Winter Coming Late

For the last month or so, it seems like the deciduous trees just don't know what to do. We had a little cold weather, but then it's been in the 70's and even 80's for a while and very dry. Most of the trees usually turn in October, but some still seem confused and are turning color late, or some of their leaves are falling while some are still green.

Here are the Western Soapberry trees growing along the side of the old garden shed. Usually these turn a lovely golden color, but as you can see here, some of their leaves are still green, while others are already falling off.

The Flameleaf Sumac was also late in changing color to brilliant red. Usually it does that in October and would be leafless by now, but mine still has about half it's leaves left.

Other trees in the area, like the Cedar Elms, Red Oaks, and Pecans also seem confused, with some green leaves still hanging on even though it's December already!

Meanwhile, the Yaupon Hollies have plenty of berries and have for a while. It's kind of weird seeing them, a tree associated with winter and Christmas because of their winter berries, all loaded up with berries while it's 85 degrees outside.

The good news is we're supposed to get a good cold front tonight! It's supposed to get down to freezing every night for the next few days. I'm looking forward to it. Sure, it means I need to go out there today and pick all the rest of the peppers and tomatoes, and they probably won't survive, but it's just felt so wrong to be listening to Christmas carols and putting up lights when it's this warm. It's about time for it to be winter already.

The Cedar Moon

For the last month or so when I go outside to work in the garden, I've noticed this lovely smell. It's a fresh, clean smell, like Christmas trees or pine shavings. I'd inhale deeply and go "aah" and wonder what it was.

I finally figured it out.

This is the culprit! It's a male Ashe Juniper tree in my next door neighbor's yard. That golden hue is pollen cones. I never realized before that juniper pollen has a smell, but juniper is what the air smells like. That's what it must be. The rest of the tree is very fragrant: the wood, scales, berries, and bark. Makes sense the pollen would be too.

I love Ashe Juniper trees, but I might not feel the same way if I was allergic to them. Ashe Junipers are commonly known as "cedars" around here, even though they're in a completely different genus than true cedars and don't even look much like them (true cedars look much more like pine trees, with needles and cones, instead of scales and berries). Like most conifers, they're very fragrant. I love the smell of a campfire made with some Ashe juniper wood, and the branches make good smudge sticks.

I might also love them because they're such a hated tree, so they seem like underdogs. Besides the notorious allergy, they're also hated for "encroaching" on pastures (similarly to mesquite trees in some areas, another tree I like that a lot of people hate), and even depleting the Edward's Aquifer of water.

Personally, I think it's a bit unfair. Like other "encroaching" woody plants, I don't think it's fair to blame junipers for being able to survive in overgrazed, under-burned, and overall poorly managed pastures when grass cannot. (In other words, they're a symptom of that problem, not a cause.) I was always skeptical of the idea that junipers are especially "thirsty" plants that are sucking up all our water, and now there may be science backing me up on this. And while I feel sorry for people who are suffering from Cedar Fever right now, people are allergic to oaks and elms too. However, those trees just don't seem to draw the same kind of hatred that cedar does (I am allergic to something in the spring. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm afraid it might be oak).

According to my next door neighbor, the owner of this house hated cedar so much that he cut them all down in this yard. That explains why my yard only has oaks and elms and ash, while the yards surrounding us all have mature juniper trees in the mix. Seems pretty silly to chop down all the junipers in this yard when there are plenty right next door. It's not like pollen respects property lines. But maybe the desire for revenge against the evil cedar outweighed any logic in this case.

My pineapple sage is also trying to reproduce. Pineapple sage is supposed to flower in the autumn, not the dead of winter, so I wonder why it's late like this. Maybe it was too stressed from the drought at first, and now that's it's finally started raining a lot, it's making up for lost time. We've also had a fairly mild winter so far, with only a couple of mild freezes. This may also be why the cedar pollen is especially high.

The mild weather also might be making the cabbage worms worse. My cauliflower and collards are getting eaten up very badly. I just sprayed them with Bt again. Normally winter-grown brassicas don't have a big problem with bugs, but we haven't had any hard enough freezes to kill the bugs yet.

The only brassica they aren't bothering are the mustards. Maybe they don't like spicy food. My CSA farmer gave me transplants of something called Horned Mustard to plant in my own garden. He's been giving me it for eating for a while, and it's really good in stir fries. The transplants seem to have taken well.

The Curly Mustard I planted a while ago is also doing fine. It's a lighter color and more frilly than any of the other brassicas. The other plants in this picture are some volunteer elephant garlic (sprouted up from bulbils I missed), some bunching onions, and some wild clover I'm letting grow so it can add nitrogen to the soil.

The garlic is doing well too, but now I'm sad because I might end up moving before it's time to harvest the garlic in May. Daniel suggested that we could transplant it to the new place, but I'm not sure if it will make it through that. I guess that would be better than giving up on it entirely though.

The peas are doing fine, but I haven't harvested any so far. I also might not get any before we move, though peas are less of a big deal to me than garlic.

I don't know why the peas over here are so much lighter in color than the ones along the fence. Something in the soil? Surrounding them are the rutabagas which are just starting to swell up.

The lettuce is doing well too. Here you can see the difference between my first planting and second planting. Hopefully the second one will catch up.

I'm still working on starting my nightshades, but I've gotten a setback. The tomatoes are getting really bad rotting or damping off or something like that. The top of the soil has gotten all green and slimy, and the tomato sprouts just sort of shrivel up. I wonder if I should replant and start microwaving the soil to sterilize it first. I have done that before, but I wasn't sure if it made a big difference, so this year I haven't bothered yet. Maybe it is important after all.

I can keep the nightshades in pots until we move and then plant them at the new place.

Happy Earth Day!

I know the full moon was Monday, but I've been crazy busy this week and haven't had a chance to do a full moon garden post yet. I'll try to get one done as soon as I can, but in the meantime, here are some pictures of our recent trip to Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge. It looks like we were a little early for Golden-cheeked Warbler fledgelings, but it was still an enjoyable hike.

If anyone knows what species of lizard this is, please let me know. He was running around on the rocks near the trailhead. He obviously "owned" those rocks, and would puff up and bob up and down when we got too close. He zipped around really fast, had a rather upright stance, ran with his tail sticking up in the air, and had some really cool stripes on his sides.

Edit: Found out it's a Texas Earless Lizard, and a male one at that. Cool!

This is the fallen tree area along the main trail that has a lovely view of the Hill Country.

Ancient Ashe Junipers with Bear Grass underneath. The blooms make it pretty obvious that Bear Grass is not a true grass but actually in the yucca family.

Here's the ONE Golden-cheeked warbler we saw, though we heard more off in the distance. We'll have to come back in about a month which is closer to the time we went last year and saw lots of fledgeling warblers (and I forgot my camera that time, so I'd better not forget it again next time). Golden-cheeked warblers are one of the two federally listed endangered species that this wildlife refuge was created to protect, the other being the Black-capped Vireo which I've never seen before. They live in a different habitat in a different area of the refuge. Maybe next time I can try to find some vireos too.

The Spring Equinox

I'm not sure what's my favorite time of year, the winter holiday period, or the spring holiday period. It's hard to compare because the two have very different, almost opposite energies. From harvest time through Christmas/Yule it's a time to cuddle up indoors by a fire, look inward and reflect (and enjoy how it's not so hot anymore), while spring is a time to look outward, to be active, to go outside and work in the garden and listen to the birds and smell the flowers. Rather than a time to meditate on hidden mysteries and think of the Otherworld (or Inner World), spring is a time to revel in the outer, physical world and all it's pleasures and beauties.

That's how I feel about it, anyway.

Technically yesterday was the actual equinox (at least according to my calendar), but it was unseasonably cold and dreary. Today the clouds are gone and it's once again warm and sunny and spring-like. To celebrate, I went on a walk through our neighborhood and to the nearest park to enjoy all the wildflowers that have exploded into bloom over the last week or so.


Of course the quintessential spring wildflower in these parts is the Texas bluebonnet. They pop out right around the equinox and cover roadsides, parks, and in this case, churchyards with fragrant, blue and white clusters of blooms.

Here's another patch of bluebonnets in front of some daffodils. I like daffodils too even though they're not native. They're usually one of the first bulbs to bloom.

You want natives? How about bluebonnets with prickly pear cactus? That's more like it.

Another harbinger of spring is the Texas redbud (a more drought resistant strain of the Eastern redbud). I think these make a great native alternative to the (over planted, in my opinion) crepe myrtle.

Here's a redbud in it's native habitat, as an understory tree in an oak forest.

Here's one of the cooler oak trees in that same forest. Technically the live oaks bloom in spring too, but like most trees their flowers aren't impressive in the least. I just took a pictures because LOOK HOW COOL THIS TREE IS! When I was a kid I loved to climb live oaks. They're so climbable because of their large, sturdy, low to the ground branches. I went ahead and climbed this tree, and yup, they're still just as good to climb now as they were then.

Another favorite native flowering small tree/large shrub is the Texas Mountain Laurel or Mescal Bean, with large clusters of purple flowers commonly described as "smelling like Grape Kool-Aid". They're just starting to bloom now. This picture shows how WINDY it is today.

Agarito is another common understory shrub which is now in bloom, with tiny yellow flowers. This shrub is often mistaken for holly, and while we do have native hollies (yaupon and possumhaw), our native hollies don't look like the European "Christmas holly" people usually think of when they think of holly. Actually, our native hollies are a little "friendlier" in that their leaves aren't prickly like agarito (which is in the barberry family) and European holly.

That said, agarito is a good native choice if you want to plant "sticker bushes" somewhere in your landscape, with the added bonus of fragrant (though not the prettiest) blooms and edible berries later on. Agarito berries were reportedly once used by pioneers to make a lemonade-like beverage, though I would imagine you'd have to pick a lot of the tiny berries to make a whole pitcher of agaritade, and very carefully to avoid the prickly leaves.

Back to the forbs, this plant is new to me, but it's coming up everywhere in my neighborhood, even in my own yard. The leaves look like grass, but the blooms are certainly not. Turns out it's called "spiderwort". I don't see any resemblance to spiders.

The blooms are really cute. They almost look like the face of some sort of creature. I wonder if these are related to orchids.

Edit: Actually, this flower is not spiderwort, but dayflower. I've got both coming up in my yard. They both have grass-like leaves and purple flowers, but the flowers are shaped differently. Tricky! The picture above this one is correctly identified as spiderwort. If you look closely you can see that the flowers are different.

Though I hoped I was pretty good with my plant identification, I also found some unknowns. If anyone knows what these are, please comment.

Some kind of small pink thing with grass or sedge-like leaves.

Yellow tubular things by the side of the trail. Seems like the sort of plant a butterfly would like.

Edit: This flower might be called "scrambled eggs."

This picture is a little washed out because of the bright sun. The leaves are deeply lobed, feathery things.

That last blue flower was found growing in Prospect Park around what looks like a great spot to do a ritual. I doubt that's what the makers intended, but look, it's a mosaic of the sun surrounded by the directions and the phases of the moon. This is then surrounded by benches. Very cool. If only it wasn't completely out in the open like this.

Then there's this cute little thing here, growing in the shade of the forest. It also got washed out in this picture, and is bluer in real life. To get a better shot, I went to another one more in the shade, and brushed some vegetation out of the way with my hand. This was a mistake.


The surrounding plants turned out to be stinging nettle. This is a plant that DOES NOT LIKE BEING TOUCHED, and unlike cacti, is fairly inconspicuous. Fortunately the "venom" these plants inject you with wears off within an hour and does no permanent damage. Still no fun. First it feels like burning and stinging, then for a while it fades to that pins and needles feeling you get when your foot falls asleep, before it finally gives up. Good thing I was wearing long pants, because I have brushed my legs against stinging nettle one time before. This allowed the plant to cover a much larger area than it did this time with the side of my hand.




Finally, I leave you with a shot of what I wish my own front yard looked like. This person has an entire front yard of bluebonnets. Nice.

The Trees Welcome Spring

I feel lucky that I moved into a house with such good trees. The trees in my yard are all native, and they're some of my favorite native trees. In the front we have two Texas ashes (Fraxinus texensis) on either side of the driveway, a cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia) by the living room window, and a live oak (Quercus fusiformis) out in the middle.

The elms and ashes are already leafing out! I love how they look when they first get their leaves. The leaves are all fresh and bright green.

As for the oaks, here's a shot of my next door neighbor's oaks.

That doesn't look very springy, does it? At least, it doesn't if you're not familiar with evergreen oaks. The live oak is an evergreen oak (which is how it got its name) that keeps its leaves all winter, and then loses them in the spring before immediately growing a new set. In my neighborhood, there are dead oak leaves falling everywhere now.

I'm interested in tree mythology and folklore, and oak, ash, and elm is a nice selection of sacred trees. The oak is sacred to many cultures. In European mythology, it is associated with thunder gods such as Thor and Zeus. The Druids also held oaks in high esteem. The world tree of Germanic mythology, Yggdrasil, is sometimes considered to be an ash, though I personally prefer the interpretation that it's a yew (maybe because yews seem more exotic and mysterious to me). In the creation myth, Odin created the first man out of ash and the first woman out of elm, so ashes are considered masculine trees while elms are feminine.

I also have a grove of four cedar elms in the backyard. Besides shading the house quite nicely while still leaving a big open sunny spot for the vegetable garden beyond, I think of this area as being kind of a sacred grove. I'm trying to think of ways I can dress it up a bit and make it even more cozy.

As you can see there's no privacy, which is needed for a good meditation spot. I just have a short chain link fence to separate me from the next door neighbor, who has loud dogs, and there's a semi-busy street beyond. I thought of the idea of growing some kind of vine on the fence, and someone on a pagan homesteading forum suggested I plant some lower growing shrubs or understory trees to form a sort of hedgerow, but I guess it depends on how much I want to invest in it.