About Tina

I’ve gardened in Austin, Texas (zone 8b) since 1985. I garden with low maintenance, native and well-adapted non-native plants to conserve water and reduce workload. I also choose plants which attract wildlife to my gardens. I’ve completed the Travis County Master Gardener and Grow Green program (through the city of Austin). I’ve volunteered for a number of public and private gardens, as well as consulted and designed for private individuals. Formerly, I managed Shay’s Green Garden at Zilker Botanical Gardens and Howson Library Garden for the City of Austin. My garden is a certified Monarch Waystation and a Wildlife Habitat.I blog about my garden adventures at: https://mygardenersays.com/ I love blooming things and the critters they attract. Tina Huckabee

Une Petite Fleur

Posted on September 11, 2025 by Tina

A small perennial graced with tiny flowers appeared some years ago in my garden. The plant is airy in form, only about 18 inches tall and 12 to 18 inches wide.

It took me a while to discover the identity of this petite pretty, but as I researched, the form of the bloom familiar to me, that recognition niggled deep in the recesses of my brain: I knew I’d seen a plant with a similar flower. I finally realized that the lavender lovely was structured like the flowers of a Mexican plant I grew at the time, the Mexican Hummingbird Bush, Dicliptera suberecta. The form of that flower pointed me to its genus and after some sleuthing, I identified the sweet native plant, Branched Foldwing, Dicliptera brachiata.

Branched Foldwing flowers in late summer during the hottest time of year, continuing into October as things cool off. I’ve only seen honeybees nectaring at the blooms, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see skippers or small native bees visit. The Texan crescent butterfly relies on this plant as its host and it’s a butterfly that I routinely see in my garden, especially in spring and early summer.

Clearly, little spiders set up their nets in the structure of the foldwing too, no doubt to ensnare critters smaller than themselves.

There are several individual plants currently in bloom in my back garden. Each are in a shade/part shade area; the foldwing doesn’t want to fry in the Texas sun.

Branched Foldwing has been a welcomed, though not planned, gift in my garden. Perhaps the original plant was given by a nice bird or small mammal after having munched a wee seed, then winged or ambled their way through the garden–the rest a history of the critter’s digestive system. Branched Foldwing is not a plant that nurseries carry as it’s small and unobtrusive, with only tiny, not-too-showy flowers. I appreciate its contribution to my shady space–a simple, but lovely little addition.

Is it Me?

Posted on September 4, 2025 by Tina

I was puttering in the garden recently and came across this Green Anole, Anolis carolinensis ambling along the bark of a Flameleaf Sumac, Rhus lanceolata. He and I exchange looks, while he postured with his rosy dewlap. I wondered if he was annoyed at my presence–that’s certainly happened before.

I greeted him with a howdy bud, what’s up? but he only offered me a side-eye glare. After a minute or two and a rustle from a nearby shrub, I spied another anole dropped to the soil and skittering away.

I guess it wasn’t me after all!

Bees A’buzz

Posted on August 21, 2025 by Tina

It was a slow start to the carpenter and bumble bee action this year, I assume because of the heavy rains experienced in Central Texas in May and June/early July. But recently the garden is a’buzz with honeybees and a variety of native bees, including the big, noisy carpenter and bumble bees.

This Horsefly-like Carpenter bee, Xylocopa tabaniformis, worked the prolific blooms of a Flame Acanthus, Anisacanthus quadrifidus, in my front garden.

These charming bees are probably my favorite bees. They’re noisy and buzzy, darling in looks. I love their racing stripes and melt at their dreamy blue eyes.

I like this up-side-down visage: bee-butt up pointed upward, proboscis-leading snout concentrated on the liquid deep in the tubular nectar fonts where the bee’s proboscis is headed.

Nectar stealing or nectar robbing is when an insect pokes or bites a hole in flowers that are too deep or small for the insect to enter from the open bloom. The insect then sips nectar without entering the flower’s innards, bypassing direct pollination.

Ole Blue Eyes here is just about to deliver its pointy proboscis, aiming for the fleshy, thin petal and the sweet stuff inside. The bee sliced the petal with its formidable mandibles to gain entry.

Bum-up view of the nectar-stealing, nectar-sipping bee. While direct pollination isn’t happening, you’ll notice grains of pollen sprinkled on Ole Blue Eyes’ body. It’s likely that some of those grains will play a role in pollination.

The other bees I’m seeing more of–and a big Huzzah! for that–are American Bumble bees, Bombus pensylvanicus. These graceful, yellow-n-black sweethearts are working many kinds of flowers right now, but a favorite bumble dining spot are the blue blooms of Henry Duelberg Sage, Salvia farinacea, ‘Henry Duelberg’. Notice the pollen booty on this bee’s pollen pantaloon, also known as a corbicula. If you look carefully, you can see a dab of golden on the other side of the bee–no doubt that pantaloon also carries a load of pollen.

My garden always enjoys more insect action, especially of the pollinator kind, as the growing season progresses. Heavy rains in spring and early summer often damage ground and wood nesters, so their procreation is slowed. Those insects rally as summer heats up and stable weather patterns settle in. In a healthy, diverse garden community, the pollinators persevere, the garden flourishes, and the gardener gives thanks.