Wildflower Spotting (2012)

 I spotted this wild Trout Lily in Cameron Park in January 2012.

I gather they are quite rare.  Have you ever spotted one?

Photo Flashback - September 2015

 

Every now and then I like to look old photos from the current month, several years back, and find one that I've never shared.   I don't remember what kind of flower this was but it looks prim and pretty by the fence. 

Wildflowers in Hewitt Park

Shared On Image-in-ing

Wildflower Watch - June

The beautiful chaos of Texas wildflowers in June....

It's a different sort of beauty than the seas of bluebonnets and primrose of early Texas spring.  Those lovely pink and blue shades seemed made for each other...and the occasional red or orange bluebonnet, wine-cup, or other odd flower  seems only a splash of color to highlight the rest, like a red pendant on a blue dress.

June is different.  Colors explode, they clash.  Flowers in red, orange, yellow, purple, and pink spread across the green foliage like a crazy quit...like multicolored sprinkles on green sherbet.

In the above pictures:  The red+yellow flowers are Indian Paintbrush.  The rocket shaped purple/lavender ones are Horsemint, and the wispy lavender ones in the last picture are Texas Vervain.  In the background on the last picture are thistles.  The green foliage in the right half of the first picture is wild Goldenrod, which I enjoy more at this stage then later when it is full of yellow flowers, but also tall and gangly.  There may be some other flowers mixed in as well...but those are the ones I could spot

Shared On

Wildflower Wednesday

Throwback Thursday at Tots and Me

Waco Wildflower Watch

Oh, there are too many wildflowers out for me to list. Of course the queen of them all is the bluebonnets! She's not hard to spot on the side of the road!

And here's some of my favorite wildflower,

the Texas Primrose, from my backyard.

I first discovered them up in Arlington, where they cover the roadside along I-20.  I loved how they swayed in the wind...a like giant sea of pink waves.  I haven't found a spot here in Waco where they grow that thick and wide, so if you know of one, please share!  I'd love to hear about what wildflowers you're spotting, wherever you are.  And, if you post pics on your blog, you can link up at Wildflower Wednesday.

Waco Gardening - Wildflower or Weed?

We've had some nice sunny days recently, and I've been spending a lot of them in my garden weeding.  Since most of the grass is still brown this time of year (at least in my yard) it makes the weeds easy to spot.

But, if you're like me and want to encourage Texas wildflowers to grow in your yard, you may want to weed selectively.   The following wildflowers are beginning to sprout right now and if you leave them be can be a nice addition to your yard later.

Wild Primrose

Wild primrose looks similar to dandelion when it first sprouts.  The leaves are somewhat ruffly at the edges, as you can see in the picture below (though, admitedly, some of what you see there was caused by insect nibbles.  But the wrinkling at the edges is not caused by that, from what I can tell.

 

This is what they look like in the spring!

Goldenrod

 Goldenrod doesn't bloom until the fall, but its a slow grower.  I'm noticing new plants sprouting in my garden now.  At this early stage it looks similar to common plaintain...but plantain will soon become hairy, while the leaves of goldenrod remain smooth.  The edges of goldenrod leaves are serrated.

In the fall Texas Goldenrod provides bunches of showy yellow blossoms.  According to Wikipedia, Goldenrod is unfairly blamed for causing hayfever, which is actually caused by ragweed which blooms at the same time.  Ragweed's pollen is airborn, while goldenrod pollen is too heavy and sticky to be blown far from the flowers (and mainly transported by the bees it attracks).  They are invasive, however, and hard to remove once they're full grown, so keep that in mind when deciding whether to let them in your yard.

Common Plantain
(NOT a wildflower)

Here are some pictures of Texas Plantain (also known as White Man's Foot) to compare with the pictures of Goldenrod above.  While plantain can be useful (it has medicinal properties as a pain-killer) it can take over if you let it grow un-restrained.  Oh, yes...and here is my example A of that.  These tiny plantain plants are going crazy in a bare spot in my yard left by last years drought and a previous infestation of another weed.  These new buds aren't visibly hairy like the older plants.  The edges of the leaves start out smooth.

 Later the leaves devolop hairs and jagged edges.

And eventually it will grow large seed spikes.

The picture above is by Calindarabus, who not only has great photos of tons of plants on Flickr, but includes info about the plant with each picture!



Shared on
Throwback Thursday

Wildflower Watch

Keep an eye out for Garardia (Agalinis purpurea) which blooms this month.