PUMPKINS GALORE

I've been taking a week off from gardening as we have visitors from England staying with us. I wonder how many other people take their visitors to the grocery store! Not that Whole Foods is the average grocery store. We popped in there on Friday to pick a couple of 6 packs of different beers and were met with a fantastic pumpkin display. If only the weather was the kind you expect at pumpkin time.

I couldn't decide which ones I liked the best there were so many varieties. To my eyes the plain old orange ones couldn't hold a candle to the others.




We met our friends the first time we were here in Austin in 1968 so they had a good memory of some of the places we visited back then. Mount Bonnell was one. Aside from the view of downtown and Lake Austin the flowers up there took me by surprise. I think recent rains were responsible.

There was a sweet fragrance on the air from the flowers of the shrubby, many branched, Texas kidneywood, Eysenhardtia texana.

Snapdragon vines, Maurandya antirrhiniflora, twining through many of the bushes which grow along the edges of the escarpment.

Dayflowers, Commelina erecta, beneath them.

and of course Texas sage, Leucophyllum frutescens, in all its purple glory.

Amazing how quickly plants respond to the rain.

I was so busy tripping around town that I almost missed my own flowering.

The Texas fishook cactus,

A second flowering took me by surprise. A quick response to the recent rain.