LACE CACTUS

I have been keeping an eye on this lace cactus for a few days knowing that any moment the flowers would open. This is the lace cactus Echinocereus reichenbachii and today it wowed me with its perfect rose pink flowers.

Tucked in among the large ledgestones on the granite parking area it has bloomed every single year. I hope it lives on for ever but it may already be reaching old age. Rarely growing taller than 8" it may stand alone or produce several branches. Once I trod on one by mistake and the damage caused it to branch. That was a happy accident.

I caught this perfect flower shortly after it opened. Oh, the joy of flowering plants. 

ICE ON THE BIRD BATH, FROST ON THE ROOF.

I hate to harp on about our weather this year but this was the last straw. Despite having covered my tomatoes, basil and countless other tenders, it was cold enough last night to burn many plants. I know when we have cold it means it is much colder up north but we are past our frost date by several weeks. The Salvia leucantha experienced a set back. Several tomato plants may not recover. Not the prettiest picture to head up the blog post.

The bonus for a clear cold night is a gorgeous day and the pink primroses were at their best in the evening light. Invasive little plants but such a joy when en masse.

An absolute favorite at this time of year is the blue-eyed grass, Sisyrinchium. In my garden they don't open up their petals until late afternoon but what an end of the day show.

Sedum potosinum, with its star shaped flowers, fills cracks and crannies in the sandstone paving of the sunken garden.

This columbine, growing in the Spanish oak garden took me by surprise. How did it get there?

This is one of two blue wildflowers growing in the arid landscape. This one name unknown.

The second is the blue star, Amsonia ciliata. It put on a very poor showing this year.

At least the pomegranate survived unscathed. I think it is going to be a bumper year if the number of flowers is anything to go by.

Last year I started seeds of Scabiosa. No idea which variety and I had completely forgotten until I saw this flower peeking above the larkspur.

It wasn't all walking around looking at flowers and taking photographs today. I began to tackle the bluebonnets in the front courtyard. It was impossible to walk through. They really had become the bullies of the garden, crowding out more valuable plants and making them reach for the stars. So out they came.

This is the mountainous pile. I really felt badly doing it but it just had to be done.

A TRIP BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK

In a remote corner of southwest Texas, where the Rio Grande River makes a great arching sweep on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, lies Big Bend National Park. The one million acres of public land with dramatic mountains and desert landscapes is located entirely within the Chihuahuan Desert. Because it is so far from any urban area it is one of the least visited of the National Parks. We are indeed fortunate that it is only 500 miles from our home! Along with friends from DC we spent 3 wonderful days camping in the park this week. The weather was perfect and the hiking outstanding. Even with the lack of rainfall that the area has experienced this year there were plenty of interesting flowers to photograph. The ocotillo, shown above, can be relied upon to bloom even without rainfall but will only produce leaves after rain has fallen.

  Blind Pricklypear (Opuntia rufida)

Many of the pricklypear were in flower. Some orange some yellow and some were getting ready to put on a splendid show in the days to come.

Our first hike was on the Hot Springs trail where we witnessed some of the destruction caused by tropical storm Lowell last September. So much rain fell on the watershed of the Rio Conchos (Mexico) which drains into the Rio Grande, that the dams spilt over sending tons of mud and silt down into the park. The park rangers considered the deluge of water a good event as it also cleared out tons of trees that were blocking the river upstream and preventing the normal flood cycles. However, it left behind several inches of mud which has now dried hard and cracked.

The earlier part of this 6 mile round trip hike winds up the side of a limestone cliff to the top of the bluffs overlooking  the Hot Springs Canyon. Along the way we saw several cactus in flower.

Claret cup cactus (Echinocereus coccineus)

Strawberry cactus ( Echinocereus enneacanthus)

Texas rainbow cactus ( Echinocereus dasyacanthus)

We spotted this fossil ammonite in the trail.

When we came down to river level we saw cascades of the Yellow Rocknettle, Eucnide bartonioides. 

Down at river level we enjoyed a soak in the hot springs. You can see the Rio Grande behind the pool.

Our second hike was to Cattail Falls at the end of Oak Creek Canyon. Crossing the desert floor before entering the canyon we passed through a forest of sotol. 

I am familiar with this plant as I used to have one in my front garden. It very quickly outgrew the space and was very difficult to garden around as you can see from the dangerous teeth on the leaves. It was removed and is now growing where it has plenty of room.

Once in the canyon the vegetation became more lush with maidenhair ferns, columbines and this delicate orchid which we have yet to identify.

For the first time I was able to identify poison oak. Very similar to poison ivy.

On the way out we spotted this the brown flowered cactus among the dead sotol leaves. It is one of the earliest cactuses to bloom.

Brown-flowered cactus ( echinocereus chloranthus)

Later a short hike took us across Terlingua Creek into the Santa Elena Canyon. As with the rest of the park the other side of the river is Mexico and the walls are sheer on the Mexican side. The US side affords just enough room to hike some distance into the canyon until the canyon wall meets the river. 

Although the trail was not our favorite the hike down to the window was by far the most spectacular. There was a strong wind blowing through the gap towards us otherwise there would have been no way we could have stood on the edge. Even so you can see my knees are a little bent.

We saw many Mexican Buckeye and Flame acanthus along the trail as well as numerous unidentified bushes and trees.

One of the highlights of the trip was the frequent sighting of the Vermillion flycatcher around the campground. I believe this is the extent of this flycatchers range into the USA. As you can see it was difficult to get a shot.

As was the photo of the Javelina- taken from the car.

It was a great trip and I have no doubt we will be out there again in the not too distant future.

AFTER THE DRIZZLE

After the drizzle yesterday morning the sun finally came out in the late afternoon. This swallowtail butterfly, which is the largest I have ever seen, spent over half an hour flitting among the flowers. I managed to capture it with wings open. 

I thought it was a good time to capture the spring flowers in the vegetable garden before they were pounded by the storm that the weather man promised for today. It came at rush hour this evening.  In parts of the county baseball size hail fell, no doubt smashing plants to the ground. We were lucky. No hail but not much rain either. The rain gauge measured on 3/10" Oh well better than nothing.

ENJOYING THE CLOUD AND DRIZZLE

This morning it was my perfect gardening day. Overcast 70 degrees and from time to time a little drizzle. Time to plant some of those seedlings I have been growing. There is a good chance of rain tomorrow so what better time. At the same time some of the beds got a much needed infusion of good soil. This time some of the Natural Gardener's rose soil. It is their best and I notice among the mix is a good dose of hadite( expanded shale). Some of it went into the raised bed where the Zepherine drouin is growing. I have been threatening to pull her out because despite a good early spring performance the rest of the year is a disaster with blackspot. 

I will relent again as today there are clusters of fragrant pink roses above our little seating area in the front garden. I plan to do a serious pruning after she has finished the big show removing some of the really old canes. Then maybe with the new soil things will improve for the rest of the year.

I was interested to see the gardeners at the Wildflower Center pulling out the pink primroses. They said they were just pulling them back from the edges to control them, which is exactly what I do. I still like to have a few clumps of them here and there.

The buzzard is keeping a watchful eye over the creek bed. You can see the bluebonnets in the background which are taking over the seating area.

Columbine and gaura fill the raised beds.
I wish these plants would always stay this tidy but there is not much hope for that in Texas.

These are the only kind of plants that stay tidy in my garden.

AND THE WIND IT DOTH BLOW

I'm not sure which is worse no rain or a 40 mile an hour wind. When the fronts pass through they certainly do it with fury. It is a struggle keeping the seedlings growing and everything standing. I know this happens all the time in the spring so you would think I would be prepared. which brings me to my mini greenhouses and a third life for gallon milk jugs.

Earlier this year I used the milk jugs in the greenhouse to line the walls. They take up heat during the day and give it back at night. I did mean to try painting them black this year to see if the water would warm up more but never got round to it. At the same time the jugs of water act as watering can for the seedlings. They prefer a warm drink to one straight from the tap. So yesterday I planted out the basil seedlings and they are lucky to get mini greenhouse. I cut out the bottom of the jug making sure to cut below the reinforced bottom. That makes it easier to put in the ground. When I plant out the squash they will also get a greenhouse as their stems are always susceptible to  breaking off in the wind. Finally the jugs will go to the recycle bins. Another use for the milk jugs is to cut out the top sufficiently to add a few rocks. Make a few pin prick holes in the bottom and fill with water. The water will trickle out slowly to feed new plants. You can even add a little slow release fertilizer to the jug. I suppose you could also fill the jugs with water and position them around a plant just like a wall o' water. As you can guess we drink a lot of milk.

IT'S A KNOCKOUT

Tempted by the ease with which the Knockout rose "radrazz" grows, how could I resist the yellow variety Rosa "radsunny". Following our Saturday walk around Lady Bird Lake we headed over to our favorite post walk lunch spot, Whole Foods. There among all the new plants I saw the yellow variety I had been reading about. Hardy from zone 5-9, "radsunny" has the same dark leaves but a slightly more upright habit and it is has all the disease resistant attributes of the other knockout roses. In a flash it was in the cart. On the way home I kept smelling a wonderful fragrance; could it be the new rose? It was. I have my yellow rose of Texas.

FLOWERS FOR THE HOUSE

One of the most wonderful things about having a garden is being able to pop out and pick a few flowers for the house. I always allow plants to grow here there and everywhere in vegatable beds and pathways on the pretext that I will be cutting them to bring inside. One of the stems on the unknown double narcissus was broken off today. I couldn't let it languish so I picked two more stems to bring inside. With a few columbine leaves it makes a miniature arrangement. The fragrance is wonderful and reminds me of my childhood in England.

BAD BUG GOOD BUG

When I saw these today I thought I knew exactly what they were and a quick search on google confirmed my thinking. Eggs of the stink bug. The reason I knew what they were. They are similar in shape to the eggs of the harlequin bug although not quite so pretty.  If I have a handle on the harlequins this year apparently I don't on the stink bugs. I have killed so many recently, and today, as we ate our lunch in the front bluebonnet patch, we noticed the stinkers at work among the bluebonnets. Then I spotted the eggs. They weren't very smart laying them on the upper surface of the leaf. At least that is one batch that won't be hatching.

This egg case is a completely different story. Placed 8' up on the wood above our patio this is a praying mantis egg case. I like these guys because they feed on crickets, grasshoppers and flies. They also have cannibalistic habits. Hundreds of miniature mantids emerge from the egg case and it is not unusual for the first one out to be eaten by the next one. It doesn't start there either. The female has been known to eat the male during or after the mating process. I guess that will depend on how well he performs!  Years ago when I found one of these on a plant I thought "this doesn't look good" but I soon learnt to welcome sight of the egg cases. I did once have one, cemented to my lemon tree, start hatching in the house and I had tens of these tiny mantids running around. I tried to rescue them with a piece of paper but some of them were caught in spiders webs. 

GARDENERS' REWARDS

I think I am most fortunate to be a gardener. When I wake up in the morning I can't wait to get outside and see which new flower will have opened. At this time of the year it seems as though it is a daily occurrence, which makes it all the more exciting. Every plant is in a hurry to bloom, probably because it knows that a Texas summer is on the way and they had better make the most of the cooler days; not that the last few days have been cooler with a new record of 86 degrees set the other day. Just the other day this chocolate daisy, Berlandiera lyrata, pictured above, which I saw for the first time this morning with all its petals unfurled, was nothing but a green bud.

You can just see the buds of the future petals.

So, I called D outside and said "get down and smell this flower and tell me what you think" "Wow" he exclaimed "it smells like chocolate" Right on. Hence its name chocolate daisy. It is growing quite happily in the sunken garden and has been for years. 

In the same garden the white wine cup, Callirhoe involucrata 'lineariloba', seems quite at home on the upper level. Despite being nibbled by the cotton rats it is now a mass of flowers. It is rather an aggressive plant having overtaken a calylophus some years ago.

Chives are flowering in the herb garden.

Not being much of a note taker and not much good at record keeping, it is no surprise that I have no idea of the name of this double narcissus. Only that it has the most fragrant flower. Perhaps someone can identify it for me.

With such a poor showing of bluebonnets outside the walls I relented and let them stay in the front garden. We always eat lunch here on a sunny day and it isn't easy to pick our way to the seating but I'll save these seeds to replant areas outside.

I even posed for a photo among them.