Fluffy, feathery, floofy owlets have hatched! Two were born on Sunday, the third on Monday. Tiny and fragile, they’re covered with fine, white down; it’s hard to believe that these helpless little creatures will grow into fierce hunters. Mama’s tail feathers fill the top of the photo. The dark splotch just below are the remains of a bird or rat–I can’t quite tell; food tends to shift around a bit. You’ll notice the scattering of feathers amoung the nesting material. Uptown Girl is an attentive parent and Shy Guy is now perched in the oak tree, very near the nest box. His job is to protect the ..read more

The spring garden is popping with all sorts of pollen-laden plants and pollinators are punctilious in their pollination proclivity. In particular, bees–both native and honey–are performing their tasks, adding to the pulchritude of the garden and the procreation of new plants. Five Desert Globemallow shrubs, Sphaeralcea ambigua, that now grow in my full-sun garden, are powerhouse plants with pretty flowers; honeybees are passionate about these blooms. Four of the shrubs are pictured here, two in front, and two on either side toward the back, near the wall of the house. One shrub grows prolifica ..read more

In January, an Eastern Screech Owl, as well as some other neighborhood wildlife, were making use of our backyard owl nest box as a critter b-n-b. Our owl (named Uptown Girl–I’m pretty sure we’ve hosted the same couple for a few years now) only stayed in the box for one day. I’d see and hear her from time to time, but realized that when she trilled, there was no answering call, and that observation, along with the fact that she didn’t stay in the box again, led me to believe that her mate (Shy Guy) had disappeared. Eastern Screech owls mate for life and co-parent their chicks. Well, that was a ..read more

Riffing on a recent post from Steve at Portraits of Wildflowers, I’m enjoying my own celebration of the annual pink-n-blue spring happening. It was Steve’s post that reminded me that I do have a redbud tree and that maybe, just maybe, it might be loaded with blooms this year. This little tree has grown apace since the front garden shed its shady ways and began thriving in full sun after the removal of a large, ice-storm damaged Arizona Ash tree. The plant seeded itself in this spot 10-plus years ago. It didn’t grow much and never bloomed, though the foliage certainly looked to me like redbud ..read more

On Sunday I admired a neighbor’s iris stalks: tall and turgid, topped with a couple of just-about-to-open buds. I lamented that though my iris plants boasted full, lush, and healthy foliage, none had stems, much less any promise of luscious flowers. Overnight Sunday into Monday, a stalk arose from the depths in my back garden; a second joined Monday night into Tuesday. Now there are a dozen iris stalks, ready for their part in spring’s play. In the next days there will be iris flowers: purple, ruffly, and filling the air with a lovely fragrance. Maybe should stay awake all night and watch the ..read more

It wasn’t the signature hoot of a Great Horned Owl, Bubo virginianus, that alerted me to its presence in a neighbor’s big, beautiful Live Oak tree early this morning, but instead, the vociferous complaints of a mob of Blue Jays, Cyanocitta cristata. I think this gorgeous bird is a juvenile Great Horned Owl, most likely last year’s hatch. It could be an adult, as our neighborhood has sustained at least one pair of nesting Great Horns for years. Just after I returned from visiting stunning Costa Rica in November, for several weeks each day, I heard a call that I couldn’t identify, even with the ..read more

Winter placed its chilly hands on the garden these last two days, including gifting a thin layer of ice in the backyard birdbaths this morning. But the weather pattern is in flux with each passing day as the march toward winter’s end and spring’s beginning commences here in Central Texas. Later this week, the forecast is for high 70s, possibly warmer. Even without that warm smooch, the plants in my garden are raring to go and ramping up for the 2024 growing season. On a cloudy day last week, I noticed (as yet uneaten) fruit on the Possumhaw Holly, Ilex decidua, keeping company with emerging ne ..read more

Throughout the seasons, it’s fun and educational to watch backyard birds. Winter-to-late spring brings a wider variety of feathered friends and with each day marching toward spring breeding season, avian activity ramps up. Over-wintering, migratory birds have settled in, as much as they will do, until their need to breed becomes so demanding that the birds set forth northward to their nesting sites. This season there are at least three Orange-crowned Warblers, Leiothlypis celata, visiting my garden each day. Sometimes, all three are perched in bare shrubs and trees, sometimes they’re chasing o ..read more

I became enamored with Texas native Roughleaf Dogwood, Cornus drummondii, during the time I managed the Green Garden at Austin’s Zilker Botanical Gardens. I knew about “Texas” dogwood, an understory small tree or shrub which blooms in spring and produces white fall fruits, but I had never planted one of my own. Nor did I originally pay attention to the stunning specimen situated in the woodlands plants section of the Green Garden, set back from the formal pathway. I recall the golden leaves which brightened the dogwoods’ limbs, and then the ground below it, during the December after I was hire ..read more

As it happens most years during the first deep freeze of winter, Frostweed, Verbesina virginica, has graced my winter garden with its swirls of ice sculptures. Along with the most common name of ‘Frostweed’ which pays descriptive homage to this winter phenomena, ‘Iceplant’ and ‘Iceweed’ are also names for V. virginica. Twirls-n-curls of ice ribbons form, usually at the base of the plant, when the temperature drops significantly below freezing. As the freeze deepens, water in the stems is released, freezing in beautiful formations along the stems, undulating around the base of the plant and ..read more