Gardening
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Honey Harvest
This year the bees have been doing very well. Last year we had the freak freeze/ice storm in early March just as we were leaving for Florida. We had left the hive unprotected and thus at least half of the bees perished. It was touch and go for awhile and then we ended up with a bad hive beetle infestation. I believe Chris pulled only a comb from the hive, giving us a quart of honey for last year. It was rough last year for the bees. Chris got the hive beetles under control and has been able to take care of the bees better this year and so we…
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San Antonio Botanic Garden | 4
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San Antonio Botanic Garden | 3
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San Antonio Botanic Garden | 2
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San Antonio Botanic Gardens | 1
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Variegated Milk Thistle | Silybum marianum
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Tiny Garden Wildlife
This little crab spider was hiding on the petals of the coreopsis. I’m unable to figure out exactly which crab spider species it is. I’m not sure exactly which skipper butterfly this is but I think I narrowed it down to either a clouded skipper, Lerema accius, or the olive clouded skipper, Lerodea arabus. It was flitting about on the ‘Hot Lips’ salvia. Teeny little bits of life in the garden.
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Around
I’m in one of those spells where I need to be quiet despite the fact that there is all sorts of stuff rattling around in my head that needs to be written here. Needs. It doesn’t necessarily need to be written, but I want to write. I like going back through my archives on occasion and seeing what I’ve done in some particular period of time. It gives me a reminder that when I feel like life is just hectic or complicated and hairy, that I was enjoying something at any given time—even if it was just that a plant was blooming in the garden. Last week I spent a…
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Early Spring Blooms
I keep thinking that maybe we’ll actually catch up in the garden, get ahead of the new growth and get the weeds in check, but it is a slow going process. I just don’t have the time to devote to it as I normally do and Chris is busy doing other yard work a lot of the time and isn’t as focused on the flower garden as I am. Still, the garden is growing and blooming away. Anomatheca laxa, woodland painted petals Moss coming up in a pot on the potting bench. The pine tree log ‘pot’ is filling in nicely. The leaves on the fig tree are coming out…
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A Garden View: April 2014 and April 2015
April 2, 2014 March 31, 2015 Biggest differences: more weeds this year, leaves for mulch because we haven’t mulched again—yet, and the pine tree is gone. Last year was much more maintained! The irises near the front door are blooming in both photos, though hard to see.