaillardia. Commonly it is known as Indian blanket or fire wheel however, I like to refer to it by its genus. This genus is relatively hands off in regards to fussiness; plant it and it thrives. You may see the more commong Gaillardia pulchella or aristata and even aestivalis, but other varieties such as this one are more rare. This particular species is endemic to southeast Texas—only. Here are a couple of interesting links in regards to its history. In our garden we, like always, had to fend off the deer and hope for the best. When the plants were finally…
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Calyptocarpus vialis | Texas Native Plant Week
Horseherb, aka: straggler daisy, is an interesting kinda-sorta native plant. You see, we have some *in* our flower garden from a pot that we bought, and where we bought it from called it native. It wasn’t long after we bought it that I actually paid attention to the grass around my yard and noticed that the same plant grew throughout the yard, intermingled with the grass and other weeds. It had been on my mind for awhile to check the plant out online and follow-up with digging more information on it, and finally a few weeks ago I actually looked it up. I had a suspicion that perhaps it wasn’t…
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Lobelia cardinalis | Texas Native Plant Week
Cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis, is a showstopper in the garden. When it sends its flaming red stalk up to bloom, it’s hard to take your eyes off the plant! Ours is a very recent addition to the garden and has had its share of abuse from our feral cats using the stalks to lean up against, which in turn have left the plant leaning on the ground instead of in an upright position. Nonetheless, the plant continued to live and bloom, though now the blooms are fading into seed pods. Typically this plant is found in moist locations, such as stream edges, ponds, or moist bottomlands. It seemed to do…
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Echinacea purpurea | Texas Native Plant Week
The purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, has been a tricky plant to grow in my garden. The deer love it! I don’t know how many times it has been chowed down on by those feisty rascals, but it took all summer and just in the past few weeks have the bloom stalks survived being eaten long enough to actually produce a bloom. We started these plants from seeds that I received from my mom. Pass along seeds and plants are the best as they always have some sort of story or memory attached to them. It probably would have helped if we hadn’t planted the flowers front and center along the…