AND THEN THE RAINS CAME

Some must wonder at how Texans just can't stop talking about it when they have rain. We had plenty of rain on Wednesday. Enough to wash the garden away.

This time around we got good warning about how much we might be getting. How glad I am that I decided to pick a spray of the hybrid musk rose Felicia to bring into the house. I always cut this rose back hard in the spring and this year she has grown with long arching stems laden with powder-puff pink, fragrant blooms. Next year I have plans to let her grow as a pillar rose and provide support for her lovely tresses.

In the late afternoon, before the rains came, when I walked out through the front gate I detected the unmistakeable fragrance of another fall bloomer, the white, fragrant mistflower, Ageratina havanensis.

The deer have been nibbling away at the branches resulting in this very late bloom. As an understory bush it produces open airy branches loaded with puff ball blooms. I added two more plants this year positioning them near the oak trees and hopefully not in the deer pathway.
And then came the rains. Throughout the night the rain came down. When it falls on our Edwards plateau land it finds its way though sink holes into voids in the limestone. Then it must find a way out.

On the side of the hill by the road it found a place. It has been gushing out of here all day. It's on its way down to Barton Creek and into the Colorado.