Dateline: 2021
Our 52nd week of lockdown.
Almost a month since the freakish 2021 Great Winter Storm and spring is finally springing back. The redbuds had just begun blooming at this time last month. Then the ice storm. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And, then this week, an explosion of fuchsia. Ditto, the two little Prunus mexicana trees that were crushed when a cedar elm limb fell on them a several years ago.
However, other trees are suffering. The largest Prunus mexicana tree, the one that always flowers first was was just starting to flower when the storm hit. Apparently all the flower buds froze and it’s beginning to leaf out without flowering. The buds on the Texas mountain laurels all froze. The loquat, which looked like it was fine, is dropping all its leaves. The buds on the fig tree are brown. The lemon tree looks frozen, even the largest limbs. The leaves on the olive tree freeze-dried but the tree looks alive although maybe it’s leaf and flower buds are also frozen.
Perennials are doing fine. Coming back from their roots: blue mistflower, plumbago, asparagus fern, and pigeonberry. Bulbs like crinum and amaryllis are putting up new growth.
Wildflowers are all doing fine. The baby blue eyes are starting to pop open all over the yard. The bluebonnets are a bit behind. And it looks like it will be a really good year for larkspur and pink evening primrose.
The prairie verbena, which was flowering before the freeze, began reflowering again today (3/12). The cedar elms are beginning to leaf out. So is the Texas persimmon (which had lost all it’s leaves although it’s usually evergreen.)
Dateline: 2011
Cool nights but pleasant days in the 70s. Occasional showers. Windy every day except Sunday (3/6), the day of the Zilker Kite Festival. The cedar elms are threatening to leaf out.
The bluebonnets are opening. This is a poor year for bluebonnets and only the ones I hand sowed (pink and white) and the two giant oversummering ones are doing well. The Mexican plums faded almost as they opened. However, the breadseed poppies are sprouting strongly. I thin and transplant some ‘Lauren’s Grape’.
The ‘Ice Follies’ daffodils are fading but the ‘Trevithians’ are flowering well this year. They have the most lovely scent, although I have to put my nose right in them to smell it. No sign of the ‘Hawera’ which used to open so consistently this week.
About a dozen tomatoes sprouted but have yet to get their first leaves. I’m behind on tomatoes this year!
First Flower: Commelinantia anomala (3/5); Leucojum aestivum ‘Gravetye Giant’ (3/6); Engelmann daisy (3/6); Nemophila insignis (3/9); Oxalis crassipes (3/9); Oxalis triangularis (3/9).
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