March 25, 2024
Look What’s Coming Up!
It’s positive an eyeful on the market proper now, every part parading their new spring duds! In my yard, right here’s a drought-defiant duo: purple bearded iris going for colour wheel enjoyable in opposition to native golden groundsel. This part of my yard’s island mattress will get morning solar and a flick of late afternoon depth.
And right here at Austin PBS, we’re counting all the way down to CTG’s new spring packages beginning April 6! (Verify your native listings or watch on-line at PBS.org and the PBS app.) Developing April 6: Create a Native Plant Backyard, that includes Drake White of The Nectar Bar, San Antonio’s first all-native plant nursery. (A few of these gifted of us popped over from Studio A the place they have been prepping OverHeard with Evan Smith, however they’re usually on the CTG crew.)
It’s too late to plant spring wildflowers (see why we seed out in fall), however these well timed fall rains positive got here in helpful to carry us a spring to recollect.
Any crack within the concrete cheers the nightmare Austin commute when gutsy bluebonnets and stiff greenthread (Thelesperma filifolium) bounce over their parkway between a college and the entry highway.
Looks like each curbside–the warmer the higher–invitations a re-examination, particularly when burgundy, pink, and white bluebonnets sneak in. Subsequent week, Daphne explains in the event that they’ll be again once more subsequent yr.
Right here’s one thing to observe for! I met this cutie final weekend after I began tidying up container crops for an upcoming refresh. It’s an eight-spotted forester moth and solely about 1-½” extensive. On that cloudy, cool day, it hunkered down in a blankie of winter-browned Tradescantia, so I apologized for disturbing it and saved that pot for this weekend. Their host plant is Virginia creeper (and I’ve tons), so the larvae could also be tucking into plant pots to pupate. Since then, it’s headed out to fulfill and greet a companion.
A number of Texas mountain laurels are nonetheless blooming, however the large attraction now are clusters of crimson mountain laurel bugs. In entomologist Wizzie Brown’s City IPM weblog “These bugs have piercing-sucking mouthparts that they use to feed on plant juices. Whereas the feeding could cause harm to the leaves- usually disfiguring new growth- they don’t appear to hurt the tree total.” She additionally identifies the voracious genista caterpillars, so hold a watch out for these, too. They will rapidly defoliate a younger mountain laurel.
Thanks for stopping by! See you subsequent week, Linda