Upcoming: Inaugural Texas Native Plant Week Oct 19-23

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Meredith

I’ll try post about this again at the appropriate time, but I wanted to announce that the third week of October is now being recognized as Texas Native Plant Week. Here is the information passed on to me from Keep Austin Wild; more details can be found on the City of Austin site at the link below. There will even be designated Plants of the Day throughout the week, with certified habitats hosting activities.

Texas Native Plant Week October 19th-23rd

In June 2009 Governor PerrOn June 16, 2009 Governor Perry signed a bill into law that will recognize the third week in October as Texas Native Plant Week. The bill is intended to emphasize the role of native plants in conservation efforts and to be used as incentive for the Texas education system to teach school children about the importance of native plants. The Native Plant Society of Texas teamed with State Representative Donna Howard to present the bill to the State Congress. The bill passed unanimously in both houses.

To mark this inaugural Texas Native Plant Week the City of Austin, in partnership with State Representative Donna Howard’s Office, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the Native Plant Society of Texas, will host activities and educational opportunities for the public to learn more about our amazing Texas native plants.

Thursday, October 15th, 5:30pm
Event: City Council Proclamation to announce Texas Native Plant Awareness Week. Mayor Lee Leffingwell will present Native Plant Society of Texas with proclamation.

Location: Austin City Hall Council Chambers, 301 W. Second Street Austin, TX 78701

Monday, October 19, 10:00am:
Event: Austin Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) demonstration habitat garden certification ceremony and media kick off for Texas Native Plant Week. Habitat Garden Tour to follow press conference.

The Parks and Recreation Department’s main office demonstration habitat garden will be recognized by the National Wildlife Federation and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department as a Best of Texas Habitat site. This is the highest level of wildlife habitat certification in Texas and is bestowed upon landscapes that use a majority of native plants, provide wildlife food and water sources year round, and practice at least six resource conservation measures. PARD’s main office habitat is the first City of Austin habitat site to receive this more stringent level of certification.

This demonstration habitat garden serves as a place people can come to learn about what wildlife habitat is and how to create a place for butterflies, songbirds, and hummingbirds at their own homes using beautiful native plants. Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell, State Representative Donna Howard, Parks and Recreation Department Director Sara Hensley, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Executive Director Susan Rieff and others will participate in the habitat certification ceremony and native plant week kick off celebration.

Location: City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department Main Office, 200 S. Lamar Blvd, 78704.

For more information visit http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/parks/nativeplantweek.htm or call the Parks and Recreation Department’s Wildlife Austin Program at 512-327-8181×29.

Please help us spread the word about Texas’ first Native Plant Week!

If you live in Austin, consider attending one or both events, and if you live in Texas, support our beautiful state by planting native plants!

One of Those Days

Posted on September 25, 2009 by Meredith

Didn’t sleep well last night, had to drop a kid off at school at 7am, car broke in the bus lane at school (fortunately I got moving before the buses arrived), $700 repair fee at the dealer, forgot to get my husband to move the heavy birdbath so I could grout it, my dogs are wreaking havoc on my garden, and aphids are wreaking havoc on my plants. BUT.. other than that it’s a fine day.

Look what I discovered this morning! Know what these are? I just learned what they are at a lecture by a local entomologist last night, and lo and behold I found some in my garden the very next day. Life works in funny ways, doesn’t it?

These are the eggs of green lacewings. As larvae, they are voracious aphid eaters. Yay, another ally in the garden! I need them because the aphids are worse than ever. I seem to have least three species now — I’ll call them green, yellow, and beige. The green I’m sure are corn leaf aphids. I have got to get out and tackle them TODAY. My veggies, my milkweed, and now my firebush plant are all having an aphid problem. The little pests took advantage of my time away from the garden during the rainy week and bred like rabbits. I’m starting to think that it’s the other way around, and rabbits breed like aphids. Today I’m seeing wings on some. Gah, more colonization!

So I’ve got new lacewings arriving soon, and of course I’ve got ladybugs. More spiders are arriving, as are earthworms. The bees are getting plentiful, and I don’t even have to do the veggie porn thing to pollinate my plants anymore. I truly love the way nature just naturally (ha) balances its ecosystems. Got organic wastes? Happy earthworms move in. Got flowers? Let’s pollinate. Overpopulation of something? Here come the predators. And here come the predators to eat the other predators. Oh look, birdie treats. And then snakes. And hawks. Whee, life is grand.

I call these my bees because I’m so fond of them, but of course they are wild. They get a little drunk-like in their flying when they are heavily loaded with pollen — it’s fun to watch. The pumpkin flowers were all abuzz this morning with bees about, and as I took pictures, I realized that there was some hostility going on. It seems at least one other colony has found our garden, and apparently different bee colonies don’t play nicely with others.

Know what else I learned from the entomologist? Feral honeybees in Texas and other states of the Southwest have all been Africanized in some way. Only beekeepers are able to keep sound European colonies because of their control of the queens.

FYI, in case I’ve scared anyone, bees in your garden are not a threat — don’t rush out and kill them, please! They are not in stinging mode when they are out pollinating — that’s quite counter-productive to their hive’s needs. Africanized honeybees, or any bees really, are a danger only when you threaten their hive (allergies aside), and apparently they’ll give a warning by buzzing around your head or actually bonking you on the head, believe it or not. If you find yourself near a wild hive, RUN — don’t walk away. Like fire ants, the Africanized honeybees give word to others in their colony by pheromones, and you need to put immediate distance (at least 200 yards) between you and the hive. Other than their defensiveness in protecting their hive, Africanized bees are not really any different from other bees. And actually there have been positive changes in their aggressiveness, too, depending on factors of colony age and breeding with European bees. It’s all good. No worries. As with anything, just be aware, not necessarily beware. Ooh, I like that.

By the way, have you hugged a beekeeper today? Not only do they raise pollinators and help with honey production, they are helping tremendously by keeping domestic European bee colonies intact, as well as helping breed gentler stocks of Africanized bees by culling out aggressive queens. Hug!

Thanks to my bees, I have several pumpkins growing. One is approaching the size of a soccer ball now (it’s been a week since I discovered female buds in bloom). Another is growing in the dead tree. And more are scattered here and there — finding them is like going on an Easter Egg hunt. There’s one! There’s another one! Again, how I love nature.

With the rain this week, the yard is a big mudfest for the dogs, and they took advantage of it — digging where they shouldn’t, trampling through the butterfly garden, and taking turns leaping over the pumpkin vines. I’m out there yelling, “This is not your playground!” And then I realized my neighbor must think I’m nuts, because of course it IS their playground. If I can manage it, I’ll try to get a picture of the husky leaping in full gallop over the massive pumpkin plants (in between my yelling at him, of course). It really is a sight to behold.

Setting the Urban Example

Posted on September 23, 2009 by Meredith

I’ve been posting so much on Texas habitats that I realized today how much I miss blogging about my garden — after all, it’s my baby. But soon, soon — for now I have one more Austin locale to share.

A bit of history — for many years, Austin’s airport resided fairly close to downtown; it was the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport. It closed in 1999 with the opening of the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, and the old airport sat untouched for many years. Today it has been replaced with a new community, including shops, homes, and parks, and it is home to the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas. Of course, this is a commercial development (Mueller), so I’m not going to chat it up too much, but I’d like to say that I appreciate what I saw in my visit to the demonstration garden last weekend (yes, along with Hornsby Bend and Rockport — I told you it was a busy weekend!).

Basically, the concepts are simple — think green and sustainability. Builders and developers are making use of recycling, solar energy, native plants, high numbers of trees in parking lots, commuter service, bike paths, and more. In partnership with the Wildflower Center, large areas have been preserved as natural habitats, and homeowners are encouraged to plant native plants, educated with beautiful and/or wild examples shown in the community’s demonstration garden, prairies, and ponds.

Enjoy the tour, a bit of a zoom-in/zoom-out look!

Damianita and Prickly Pear…

Gregg’s Dalea…
Prickly Pear, Lindheimer’s Muhly, Salvia, Lindheimer Senna…

Lindheimer Senna…

Flame Acanthus, Lindheimer Senna, Salvia

I fell in love with this mixture of Salvia greggii colors.

Inland Sea Oats in front of American Beautyberry…

Walkway under Desert Willows…

A view of the three ponds, surrounded by native grasses…

One of the grassland prairies…

Among the walkways in the demonstration gardens, native plants are all sorted and identified in lists, and the plant species are far more numerous than I’ve shown in these photos — this is just a sampling. In addition, there are signs that teach about certain aspects of native gardening. What an excellent way to educate residents and visitors about plants they might like to grow!

Given that this area was once an airport and was destined for development of some kind, it is nice to see such strides toward thoughtful, green building and the restoration of native plants in place of the parking lots and runways I remember.

The Remarkable Hornsby Bend

Posted on September 23, 2009 by Meredith

Last weekend was a busy wildlife weekend for me. Just before zooming down to the Rockport Hummer/Bird Festival, I visited another bird paradise much closer to home. I almost didn’t post about it, simply because it was difficult to capture pictures of the birds without a zoom lens, and due to circumstances mentioned below, the migrant birds were relatively few. But this wildlife habitat, the lands and waters of Hornsby Bend, is so remarkable that I wanted to draw attention to it, especially for anyone in central Texas or visitors to the area. Birding binoculars are highly recommended!

Hornsby Bend is an area along a “bend” of the Colorado River, southeast of Austin, Texas, near the airport. Once home to dense forests and thickets, a man named Reuben Hornsby settled there in 1832, clearing the land for agricultural uses. Today it is home to the Hornsby Bend Biosolids Management Plant, which deals with — yes, that’s right — our city’s poop. But this is a particularly good thing, because the Hornsby Bend plant combines the treated solid wastes with residential yard trimmings (picked up curbside) to make Dillo Dirt — a nutrient-rich compost. The plant also houses the AWU Center for Environmental Research, which studies urban ecology and sustainability.

But Hornsby Bend is so much more — 1,200 acres of marshes, woodlands, pastures, and riparian (river) areas. Because of the incredible biodiversity along the food chain and its multiple habitats, it has become known nationally as one of the best birdwatching sites in Texas, especially during times of migration. More than 360 species of birds have been sighted at Hornsby Bend. Migratory shorebirds, wading birds, and landbirds, some from the Arctic or from the southern tip of South America, stop at the ponds of Hornsby Bend as they travel to and from their winter habitats.

Though Hornsby Bend is best known for its birds, the native plants along the shores of the ponds and river provide excellent butterfly and dragonfly viewing as well.

Members of Travis Audubon and other organizations survey the birds and other wildlife frequently year-round, but the peak months to view migrating birds are August and September, with wintering birds arriving in October through December. March and April are the peak months for spring migration.

Due to recent rains in Central Texas, the normal shorelines of the lagoons were underwater, so during my visit to Hornsby for Habitat Steward Training, there were very few migrating shorebirds, despite it being a peak month for migration through the area. Audubon viewers did note 57 different species that day, however, including various grebes, kingfishers, vireos, hawks, egrets, swallows, orioles, and many, many more. But with the cold front incoming this week, the birders at Hornsby said that many other species would be arriving, and they expected local birdwatchers to flock to the ponds (pun intended) for species viewing. Our group did see many barn swallows enjoying the insects near the ponds, and several duck species.

Near the wet grounds by the compost, many least sandpipers and other species scooted about for insects.

And humans studied them from afar.

The wooded areas along the river provided opportunities to see tree-perching birds. A quiet walk along the paths allowed us to listen to the beautiful songs of many a bird, including the white-eyed vireo.

Another treatment area, these long greenhouses will also provide winter shelter to area birds. A red-shouldered hawk reportedly has hunted in there, in fact.

Near the main building at Hornsby Bend, viewers can enjoy butterflies, hummingbirds, and other wildlife visiting the demonstration habitat. Hummingbirds are particularly fond of the thriving Tropical Sage (Salvia coccinea) among the many plants in the gardens.

And there are purple martins, too, though they are absent in September.

A few words about Dillo Dirt. The Dillo Dirt program was created in 1989, the first such program in the state of Texas, and one of the oldest in the nation. The natural process of creating this compost produces temperatures up to 170 degrees Fahrenheit, which kills human and plant pathogens. The compost is further cured and screened before becoming the final Dillo Dirt product. Rather than wastes filling a landfill or being dumped into rivers, this incredibly beneficial compost returns organic material to the soils of Austin yards, pastures, golf courses, and other landscapes.

Back at the main building, the Habitat Steward Trainees listened to three speakers. The knowledge I gained this day was tremendous, from the history of the soil in the Austin area to the how’s and whys of organic matter, and from butterflies of Central Texas to urban wildlife, such as coyotes and raccoons. A great day, and a great place to visit.

Blooming! GBBD September 2009

Posted on September 15, 2009 by Meredith

The extended rains last week did Central Texas much good. While we are still in a major drought, the rains brought much needed relief to the scorched earth and cooler temperatures for wonderfully pleasant days.

And the plants responded right away — greenness abounds, and among the green are the most vibrant blooms of all colors. I think fall just might be my new favorite season. I forgot how beautiful it is. Although technically, I guess it’s still summer! Here are just a few of what’s blooming in my yard today, for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day.

Amazingly, of my three surviving Endurance Sunflowers, I still have three, and all are blooming. Although I’ve loved sunflowers all my life, this is my first time growing them, and I finally understand why bees love them so. Even my young sunflowers are really putting out the pollen, and they are only going to grow bigger and bigger. I’m thrilled! My sunflowers have a few specks of dirt on them — because they are still babies and low to the ground, they got splashed during the rain.

I’m finally starting to see color combinations in the yard again. In the main butterfly garden, the Gregg’s Mistflower is starting to bloom once more, with Blackfoot Daisy and Zexmenia nearby. The butterflies are already fluttering about again. I missed them when all my plants gave up their blooms in the heat.

The Pigeonberry plants are blooming like crazy. They berry, too, but the birds pick them off so fast.

Here, I found a berry.

Speaking of berrying plants — I was woken up in the middle of the night with one of the dogs trying to break through the window screen to get to something outside. While I hope it wasn’t a prowler, I did get up to discover my American Beautyberry plants were missing berry clusters. I went outside to see if I could see anything — seriously hoping at that point that it wasn’t a prowler! No creature found. Bolted. Who wouldn’t when that massive husky is trying to lunge for them though a mere window screen? Thank goodness it held tight.

This Red Yucca’s is technically on my neighbor’s property, but it’s right where our yards meet, and I think I’m the only one who pays attention to it. But oh I could photograph those blooms all day. Love, love, love. Someday mine will bloom!

The Salvias are blooming like mad. They are such an interesting flowering perennial — it can be challenging to photograph them, as they tend to look straggly even when they really aren’t, but they look wonderful backdropped by other blooming yellows, blues, or even just trees.

Though most of my Turk’s Caps are the traditional red, I do have a pink bloomer in the front. It’s quite special. Makes me feel like a little girl, loving that pink.

I have a new plant in the yard — actually all over the yard, as I placed them in many spots. It’s the native Texas Poinsettia, also known as Wild Poinsettia, or Fire on the Mountain (Euphorbia cyathophora). These were given to several class members of the Habitat Steward Training I’m in — we got to pull them directly from the gorgeous wildlife garden of Cathy Nordstrom. Thank you, Cathy! The reddish-orange you see is part of the leaves, just like the red of the Christmas pointsettias. I think it’s amazing. It’s a spreader, so at some point I’ll probably be giving some away. It’s so easy to pull and replant, too. I planted them all over because I have so much land to fill.

And I have a surprise bloomer — blooms on my newest Key Lime tree? Of course, they are all at the level where the husky lifts his leg. I don’t even want to think about why the tree is blooming only there. Nor do I want to think about what I’ll do if limes actually show up and get peed on.

Speaking of the husky… Camouflage FAIL, Loki.

And stop laying on my Lindheimer Muhly! And get out of the butterfly garden! And stop peeing on my plants!

The Purpose of (Native) Weeds

Posted on September 11, 2009 by Meredith

This post is dedicated to Tatiana of mycoldprairie, who commented on my last post regarding the purpose of weeds.

Well, there are multiple purposes, actually. I want to first point out that exotic invasive weeds, to me personally, have no other purpose than to rape native lands of nutrients, water, and space and to destroy balanced ecosystems (guess what’s in my yard and why I’m grumpy). BUT, speaking of native weeds in particular, they legitimately have a purpose in their habitat, and as many will point out, there’s not really any such thing as a weed, anyway, other than being an annoying plant to a gardener.

What was mentioned in class last night was that weeds grow first in poor soil, and over time as they die off and decompose, they make the soil more fertile for other plants to move in and establish. True indeed. But weeds also can be valuable food sources for wildlife, through seeds, nectar, leaves, berries, and whatnot. They can serve as erosion control and as shelter to birds, lizards, and other creatures. Some even have medicinal value or food value to humans! They do have their purpose, even if you’d prefer they not be in your yard. Speaking of which, did I really manage to not get any dandelions this year? I guess they were scared off by the rampant evil nutsedge that has found its way into my yard. It has become the bane of my gardening existence. But it too has a purpose — apparently Canadian geese and ducks and squirrels and other wildlife like it. Guess I’m not wild enough to join them in such fondness for the WEED.

Oh, and weeds are also there apparently to teach Tatiana patience. She said it, not me! 😀

Habitat Steward Class begins!

Posted on September 11, 2009 by Meredith

Training began last night. Although it was the first night, which typically goes over the basics one might already know, I’m pleased to report that it was a great first class and I definitely learned quite a bit. Two of the lecturers shared some of their favorite native plants, some I hadn’t seen before, and I learned of the purpose of weeds (they have a purpose!). Little tips and tidbits here and there, and I said a lot of “Good to Know!” in my mind. One of the best parts was learning to “Read the Land.” This is something I’ve probably done a little subconsciously, but I know more about studying the state of plants and forests to determine how healthy it is (history, condition, and future potential). On Saturday we are going to visit some local habitats. Can’t wait! Here’s a glimpse of something I created for our first homework. The whole drawing is much bigger — I might share it in the wildlife habitat pages I’m working on. Friends know how much fun I have in Paint — the assignment didn’t require anything as detailed as I made it. I just felt inspired. It’s not great art, mind you. Just some fun sketching a wildlife habitat.