Texas Native Plant Week

Posted on October 20, 2020 by Tina

The third week of October is Texas Native Plant Week.

If you’ve discovered the beauty and practicality of utilizing native plants–in Texas or elsewhere–every day is a celebration of native plants. Using native plants in home gardens is a no-brainer: they’re easy to grow, lovely, and fit where you live.

In spring:

Carolina jessamine, *Gelsemium sempervirens*

Yellow columbine, *Aquilegia chrysantha*

*Aquilegia* sp. (hybrid of *A. chrysantha* and *A. canadensis)*

Or summer:

Drummond’s ruellia, *Ruellia drummondiana*

Tropical sage, *Salvia coccinea* (White) with accompanying dragonfly

Purple coneflower, *Echinacea purpurea* with nectaring Funereal Duskywing, *Erynnis funeralis*

(left to right) Purple coneflower, Zexmenia, Twistleaf yucca, Henry Duelberg sage, Globe mallow

Big red sage, *Salvia pentstemonoides* with Southern Carpenter bee, *Xylocopa micans*

Rock rose, *Pavonia lasiopetala* with resting Horsefly-like Carpenter bee, *Xylocopa tabaniformis*

In autumn:

Rock rose with nectaring Little Yellow, *Pyrisitia lisa*

Texas craglily, *Echeandia texensis* with accompanying Horsefly-like Carpenter bee

Gregg’s mistflower, *Conoclinium greggii* with nectaring Grey Hairstreak, *Strymon melinus*

Plateau goldeneye, *Viguiera dentata,* with honeybee

In winter:

Frostweed, *Verbesina virginica* after the first freeze of the season

Whether its flowers–annuals and perennials–trees, groundcovers, or grasses, native plants exist and flourish in every region and all seasons. Native plants and seeds are readily available from many local nurseries and online sources. With native plants, your garden will be dynamic, reflecting your particular geography and imparting a sense of place. Additionally, native plants support native wildlife, and a garden is never so alive as when pollinators, birds, reptiles and mammals are at home.

Antidote

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Tina

In the few moments of sunshine in this past week or so, autumn native bloomers spark light and color-joy. Fall asters, Symphyotrichum oblongifolium, beaten down by heavy rains, turn their exuberance to singular rays of sunshine.

Pollinators reveal themselves, taking advantage of limited breaks in the clouds.

Syrphid fly on a Fall aster.

Plume-heavy grasses, like this Lindheimer’s muhly, Muhlenbergia lindheimeri, add feathery grace to the garden.

Heavy rains weigh down the panicles, which sweep walkways,

…and drape over perennials like the Zexmenia, Wedelia acapulcensis var. hispida.

Zexmenia’s yellow joy is undiminished.

Absent is the Texas sun, which bleaches color in the height of day. Instead, gloomy is de rigueur, highlighting startling color. Crimson Turk’s cap, Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii, and Plateau goldeneye, Viguiera dentata, pair in a color palooza.

These days, sunshine is provided by blasts from blooms.

Plateau goldeneye enjoys its flowering zenith and pollinators (when it’s not raining!) rejoice.

Light in the garden serves as a beacon during dark times. These little perennial shrubs, White tropical sage, Salvia coccinea, and their partner, the still young Mexican orchid tree, Bauhina mexicana, flower intermittently throughout summer. Both plants are in their prime once the cool and rain begin in autumn–and we’ve had plenty of rain, that’s for sure!

Amidst Austin’s emergency water restrictions caused by historic flooding, with silt and gunk slowing water treatment and risking bacterial infestation, we’re boiling water for cooking and drinking.

But water from the sky–pure and nourishing–pleases the garden. Stately Frostweed, Verbesina virginica, thoroughly pink Rock rose, Pavonia lasiopetala, and normally dry-loving Blackfoot daisy, Melampodium leucanthum, are awash in blooms.

Austinites have heeded calls for water conservation, thus allowing our water treatment plants to meet demand. Aerial photos of Lady Bird Lake demonstrate the mess that the treatment plants are rectifying. We have a 90% chance of heavy rain today, but the rain is slated to end. Sunshine is in the forecast and all–people, critters, and water treatment plants–will enjoy a break from the wet. We’ll be boiling drinking water for a few more days, but normalcy is anticipated.

This little Gray hairstreak (and all other pollinators) will be back in full-wing, fulfilling their pollinating drives. No doubt they’re weary of resting under leaves during heavy downpours.

While our blue skies are recently rare, my blue fix is provided by patches of Henry Duelberg Sage, Salvia farenacia.

Syrphid flies also appreciate the blue, working during rain breaks, the blooms of Henry Duelberg

Blue skies are forthcoming. Our gardens will dry, our streams and lakes will clear. Blooms and beasts will return to their daily duties.

Frost Fest

Posted on January 4, 2018 by Tina

Everyone is talking about it! It’s the plant of the week, the one everyone wants to know and hang out with! My own blog statistics show a dramatic spike in views of past posts written about it! What is this trending plant, the plant with the cool vibe? Well, it’s more than cool, it’s cold–it’s Frostweed, Verbesina virginica. Of course!

Frostweed is an excellent wildlife perennial plant, native from all the way up in Pennsylvania to here in sunny–usually mild–Texas. Its striking summer-to-autumn white blooms, which feed many, are quite enough for me to adore Frostweed, but it’s the transitory ice show, as seen during the first hard freeze of winter, that gives this summer and autumn blooming, pollinator-loving perennial its name.

Frostweed.

Luscious ice sculpture!

In the first winter hard freeze, this week, my Frostweed strutted its icy, frosty stuff for almost three full days, due to the temperatures dropping late Sunday and not reaching above freezing until mid-day Wednesday. The first thing I thought about on Monday morning, January 1, 2018, (okay, second–the first was about coffee…), was Oooh, I need to check out the frostweed, I’ll bet they’ve all burst open!

Indeed, burst open they had–and how!

The moisture from the stem blasts open the epidermis of the stalk.

Breaks through the stalk, with additional curling (upper left) of the ice, occurs as moisture, forming additional ice, moves outward.

The ice formations are delicate and transient–melting at touch or temperatures over freezing. Ice forms as the plant draws moisture up from the ground. The supercooled moisture breaks open the epidermis, freezing from the base of the plant and upwards along the stalk.

The resulting ice sculptures can furl (unfurl?), scroll-like, along the stalk, which is how my Frostweed usually behaves.

Monday morning.

Sometimes, the ice creates wavy, ice-taffy inspired forms.

Same plant, Wednesday morning as more moisture froze along the stalk when temperatures continued to drop.

A closer look.

Curly. Groovy. Icy. Beauty.

This winter’s show was special because in Austin, and certainly in more northern parts of the state, temperatures stayed below freezing for longer than the typical fleeting hard freeze, thus allowing the ice sculptures to expand, and remain frozen for admirers to appreciate for longer than just one morning.

Other perennials demonstrate similar freeze-n-bust action, but none do it with the verve and style of Frostweed.

As the sun warmed Wednesday afternoon, so melted away the exquisite, frosty art. The frost show ended, probably until next winter, but it was fun to see. Frostweed will be back in spring, after winter’s pruning, for another year of blooms and bust.

Frostweed–a frosty delight.