{"id":537,"date":"2011-05-19T13:39:03","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T18:39:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/?p=537"},"modified":"2011-05-19T16:08:46","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T21:08:46","slug":"exciting-discoveries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/2011\/05\/19\/exciting-discoveries\/","title":{"rendered":"Exciting Discoveries"},"content":{"rendered":"

My next door neighbor, who is very knowledgeable about native Texas plants, spotted a very rare plant on his property recently and invited me over to see it. The plant is a Spiked Crested Coralroot Orchid (Hexalectris spicata). I have never heard of this plant, nor seen it anywhere else. It is very unusual and quite lovely.
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Spiked Crested Coralroot Orchid (Hexalectris spicata)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nThere are also quite a few beautiful Madrone trees growing here as well. He cultivates and plants these wonderful trees, (and has been kind enough to share some seed and seedlings with me) which are also called Naked Indian trees due to their striking smooth reddish skin.
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Smooth Red ‘Skin’ of the Madrone Tree<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nI was also treated to a tour of his exquisite garden, which he has agreed to let me photograph in the future. The beauty and peacefulness that surrounded me when I entered this garden was almost palpable. Most, if not all, of the plants in the garden are native, but not the usual suspects. And the setting of the garden, overlooking Sycamore Creek and nestled into the side of the valley, provides the perfect backdrop for this natural space. Look at the way the Madrone tree hugs the southeast corner of the house and the pathway beckons you to see what is around the corner.
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Madrone Tree at SE Corner of House<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nI am also lucky to have many native, some rare, plants growing on my land as well. One of these is the Stiff Greenthread (Thelesperma filifolium). When I first saw this plant I thought it was some sort of coreopsis, but it is actually in the Aster family. Further research<\/a> revealed that this is a perennial herb that native Indians used to make a medicinal tea. With that knowledge in hand, I decided that this plant was worth trying to cultivate. It is growing on a hillside in a drainage area so I decided to protect it by surrounding it with rocks and I have started to water it once in a while. I also collected and planted some seeds.
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Greenthread in Rock Surround<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Our farm business is keeping me very busy. Our spring crops are growing well and new summer crops and succession plantings will go in soon. Meanwhile, I am already planning the fall crops and mapping out the new growing areas that we will be installing this summer. So much to do ….. so little time.
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Market Garden May 18<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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My next door neighbor, who is very knowledgeable about native Texas plants, spotted a very rare plant on his property recently and invited me over to see it. The plant is a Spiked Crested Coralroot Orchid (Hexalectris spicata). I have never heard of this plant, nor seen it anywhere else. It is very unusual and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,3,16,17,19,24],"tags":[297,115,284,299,298,361],"class_list":["post-537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flowers","category-gardening","category-native-plants","category-nature","category-photography","category-vegetable-gardening","tag-crested-coral-root-orchid","tag-greenthread","tag-madrone","tag-spiked-crested-coralroot-orchid","tag-thelesperma-filifolium","tag-vegetable-gardening"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phuiL-8F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":540,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions\/540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}