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Saturday, May 5, 2012

SHOW ME SOME YELLOW

We always had nasturtiums in the garden when I was a little girl. They were either orange or yellow and they were a favorite of caterpillars. We never thought of eating them ourselves. But you can.


They are a peppery addition to a salad and imagine how pretty they would look among the green. Unfortunately for us in Central Texas their bloom time is short. As temperatures have slowly increased into the 90s, even growing in a pot with afternoon shade and daily watering, the leaves have become mottled and blotched. They are not the only thing suffering.


On the upper part of our property I came across this graveyard of prickly pear cactus. It was not a pretty sight. This was probably the result of our brutal 2011 summer.


You can see how dry and burnt the vegetation is. Even the cedars are drying out.


And yet, at the edges of the pile of dead pads there are new pads growing and flowering; bees and beetles rolling around in the stamens.


And yet another yellow blooming cactus. For now the cactus flowers do so much to brighten the drought stricken land.

16 comments:

  1. Amazing how tough some plants are. I certainly hope you get some much needed rain. Anymore, it seems to be all or none.....
    Wishing you ample rains! Have a great weekend.
    :)

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    1. Exciting news. It wasn't expected but we had over an inch of rain last night. Woo, hoo!

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  2. The drought has definitely taken it's toll. We've had a lot of trees die on our small acreage. It's very, very sad to see large mature oak trees give up the fight.

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    1. We share your sadness over the loss of large trees. We have lost many Spanish oak too with nothing to replace them.

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  3. I take it y'all have not gotten any of the spring rains that we have gotten in North Texas this year?? I think we are finally out of drought status. What a relief. Hopefully you will get some soon too!

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    1. Until yesterday we hadn't received any but that changed overnight. Over 2" Wonderful.

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  4. Opuntia dying for lack of water, who would have thought? I so wish I could share our ample rainfall with you.

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  5. I just found your blog via a link from craftzine. What a beautiful garden you have! So inspirational.

    We have equally dry weather in New Mexico and between that and the last two very harsh winters, so many hardy, established plants went kaput this spring.

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    1. Thank you Rosa. Tough times for gardens all over the place but we did have rain yesterday. It will breathe new life into the garden.

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  6. Lovely Jenny, so cool to see the things you grow that would never be in my Indian garden. Have a great weekend!

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    1. You may be surprised. There are opuntias which grow in colder climates than this.

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  7. That opuntia graveyard is a sad sight indeed. I never thought this could happen to such a hardy and drought-tolerant plant!

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  8. We have some of those graveyards around here, too. But, it's hard to keep prickly pear down. Ranchers have bemoaned that forever.
    We got a very good rain last night. 1.34 inches here. Most of it in a short period. But, we'll take it. It was getting pretty dusty here.

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    Replies
    1. I know they will be back but I don't really relish clearing up their mess.

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