Spring Flowers Abound

This spring in Central Texas is the most colorful that we have had in years. Not only are there greater numbers and a larger variety of wildflowers this year, they are also much larger and more deep in color than I have ever seen. Every day brings new discoveries and more brilliant displays. We have [...]

El Nino Showers Continue

Thanks to the el nino effect, this has been one of the wettest fall and winter seasons that I can remember since I moved to Central Texas over twenty years ago. The results of all this rain on the gardens and wildflowers is remarkable. The late winter, early spring blooming plants, such as the Carolina [...]

Late February Central Texas Snowfall

We got more snowfall yesterday than I have ever seen in Texas. It was absolutely lovely, and gave me a chance to see my gardens in a whole new way. Here are just a few of the shots that I took while dodging silver dollar sized snowflakes.

Fall Showers and Flowers

It has been ages since I have put up a post. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is that it has been so hot and dry for the past three months that I have spent most of my free time watering and mulching the gardens in an effort just to keep [...]

Sizzling Summer in Austin

Every summer for the past ten or so I have said to myself, surely this summer won't be as hot and dry as last summer, but unfortunately that just hasn't turned out to be the case. According to Jim Spencer at KXAN, the summer of 2009 has already been the hottest summer on record so far, with more than 30 days over 100 degrees F. Add to that the fact that we have also had almost no rain for the past six weeks (see the drought map below), we remain in the worst drought that we have seen here for years. All in all, this makes for some terribly challenging growing and gardening conditions.

Featured Post

Western Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

Although the wind was blowing steadily at about 25 mph when I was shooting these pictures, I couldn't resist trying to get some photos of this beautiful Western Tiger Swallowtail butterfly. I had been bemoaning the fact that we haven't had many butterflies in the garden yet this year, and then this guy showed up this morning.

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