Spring

It's definitely spring here in Galveston, Texas, even though we are having cooler than normal weather. The roses are growing like crazy and blooming more and more.  The Mexican butterfly weed has leafed out and then been devoured by thirty-some catapillers. All the deciduous shrubs are leafing out. The Mexician honeysuckle is in almost full bloom.  The grass is needing mowing at least every ten days. And Natalie and I have a strong compulsion to play in the dirt.

Part of the pansy bed

These begonias bloom all year round

Each day is a new adventure in the garden with new blooms appearing,new shoots coming up out of bare ground, and new butterflies appearing. Anticipation is building as we wait for the first ruby-throated hummingbirds. I have a feeder just outside the window where I work on my computer  so I'll be sure to see them.  Natalie did some rearranging of the dog fences she has up and now we have a way into a section of the garden that was almost inaccessible.  So I'm working on getting it weeded and dug out a Confederate Rose that volunteered to grow to about twelve feet over last summer - that starting from a seed - and which then shaded a lot of the vegetable area.

Mexican sage - this was blooming in the winter and is starting back up

The Kalanchoes are in full bloom

Mexican Honeysuckle is almost fully open and ready for hummers

One of the few petunias to survive - snails ate the rest almost immedately

I think this is a non-native, tropical sage - but it grows like mad here - both sun and light shade

 I have been weeding the front yard (weeds are seldom dormant here) and transplanting and planting more cilantro and parsley.  (Our first batch of cilantro went to seed while we were in Big Bend and the seven big beautiful parsley plants are usually just inch high stems, thanks to an unknown, and very sneaky predator. We even covered some with screen but they were eaten down overnight anyway. So a couple of new ones are in pots and I'm going to transplant the others into pots and see if I can hide them where they will be able to produce leaves.

Snapdragons Natalie grew from seed and I transplanted

The fruit trees are almost through blooming and are putting out leaves

 Our baby zinnias, tomatoes, and basil are mostly sullking but hopefully putting them outside in full sun will get them going. On cool, nights - under 50 degrees - we still carry then back inside.

Some of our seedlings

I couldn't resits this little Cherokee tomato and also bought a new Earthbox for it. 

 We only had one day with about five minutes of frost. So our fall crops are still alive and are thinking about making another crop for us.

We have lots of tomatoes in the tomato jungle - but all are still green

Last year's eggplants are blooming again

A lot of what I've been doing is digging out stuff, cutting back, and weeding, weeding, weeding.

 I just had to take a little break from reports on Big Bend Hiking.  But I've finally finished editing the pictures from the most beautiful (and hardest) hike of all I did. But we'll go back to Big Bend at least one more time.

I'm also spending a lot of time at doctors.  Currently I'm up to six: A chiropractor, a family doctor, an orthopedic surgeon, a pain specialist, and a nerve specialist, and a gastroenterologist. But it is all just for general checkups and to try to figure out and fix what ails my shoulder.  It doesn't stop my paddling so it's not that bad. But I don't like being poked and I'm getting way too much of all that, including blood work this morning.

Nature's Stocking Stuffers

I got out in Natalie's yard on Tuesday morning while the light was still beautiful. Almost immediately, I was distracted by some of the flowers and butterflies. I had to grab my camera and take the opening orange/gold rose. Then I saw another. Then a butterfly. Soon I was looking for more flowers and ended up taking pictures of most of them.

This is about the least flowers we ever have here.  It's the dormant season, except for crops and flowers that like cold weather, like greens, pansys, petunias, and other bedding plants. The roses only have a couple of blooms at a time.  Afew of the sages are still blooming and attracting bees, butterflies, and flies that mimic bumblebees.

So each bloom seems like a blessing and it's fun to visit them each day. And their insect visitors make them even more interesting.

Soon after Natalie moved here, we bought three roses at the Antique Rose Emporium,  a great place to shop for old and English roses.  We picked the three varieties because they were supposed to grow well here in our high humidity. They  have all done pretty well - don't need any spraying -  but only have sporadic blooms right now. This orange one was just opening when I was taking pictures and I noticed it finished opening by the end of the photo session.The other two are yellow and their blooms are falling apart and not photogenic.

There are a few monarchs still flying around. Two weeks ago, just before I went to Louisiana, there were 27 monarch caterpillars feeding on several Mexican milkweed plants. When I got back, there were only a couple left, but most of the leaves were gone and the remaining caterpillars were eating on the seed pods and the stems.  I found a few of the chrysalises while I was pruning and weeding. 

 Then I noticed this tiny drama. These two guys were having a gobbling contest to see who could eat the last leaf fastest. I threw the game to the caterpillar when I plucked and stomped the snail. By day's end, there were only two caterpillars and one was eating a seed pod.

 We had a few other butterflies flying around this day.  A Red Admiral who prefers to feed upside down was checking out the purple saliva.

The grass skippers are almost gone. The ones that are left love this red and yellow lantana that is scheduled to be moved, either when it stops blooming, or in late January. Got to move it before spring which will happen the middle of February so the neighboring rose bush can get its space back.

Paper whites usually start blooming in December. However, this is currently the only blooming one in the yard. Its relatives are all still in bud.

Blue mist flower has volunteered everywhere, much to the delight of the monarchs, queens and other butterflies. This is the last blooming  mist plant in the yard. I'm busy cutting the seed heads back on the others to neaten up the garden.

The flowers of the abutilon bush (really a small tree) look like lanterns when they are back-lit.

The pansys that Zootie and I hauled home in a wagon after my car ended up in the shop on pick-up day are growing well and making faces.

And we are still getting a few eggplants - these are ready to harvest and will make a meal for two. The tomatoes are starting to color up. We have to pick them almost green or the squirrels feast on them. So far we have only parsley, dill, and cillantro growing but I hope to get several kinds of lettuce, mustard, spinich, Swiss chard, and bitter greens growing soon.

Before I knew it, an hour of fun was done and I was behind on gardening and getting my stuff packed up for 4 days of birding and paddling. I'll be doing the Bolivar Christmas Count, in the portion that is Anahuac NWR, on Thursday. AND I had had a previous  thirty minutes of fun, walking on the beach with Natalie and two dogs, watching the sunrise, and enjoying the shore birds and sounds of the waves. So I was well gifted with all these little stocking stuffers.