Hill Country Water Gardens and Nursery Outing

I love visiting plant nurseries.  Especially locally owned nurseries that have made an effort to have beautiful display gardens.  It's like going to a public garden's with the plus of being able to purchase a bit of it and take it home if you want to.  Last Friday I got to visit one of my favorites, Hill Country Water Garden & Nursery. It is exemplary in this class of beautiful nurseries, and since I live just 15 minutes from their 5 acres gardens in Cedar Park, it's an easy enjoyable outing.  I love going there and looking at their beautiful display ponds and landscaping. They are definitely the place to go if you want to add any kind of water feature to your garden with all kinds of fountains, pump equipment, water plants and fish, plus the experts to help you design and maintain your feature.  They also have beautiful pottery, and garden accents and many landscaping plants for sale, including unusual ones you won't find at the chain nurseries. Many are natives to our area or adapted, so they are suitable for Xeriscape gardens. Enjoy these photos and go visit their website: http://hillcountrywatergardens.com/index/ for their address and more info about what they offer. Better yet, go see it for yourself.

Display pond

Large Display pond

Holding tank for fish that they sell.  These are the small Koi.
They also have a range of sizes in Koi and goldfish.

Classical lion head fountain.  This is my
daughters favorite.

Garden whimsey accessories.

After the Rain

Four nights ago, we got a "Severe Thunder Storm", as the weather service reports it, or what the locals  call a "Frog Strangler".  One to three inches will fall, sometimes in less than an hour, with high winds,  a spectacular lightening show and thunder that rattles the windows.  We are thrilled that it's raining again in Central Texas after several weeks of warm dry weather and the landscape starting to become rather crispy.  Today as I write this post, a slow steady rain is falling again with mild thunder.  And the plants are responding already. Starting in late spring and throughout the summer a small, dazzlingly white native lily called the Rain Lily, Cooperia pedunculata, pops up and blooms two to three days after every good rain storm.  Lawn sprinklers won't do the trick. It has to be real rain.  The longer the dry spell between the rains, the more abundant the flowers are.  You will see them along roadsides, out in open spaces and even in lawns.  Hope you can find some soon.  They only last a day or two.  

"After the Rain" 14.5 X 9.5 Watercolor

In the fall a very similar but smaller and more slender species of Rain Lily, Cooperia drummondii, will take it's place

Strange and Unusual Part 2

Today I'll feature a few more strange and unusual plants you can find in the Edwards Plateau Area. The first two plants below are both members in the Milkweed family and have similarities especially in their strange seed pods.  Milkweeds are the main food source for Monarch butterfly caterpillars. You can see a photo of the Monarch caterpillars feeding on Antelope Horns on April 26th post.  Milkweed plants produce alkaloids and other toxic chemicals that get eaten and stored in the caterpillars which in turn make the caterpillars and adult Monarch butterflies poisonous to potential predators.  A really strange growth habit of antelope horns is the way the seed pod forms.  Many flowers make up a ball shaped bundle at the end of each stem, but few of  these flowers mature into the large horn-shaped seed pod that curves as it grows and dries out to look like the antelope horns it's named after.  When the pod dries completely it opens and releases seeds attached to downy plumes that can be carried off by the wind

Antelope Horns, Spider Milkweed

Pearl Milkweed Vine, Netted Milkvine (named for the netted pattern on the flowers)  Notice the shiny pearl-like button 

in the center of each flower.  It is formed from fused stamen and pistil parts.

Seed pod of Pearl Milkweed Vine

Pearl Milkweed Vine

Heller's Marbleseed flowers

Heller's Marbleseed with white seeds

Heller's Marbleseed (above two photos) is a rare and unusual plant.  The flowers never open all the way, and the seeds look like tiny white marbles.  This plant is endemic to Texas, meaning it is found growing only in Texas, in fact only in three counties of Texas and Travis is one of them.  There are quite a few native plants of the Edwards plateau because of it's unique geology of plateau interspersed with canyons. and also because of it's location between major eastern and western regions of plant life.  Although this plant is rare and endemic to Texas it can be plentiful where it is found.

Oak Dodder, Tree Dodder

Oak Dodder is a parasitic flowering plant that grows on several native trees, including Plateau Live Oak, Ashe Juniper (Cedar) and Prairie Flameleaf Sumac. It is classified as a rare plant and seems to be uncommon in our area (the two don't always go together).  I don't see it growing every year, and haven't seen it yet this year.  I saw it two years ago when we had much more spring and summer rain.  This plant grows from seeds in the ground, then grows vines and tendrils up into trees and pierces their stems to obtain water and nutrients. The original connection to the ground dies off and only the vines in the trees remain.  Much more common Dodder species, that are much smaller and more delicate grows on herbaceous (not woody as in trees or shrubs) plants in our area and one was included in the April 9th post.. There it is growing on bluebonnets.

Strange and Unusual Part 1

Central Texas has some pretty strange looking flowering plants that are growing and/or blooming this time of year.  But you may have to take a closer look to find them or search off the beaten path.  Many of these have green or inconspicuous flowers and some are rare plant species.

These first two are Ball Moss and Spanish Moss.  They are not true mosses, but flowering plants. They are members of the Bromeliad (Airplant) Family.  Their flowers are small and inconspicuous, but if you look carefully you can see some hanging down in the first photo.  Both of these plants are epiphytes, meaning they use the trees they grow on just for hanging onto, and in no way harm or parasitize the tree.  Ball Moss is common in our area and found on our live oak trees, While spanish moss is not so common and is found more often on trees growing in deep canyons.

More of these strange plants will be featured in my next post including two more rare plants in Central Texas.

Spanish Moss (not a moss either but
a flowering plant)

Ball Moss (not a real moss)

Green Dragon

Yes, that really is this unusual and rare plants common name. Green Dragon's botanical name is Arisaema dracontium and the dragon reference comes from their strange looking flowers that have a long green spike arising from a hooded structure that reminded someone of a dragon's tongue.  I've never personally seen the flowers, but you can look at a photo of them on the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's Native Plant Data Base.   The middle leaf group in the above photo is actually just one leaf that's oddly branched and divided.  This plant is listed as rare in our area and threatened or endangered in some states.

Velvet-leaf Gaura or Lizard-tail - a very tall weedy plant

Indigo Bush - member of the pea family as is
Texas Mountain Laurel and Bluebonnets

Snapdragon Vine, with bud and forming seedpod

Snapdragon Vine with flowers

Wren Nestlings

Today I'm featuring a feathered native, the Carolina Wren.  This bird is a year round resident in the eastern two thirds of Texas and much of the Eastern US and Eastern Mexico.  On April 7th my husband, Michael,  heard something hit the garage door window and on inspection found this mother wren stunned on the ground outside the garage.  He scooped her up and put her on our back deck rail. With some drops of water she began to revive, but sat still enough for a few minutes to give me the opportunity to take these close-up shots.  Within the next couple of weeks, the wren built a nest in a nest box outside our garage, laid four eggs, incubated, and hatched out four tiny wren chicks, and then fed them till they fledged and left the nest. The whole process took place all in the month of April more or less.  Incubation time for these birds is 12 to 14 days and is only done by the female.  Now there are at least three new eggs in the nest ready for round two.

Mother Wren

Mother Wren

Wren nest with eggs -white with brown speckles

Newly hatched baby Wrens

Notice how many different materials are used to build this nest, from cedar bark to cedar and oak leaves, than layers of feathers from the wren and other birds and even bits of plastic or paper. 

"Feed me, feed me"

Older Wren chicks before fledging 

Wrens are known to build several nests at the same time to act as decoys for predators.  This mother built one of her nests in my bicycle helmet that was hanging on my bike in the garage.

Late April Wildflowers and Butterflies

Here is what's out there today, still blooming in the hot and dryer late April Hill Country landscape. Because of our mild winter and earlier spring rains, we still have quite a few wildflowers and lots and lots of butterflies.  Butterflies are everywhere it seems, but especially on and around wildflowers.  Butterflies usually only lay their eggs on one type of plant- the type that will provide food for their larvae the catiperllars.

Indian Blanket Painting

This painting of an Indian Blankets flower and bud is done on a 6 inch ceramic tile.  I love the way the phyllaries (green pointy "leaves")  on the bud curve and clasp around the flower before it opens. The brilliant red and yellow contrasting each other on the ray flowers makes this composite stand out from the rest.  Look in the photos below for the Indian blanket flower that has no red on it.

"Indian Blanket" 6 inch, underglaze on ceramic tile

Late April Wildflower Sampler:

Hairy Wadellia Flower with Red Admiral Butterfly

Venus Looking Glass

 The Prickly Pear Cactus are starting to bloom.  In this first photo notice the small green fleshy structures scattered over the green pad.  These are the true leaves and will soon fall off, while the pads are actually modified stems.  The flowers are  often clear yellow colored with delicate tissue-like petals. Pale orange flowers or yellow with orange streaks are also found.

Prickly Pear Cactus

Prickly Pear Cactus

Prickly Pear Cactus

Bluebonnet seed pods

Coreopsis, Golden-wave

Prairie bishop

Texas Skeletonplant

Purple Horsemint, Lemon Beebalm

Indian Blanket, unusual white and yellow form

Englemann's Salvia

Shrubby Boneset with white moth

Mexican Hat

Dewberry fruit

Prairie Brazoria

Prairie Brazoria

Blackeyed Susan, Browneyed Susan

Yellow Stonecrop - a succulent type plant that
grows very low often seemingly right on flat
rock surfaces

Shrubby Boneset with Monarch Butterfly