Bluebonnets and Birds

While the bluebonnets still look good and haven't gone to seed yet, I took a short video with my phone.  You can hear the birds calling for mates in the background.

Beautiful Time Lapse of Lilies

Wildflower Documentary Featuring Bluebonnets

For anyone interested in bluebonnets and wildflowers in general, you should watch "Wildflowers: Seeds of History" on the KLRU website.  There's lots of fun and interesting information and discussions varying from why Texas highways are so beautiful (41:20) to natural seed banks to encouraging wildflowers on your property.

If you skip to 39:40, you can learn how to cultivate bluebonnets.

And if you want to know where to go to see bluebonnets in Texas, check out this site!

If you aren't in Texas and can't make it, here are some from my yard:

My garden is soooo dreamy!

Ha!  There was a guy walking down the sidewalk with a fancy piece of camera gear, and he swung back around and noticed me.  He said he was admiring my flowers (bluebonnets in particular) and wondered if he could take some video from sidewalk.  Well, of course...  Wait.  Not video of anything ugly.  No?  Ok, cool, go for it!

Too funny!  Another victory for the bluebonnets!

Any idea what vine this is?

Over at Journeys and Jonquils, there is a beautiful but tragically unknown vine with a spectacular flower...

Does anyone know what plant this is?

Let the sunshine in!

Because the macro shots are still in my head, I decided to take a few more and to stick with the yellow theme.  I really like yellow in the garden, so it wasn't hard finding some examples of buttery beauty!

First is this jonquil daffodil (Narcissus sp.) that came from a mixed bulb bunch from McClure and Zimmerman.  The fragrance is amazing!  I never knew how awesome daffodils can smell till I got this one!

Next up is a stalk of bulbine (Bulbine frutescens) blooms.  It really doesn't make for a good close-up, and personally I think these blooms only look good en masse and from a distance.  However, it was fun to get a good gander at the funny fuzzy centers.  They remind me of moth antennae, and while reading a post at Great Stems, I learned that male moths have fuzzy antennae which is how you know they're male!  Or something.   I'm awful with insect information.

One reason I have bulbine blooms so early in the year is that the winter was extraordinarily mild, which also helps explain how I have buckets of African Bush Daisy (Euryops chrysanthemoides) although I'm only showing one bloom today.  None of these plants suffered any damage at all which was very shocking.  I thought they might have sustained SOMETHING, not to complain, but it's just weird.

For dessert, I offer Chocolate Flower (Berlandiera lyrata).  This is a very recent purchase, but I am VERY excited about how chocolatey the blooms smell!  Divine!  And I was surprised to learn that this is native to Texas.  I had heard about this plant years ago on a "Gardening by the Yard" episode that featured a chocolate-themed garden.  Isn't that such a neat idea?  I bet you could have a vanilla-themed garden as well and perhaps a strawberry-themed garden and make a Neapolitan garden!

I can't wait for the sunflowers to start burstin' out for some more yellow-y goodness!

Blooms of Euphorbia aeruginosa

I got Euphorbia aeruginosa last year at Spicewood Spines, and it's had a good ol' time in the greenhouse this past winter as evidenced by its blooms!

Spectacularly small blooms...

To get a closer look I pulled out my Lensbaby Composer because it's the only lens I have that's capable of taking macro shots because I got those extra bits to go with it.

Here are a couple shots using the macro lens +10 and +4 at F16.

Perhaps it's somewhat hard to tell just how tiny these blooms are.  For reference, check out the first picture - that's a 4" pot.

This euphorbia has performed extremely well for me.  I can't remember what potting soil I used, but it's been chuggin' along, gettin' bigger, gonna take over the world at a mature height of 8"...

Check out some other photos of this plant!