This morning at Walnut Creek

From the top: Mexican hat (or prairie coneflower), horsemint, Texas parsley, primrose, some sort of shrub with berries, swallowtail in trail mud (the only butterfly that would stay still this morning), ultra-blue spiderwort, and some sort of sage-y plant. Below: one of my mountain laurels has a couple of mutant bud stalks that creep me out whenever I see them

Yucca blooms

at Shoal Creek this morning. Also stopped to take a picture of an oak with woodpecker holes in the trunk, and when I looked up from adjusting the camera, a snake was checking me out at about eye-level, less than two feet away. That will get your blood pumping. Below is a (not-very-good) picture of him hiding in his spot; you can just see the white underside of his chin a bit.

Horsemint en masse

at Shoal Creek yesterday

Cottonwood fallout

The cottonwood tree in the backyard is a lovely 35ft+ shade provider once it's gotten past the awkward spring phases: the dropping of sticky leaf buds and then the dropping of cotton. The past couple of days the cotton has been falling like crazy; it's in the car, my hair, the plants, on the pets. Hopefully last night's rain will mean the end of this craziness.

Lloyd imitating a cottontail

More cotton snow

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - May 2010

We had quite a rain last night, and a lot of blooms got beaten down. Not great for photos, but oh so good for the plants.

Cut leaf chaste tree, a favorite with the bees. Got it in a quart size pot a few years ago, and now it's about 8 ft tall and wide; this version is much airier and more delicate-looking than the more traditional version most people have around town.

Texas and Mexican sage in the foreground, chaste tree in the back. The tall skinny guy is standing cypress (this one's over 6 ft). You can also see a hint of autumn sage and coreopsis.

Standing cypress getting ready to bloom

Oregano in bloom (need to take the hedge clippers to it this weekend)

Coreopsis

Diamond frost euphorbia with thyme and basil

Spanish lavender

Bush beans

Succulent

Kalanchoe

Also in bloom around the yard: parsley, evening primrose, purple verbena, honeysuckle

Front bed and more

Varied foliage in the front bed: Cut leaf chaste tree, Texas sage, flame acanthus, fall asters, artemesia, copper canyon daisy.

Artemesia, copper canyon, prickly pear, flame acanthus, and fall asters

Coreopsis (I've deadheaded over a hundred spent blooms in the past week and a half)

Russian sage and coreopsis

The tiniest bell peppers I've ever seen (I think I left the transplant unplanted for too long)

I've given my bolting parsley plants to the swallowtails.


Pulled up the other shallot set. These actually had bulbs.

On today's walk

From the top: thistle against some sort of dry weed, prickly pear, Texas Parsley (I think) with swallowtail caterpillar, more prickly pear (with various insects collecting nectar), field of indian blanket and horsemint at Walnut Creek