Bottomland

When I think of bottomlands, I think of the south, the romantic, idealized south, as in the Indigo Girls Southland in Springtime.  I think of lush, tall hardwood forests surrounding a meandering river that is barely contained in the flood season and changes course every 100 years or so, remapping the layout of the bottomland as it does so.  I think of the Big Thicket forests of east Texas and the floodplain forests along the Neches River that I have read about but have yet to visit.  I think of cypress-lined bayous and old river channels and swampy floodplains fed by tributary streams.  I think of the diverse old cathedral forests that grew on this continent before we cut them down and dammed the rivers that fed them.

Closer to home, the streams run intermittently and the rivers, like the Pedernales, that manage to flow year-round flow through rocky, limestone landscapes where hardwood trees, like cypress and sycamore and pecan, are restricted to the banks of the rivers.  Where the rivers are big enough to have created bottomlands, that land has long been cleared for farming or development and that river has been dammed to create reservoir lakes.  I understand why rivers are dammed – for electricity, for water, for flood control, and for recreation – but I still dream of a world without dams, a world where the rivers flow free.  I try to imagine downtown Austin before the dams were built along the Colorado River.  What if, instead of Lady Bird Lake, we had several blocks of forested greenbelt surrounding the original, natural river?

In reality the bottomland forests of central Texas, long a rarity in this area, functioning as small refuges for plants and animals existing on the western or southern edges of their ranges, are all but gone.  So I was pleasantly surprised the Saturday before last when Lee and I went for a hike and found ourselves descending through a slope forest into a bottomland forest on the banks of the Colorado River, just fifteen miles downstream from Austin.  We were hiking in the McKinney Roughs Nature Park, an LCRA park on Highway 71 that is thirteen miles east of the airport.  This was our third attempt to visit the park (hikers, beware, the park is closed on holidays and does not open until noon on Sundays), so it was with relief that we drove through the open gates, paid for our hiking passes ($4 per person), and got our map of the eighteen miles of trails in the park.

Colorado River from the Bluff Trail Overlook

We followed the McKinney Roughs Bluffs and Bottoms Hike, as outlined in the guidebook, and found that, even with our park map, it was extremely helpful to have the guidebook with us given the sheer number of trail junctions along the way.  We started from the visitor center onto the Ridge Trail, which cuts through woodland typical of our area, a mix of cedar (Ashe juniper), cedar elm, Spanish oak, and mesquite interspersed with cactus-filled fields.  I was surprised to notice that many of the Spanish oak trees were just leafing out, in the middle of May.  Perhaps the thunderstorms the week before had finally convinced the trees to leaf out for another summer.  I also noticed Blackjack Oak, a tree that is uncommon in the Austin metro area, in the mix of trees.  Blackjack Oak is common in the Lost Pines area of Bastrop county and, indeed, the McKinney Roughs park contains the westernmost chunk of that pine forest. 

But this time we were heading for the river and its floodplain, and for the Giant Pecan Tree growing in the bottomland forest.  Once we descended into the floodplain, we saw few other hikers but several groups of horseback riders.  And, of course, we saw lots of trees.  Tall trees.  In fact, I can say without qualification that we walked through a forest, which is rare in this area.  We have tree-lined creeks and cedar-oak woodlands and live oak savannas and cedar shrublands, but we really don't have many full-on forests close to Austin.  In central Texas, my motivation for hiking, rather than getting out in the woods, has become getting out in the bushes.  I love this area, but sometimes this native Oregonian needs to feel the full height of trees towering overhead.

The floodplain forest was a mix of cottonwood, hackberry, box elder, mulberry, sycamore, and pecan trees, hardwoods that are common along waterways in the eastern US.  The trees were tall and thick-trunked and, indeed, did tower overhead.  For me, the highlight of the trail was feeling immersed in a forest, not just surrounded by a group of trees but truly in the midst of a forest in a place where forest seemed to be thriving.  Though we did have backtrack to find the main attraction – the park map was a greater help than the guidebook in this – we eventually found the Giant Pecan Tree and spent a few minutes gazing up into its branches and trying to take a representative photo.  Unfortunately, though the tree is the biggest in the park and almost twelve feet in circumference, I was too busy trying to capture the canopy overhead to take a shot of the wide trunk.  Oops!  The good news is that the 150-year-old tree looks healthy overhead.

From the pecan tree, we headed back to the visitor center by following the Park Ho signs (seriously).  Along the way we spotted a few armadillos and were able to watch one of them as it dug up an ant mound and snacked on the ant larvae, totally unaware of our presence the whole time.  By the time we got back to the parking area, we had hiked several miles and felt exercised for the day.  While we did find the Giant Pecan Tree, we hadn't walked through the pine forest, or viewed the river from Meditation Point, or stepped into the river from the Riverside Trail.  So I guess we will have to return to McKinney Roughs on another day, in another season, for another walk in the bottomland forest.

Rain Lily

I love a thunderstorm.  I wake to the drop in pressure that precedes the storm, when the sky darkens and the screens bang and the cat tears around the house yelling because her kitty senses tell her that change is imminent.  I'm startled by the flash of lightening and, what seems like minutes later, the roar and roll of thunder in the distance.  When the first, fat drops of rain hit the roof, I feel relief that, yes, rain is really falling.  Then the sky opens and all of the rain that we have needed for so long falls all at once, in a huge rush of raindrops so close together that I can't help but look up and wonder how I can even hear drops within the roar, which gradually subsides into a steady drumming of raindrops on the roof.  That's the part I love most about a thunderstorm – the steady sound of rain on the roof, the steady draining of water from the eaves, the steady burble of water flowing down the hill and down the street and all around me.  The sound of the world being soaked in water.  At that point, in the midst of rain that has been falling, that is falling, and that will continue to fall, I go back to sleep and sleep more soundly than I have for weeks.

A thunderstorm does more for my plants than I could with 10,000 waterings.  Because it's not just the water in the ground that makes the difference, though the thorough soaking that a good storm gives to all of the earth surrounding my gardens has got to help.  A rain day is like a spa day for the plants, a day of cooler temperatures, cooler moisture in the air, and lots of water in the ground.  In that state of ground saturation and 100% humidity, the relentless pull of water, from the ground into the roots then through the stems and out of the leaves, finally stops.  Relaxed and at peace, with all their leaf pores open and no worries of losing water, is how I think of my plants on a rain day.

The proof of how beneficial a thunderstorm is to the garden is in how good the plants look in the days following the storm.  Even if I have been diligently watering my garden twice a week, or hand watering every two or three days in the worst of the heat, the plants always look so much more alive after a thunderstorm that I feel a bit jealous of nature.  All those weeks of watering just to keep the plants alive, then a storm rolls through and each plant in the garden emerges looking like it's just back from a wellness retreat.  The leaves grow bigger and greener, new flowers and fruits form, and existing fruits swell to full size and ripen in a matter of hours.  Obviously, with sufficient rain, I'm not much needed in this early-production stage of the summer garden.

Even the ground seems happy after a long-overdue thunderstorm, erupting in a blanket of white flowers.  The white flowers that emerge two to three days after a thunderstorm are rain lilies.  In central Texas we have two species of rain lilies, a spring and early-summer blooming species, Cooperia pedunculata, and a late-summer to fall blooming species, Cooperia drummondii.  Rain lilies are perennials in the Lily Family that regrow from bulbs in the ground.  I'm more familiar with the spring-blooming variety because it grows wild along the south side of my house.  The spring rain lilies have long, strap-like leaves, much like their relatives, the daffodils, and fragrant flowers with three sepals and three petals.  The tepals (sepals and petals together) are white to light pink.

Spring-blooming Rain Lily (Cooperia pedunculata)

Spring rain lilies (Cooperia pedunculata) are covering lawns, roadsides, and vacant lots all over Austin this week, singing the praises of last week's thunderstorm and encouraging the universe to send more rain in our direction, to give us a wet early summer where the creeks flow and the trees put on a second set of leaves and the tomatoes are plentiful.  But, in reality, that's just my wish, leading me to see the rain lilies as an offering to the gods, a request for thunderstorms to come.  The rain lilies bloom because the ground is soaked through now, because of the rain last week, and, in that, the rain lilies are offerings of thanks.  So, universe, thanks for the rain.

P. S.  Please send more.

Spring Wildflowers

First, a warning: the evil has leafed.  The evil is Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), enemy of hikers, campers, dog owners, and backyard brush clearers.  Poison Ivy thrives anywhere there is an ecological edge which, in this vastly human-disturbed landscape, is just about everywhere – along roads, along creeks, along trails, along fences, at the edge of the woods, at the edge of the lawn, or at the edge of a clearing.  In other words, it grows just about everywhere you might go looking for wildflowers.

Poison Ivy always has trifoliate leaves, or leaves composed of three leaflets.  The terminal leaflet is symmetrical and has a longer petiole (leaf stem) than the side leaflets, which tend to be slightly asymmetric, with deeper notches on the bottom side of the leaf.  The overall size of the leaves, and how deeply lobed or notched the leaflets are, varies greatly, as does the overall habit of the plant.  Poison Ivy grows as a shrub, ranging in size from a single twig to a thicket in the forest understory, or as a vine that climbs up the trunks of trees or the sides of rocks.  The most successful Poison Ivy plants that I have seen are in east Austin, along Boggy Creek, where they have attained "tree" status.  At first glance, a tree grows along the creek, but on closer inspection, the "tree" is actually a massive explosion of lush Poison Ivy vines being supported by the trunk of a long-dead tree.  Think Medusa's hair, the plant version. 

In the spring, when the trees are leafing and the wildflowers are blooming, the leaves of Poison Ivy are shiny green and especially appealing, but be forewarned that the shininess of the leaves is in part due to the oils that the plant produces, which contain urushiol, a compound that causes mild to extreme skin irritation in most people.  Hence the "poison" part of the name.  The best defense against Poison Ivy is to learn to identify its leaves and to avoid them.  And, despite the variability of the plant, knowing it, as in being able to spot a single leaf in a forest, is quite possible because the plant has a very strong presence.  Even in winter, its twigs have a certain curl to them, and its hairy, older vines hum with warning, seeming to simultaneously draw attention while saying, Stay away from me.  So, learn its leaves, because they literally are everywhere, even leaping, looking friendly and pretty and all spring green, across the well-used Homestead Trail at McKinney Falls.

Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) leaping into the trail

It's been a couple of weeks since Lee and I hiked the Homestead Trail – a couple of long, hot, rainless weeks for April – so, while I thought I was capturing the start of the wildflower season, I was actually lucky to capture a variety of wildflowers in their short moment this spring, before the especially-early summer began.  One of the first flowers that I spotted along the trail was Blue-Eyed Grass, a perennial herb that blooms only in the spring.  Many varieties of Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium spp.), which is related to the iris flower, grow in open woods and grassy areas throughout central Texas.  It is difficult to distinguish between species because they hybridize with each other, producing many variants.

Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium sp.)

Blue flowers, more of a rarity in the yellow-dominated fall, are well represented among the spring wildflowers.  Baby Blue Eyes (Nemophilia phacelioides) is a blue-flowered spring ephemeral, meaning that it blooms briefly in the spring and disappears by summer.  Like other spring ephemerals, such as Missouri Violet, Baby Blue Eyes grows in moist, shady woodlands, where it does most of its quiet growing in the winter, after the leaves have fallen from the trees overhead, allowing more sunlight to reach the forest floor.  The plants bloom in the early spring, just before the trees leaf out and, in blooming, become visible to us, signaling that spring has arrived.  But just as quickly as they are visible, the spring ephemeral herbs die back under the leaf litter until next year, earning their ephemeral reputation.  The blue flowers of Baby Blue Eyes attract butterflies, moths, and bees during their brief bloom period in March and April.

Baby Blue Eyes (Nemophilia phacelioides)

Another spring-blooming blue flower is Giant Spiderwort, which is common throughout my east Austin neighborhood, where it blooms in shady spots and abandoned lots in March and early April.  Like many early bloomers, Giant Spiderwort (Tradescantia gigantea) is a perennial herb that emerges from its roots in the fall, grows up to three feet tall during the winter, blooms in early spring, and dies back in the hotter weeks of late spring.  The color of the flowers varies from deep blue, when the plant grows in acid soils, to purple, to pinkish purple, when the plant grows in alkaline soils.  Though I did see a few of the plants blooming along the Homestead Trail, this picture is from my backyard in east Austin, where Spiderwort blooms purple.

Giant Spiderwort (Tradescantia gigantea)

Among spring wildflowers, in contrast to fall wildflowers, there are also many monocots, including Blue-Eyed Grass and Spiderwort.  This is because many monocots, like irises, tulips, and crocuses, regrow from bulbs or corms in the soil, growing and blooming in the cooler, moister winter and spring, then dying back in the hotter summer.  Onions and garlic are examples of monocots in the Lily Family that grow from underground bulbs.  Wild Garlic (Allium drummondii) is native to Texas and the Plains states to the north, forming large colonies in fields, pastures, and other grassy areas.  Wild Garlic blooms March through May in flowers that range from white to purple-red.

Wild Garlic (Allium drummondii)

Another Lily Family plant that blooms in the spring is the Rain Lily, a striking white-flowered herb that also regrows yearly from an underground bulb.  The blooming of the Rain Lily (Cooperia pedunculata) is triggered by rainfall, so in years when we have ground-soaking rains in April and May, fields and open woodlands seem to sprout an abundance of the white flowers overnight.  In drier years, like this one, the Rain Lilies are fewer and are restricted to moister, shadier spots.

Rain Lily (Cooperia pedunculata)

Southern Dewberry is a common plant in our area, growing as thorny vine that forms thickets along fences and roadsides.  Its bloom period is brief though, in March and April, and, in that, it joins the ranks of the spring wildflowers.  Southern Dewberry (Rubus trivialis) has flowers characteristic of the Rose Family, with five non-fused petals, lots of stamens, and many carpels.  The flowers, if pollinated, develop into summer blackberries, which provide food for wildlife.

Southern Dewberry (Rubus trivialis)

Another common wildflower that begins blooming in spring and continues throughout the summer and into the fall, rainfall permitting, is Yellow Wood-Sorrel, a perennial herb that is a common garden and greenhouse weed throughout North America.  Yellow Wood-Sorrel (Oxalis stricta) has trifoliate leaves that resemble three-leafed clover leaves and five-petaled yellow flowers.

Yellow Wood-Sorrel (Oxalis stricta)

The Homestead Trail is mostly shaded as it winds through a woodland of Cedar Elm, Hackberry, Ashe Juniper, and Mesquite trees, but it also passes through more exposed areas.  On one such rocky hillside, I found a Two-Leaved Senna, a Prairie Larkspur, and Pink Mimosa flowering side by side amidst last fall's dead grasses.  Pink Mimosa is a shrub of rocky hillsides, canyons, and limestone soils that blooms in pink to white puffballs in the spring.  The leaves of Pink Mimosa (Mimosa borealis) are twice pinnately compound, meaning each leaflet is composed of many tiny sub-leaflets, giving the leaves a feathery appearance.  Puffy mimosa flowers provide nectar for bees and butterflies.

Pink Mimosa (Mimosa borealis)

Prairie Larkspur (Delphinium carolinianum), a spring wildflower that prefers sandy soils, also grows in open woods, fields, and roadsides.  Prairie Larkspur blooms from April to June and its flowers range in color from white to pale blue to blue violet.

Prairie Larkspur (Delphinium carolinianum)

Two-Leaved Senna (Senna roemeriana) is a perennial Pea Family shrub that grows in fields or dry, open hillsides with limestone soils.  Two-Leaved Senna gets its name from its leaves, each of which is a symmetric pair of leaflets resembling one, divided leaf.  From April through October, Two-Leaved Senna produces yellow, five-petaled flowers that attract birds and butterflies.  The shrub is a larval host to sulfur butterflies, and its seeds are an important food source for central Texas birds.

Two-Leaved Senna (Senna roemeriana)

At the northern end of the Homestead Trail, the trail passes by a Texas Parks Department building, which is surrounded by a field of wildflowers.  The mix of wildflowers in that field resembles the mix of colors along many of our major roadways, leading me to believe that, just as the highway department seeds the wildflowers along the right-of-way, the parks department probably seeded the Texas Bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrush, and Antelope Horns decorating the field behind its building.

Texas bluebonnet, state flower of Texas, is the classic spring wildflower.  Bluebonnets are winter annuals that germinate after the fall rains, grow as rosettes through the winter, and bloom in the spring.  Texas Bluebonnets (Lupinus texenis) have palmately-compound (fan-shaped) leaves and white-tipped, blue flower spikes.  Up close, the flowers are blue with white centers and resemble sweet pea flowers.  Within a flowering spike, some of the older flowers have maroon or purple centers instead of white centers; the maroon-centered flowers have already been pollinated and, lacking the white accent, are now less attractive to bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.  Texas Bluebonnets grow in abandoned fields and pastures and thrive in the alkaline, limestone soils of central Texas.  The seeds of bluebonnets have been spread throughout the state by the highway department, making the blue flowers common along major Texas roadways in the spring.

Texas Bluebonnets (Lupinus texenis)

Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja indivisa) was originally native to the Llano Uplift region of the Edwards Plateau, where it thrived in sandy soils.  Like the Texas Bluebonnet, however, the Indian Paintbrush has been distributed throughout the state by the highway department, so now it is common to see the bright red flowers of the Indian Paintbrush in the same pasture or roadside as the striking blues of the Texas Bluebonnet.  Indian Paintbrush is hemi-parasitic, or partly parasitic, in that it grows its roots into the roots of other plants, such as grasses, and steals their nutrients.  The flowers of the Indian Paintbrush attract butterflies, and the nectar of flowers is a food source for hummingbirds and insects.

Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja indivisa)

My current favorite spring wildflower looks to me more like an alien life form than a wildflower.  A member of the Milkweed Family, Antelope Horns (Asclepias asperula) is an important food source and larval host for monarch and queen butterflies.  Antelope Horns grows in open fields and along roadsides, thriving where the soil is rocky or sandy.  The large, round inflorescences of Antelope Horns appear otherworldly, improbably large and solid for such low-growing plants, but to many pollinators, including a bees, flies, butterflies, and birds, each globe of flowers offers a buffet of nectar in a otherwise hot and dry spring.

Antelope Horns (Asclepias asperula)

Along the trail, as it wound into and out of the woodlands, crossing and recrossing the mowed park road, I also saw some of the less famous, but just as steady and reliable, of the wildflowers that decorate our roadways in the spring.  Engelmann's Daisy is one such common roadside wildflower that grows in open fields and dry, upland soils.  Engelmann's Daisy (Engelmannia peristenia, formerly E. pinnatifida) can be distinguished from other yellow sunflowers by its spring blooming time and long leaves with deeply wavy borders.  A drought-tolerant perennial, Engelmann's Daisy is abundant and ecologically important in central Texas, providing nectar for insects, seeds for birds, and forage for livestock.

Engelmann's Daisy (Engelmannia peristenia)

Another roadside wildflower, the Evening Primrose, put on a good show this year, decorating roadsides throughout Austin in pink for most of late March and early April.  Pink Evening Primrose (Oenthera speciosa) is a perennial herb that spreads from rhizomes, or underground root runners, forming extensive colonies in fields and along roadsides.  Evening Primrose is drought tolerant and thrives in full sun, making it a reliable ground cover and wildflower even in dry years such as this one.  The flowers are distinctive, with long, four-branched stigmas and pink-white petals, and the seeds are food for native finches.

Pink Evening Primrose (Oenthera speciosa)

Prairie Verbena is a perennial herb that grows in open, grassy areas.  Prairie Verbena (Glandularia bipinnatifida) is very common throughout the state, where it blooms from spring through fall, rainfall permitting.  I've noticed that this month, as the heat and drought have progressed, Prairie Verbena has held its place along the roadsides as other spring-only wildflowers have faded.  Prairie Verbena has highly dissected leaves (or highly pinnatifid leaves, hence its Latin name) and nectar-rich flowers that attract birds and pollinating insects.

Prairie Verbena (Glandularia bipinnatifida)

After walking the Homestead Trail, we looped around from the Lower Falls to the Upper Falls then back to the parking lot along the shadier, rockier Rock Shelter Trail, where the red flowers of Cedar Sage decorated the ledges above Onion Creek.  Cedar Sage (Salvia roemeriana) is adapted to growing in the shade and leaf mulch of Ashe Juniper, known locally as Cedar trees, which is how this native sage got its name.  Cedar Sage grows on limestone ledges and rocky canyons throughout the Hill Country, attracting hummingbirds and butterflies with its flowers in spring and early summer.

Cedar Sage (Salvia roemeriana)

The Tomato-Growing Habit

Every year I forget about the smell of tomato plants.  I remember, or think I remember, in the way that memories are never quite accurate, the sweet-tart taste of homegrown, vine-ripened tomatoes, I tell stories about that rainy summer when tomatoes covered every kitchen surface for the month of June, and I look forward to the tomato-basil-eggplant meals of late June and early July.  But I also remember what a pain tomato plants are, with their narrow planting window, tendency to overgrow themselves, incessant water needs, and inability to set fruit once nighttime lows creep past the mid-80's.

In fact it's something of a mystery why gardeners are so loyal to tomato plants, especially here in Austin.  In the same season that homegrown tomatoes ripen, excellent, locally-grown tomatoes are cheap and plentiful at the farmer's markets, at the food co-op, or, recently, even at the big grocery stores.  Tomato plants are demanding, requiring extra space, fertile soil, and regular watering, especially in the heat.  They grow so fast that even the cutest, healthiest tomato plant will quickly grow into mess of under-supported vines that definitely doesn't hide within a decorative or front-yard garden.  And, despite the fact that they are hot-season plants from the tropics, tomato plants, unlike their long-season, workhorse relatives, the peppers, can't actually make tomatoes in the heat of summer.

When I first had a garden here, I made the beginner's mistake of thinking that I had the whole, long summer to grow tomatoes.  After all, in Oregon, where I grew up and first smelled a tomato plant, tomatoes needed every minute of summer sun that they could get, rarely producing much fruit before late August or September.  In some years, when the rains extended into July, or when partly-cloudy conditions ruled the so-called summer, the tomatoes didn't ripen until October, or didn't ripen at all.  So when I began gardening in Texas, I was shocked to find out that our tomato-growing season was actually quite short, limited on the spring-side by the last killing freeze, which usually occurred in early March, and limited on the summer side by the nighttime low temperatures.  In a cool, wet year, tomatoes produce well into July, but in a hot, dry year, when daytime temperatures climb into the 100's early in the summer, dragging the nighttime lows up into the mid-80's, tomatoes stop setting fruit as early as mid-June.  The summer before last – remember when it was 107˚ F in June? – my tomato plants stopped producing almost as soon as they had started.

Despite the challenges, tomato growing is central to vegetable gardening in Texas.  No other time of year is more crowded or crazy at the local nurseries than the last few weeks of March, the official tomato-planting window.  When the trees are leafing, the wildflowers are blooming, and the smell of nectar is in the air, even the most occasional of gardeners is pulled outside, to dig up a square of yard and plant something.  But why tomatoes?  Why not peppers, which are more drought-tolerant and produce throughout the summer and fall?  Why not basil, which doesn't keep for long, even fresh from the farmer's market, but is easy to grow and loved by the bees?

I think that tomatoes have us hooked on their smell.  Not the smell of the tomato fruits, but the smell of the tomato plants, that sticky, gummy, viscous smell of hairy vines.  Plants are masters of biochemistry – some, like poison ivy, make toxins that repel us, some, like poppies, make opiates, both real and figurative, that intoxicate us, and some, like apple trees, make the sugars that we crave.  My theory is that somewhere within the sticky, green, summery smell of the tomato vine is a chemical that stimulates a combination of home-comfort-warmth-of-summer receptors in my brain.  The first year that I learned to grow tomatoes properly, Texas style, at the community gardens, the smell of those plants transported me to childhood, to my mother's garden, to that feeling of warmth and perfectness and peace that comes only at the height of summer in Oregon.  I couldn't believe that I had forgotten about the smell of those plants, the essence of summer garden, and realized at that moment that, while fall gardening may make more sense in Texas, I had to grow summer garden, even if it did mean taking my chances with the summer itself.

So I grew tomatoes at community garden plots for several years, and I learned, by copying the most-successful of my neighboring gardeners, how to work within the rushed season – to plant transplants, not seeds, in mid-March, to protect the baby plants using clear plastic sheeting, to give each plant plenty of space and an industrial-strength tomato cage, not one of those flimsy things from the garden-supply store, to mulch heavily, and to expect the season to be over by mid-July.  And I had some successful years, especially the rainy-June summers of 2003 and 2004, when I harvested so many tomatoes that I had to learn how to do water-bath canning.

Then I moved into this house, with its yard, and gave up my community garden plot because I wanted to direct my gardening energies into this property.  Which was a lovely idea, but, given the slope of the property, the shade in the backyard, how overgrown the yard was, and my limited time, I spent the first few years here simply keeping the weeds down and planting a few annuals in the garden by the driveway.  Three falls ago, I located, cleared, and mulched a small, almost-level patch of sunny ground to make a vegetable garden, and the following spring I over-planted the space with tomatoes, peppers, and basil.  The tiny garden was overcrowded, and the season ended early because of the heat.  But, once again, as I squeezed myself between the tomato plants and the wall of the house to water, I smelled those plants, and was struck with how I had forgotten about that smell, and began making plans for next year, for a bigger tomato garden.

Next year turned to the year after, which brings me to the present.  I almost bailed on the project a few times, but I kept telling myself, I want a tomato garden along the south wall.  So I cut down the last of the remaining weedy shrubs along the house and built a retaining wall to tame the double slope, away from the house and toward the back of the house. 

Then I amended the soil with compost and peat moss and set out my tomato cages to see how many baby tomato plants I could buy. 

The plants established quickly and, by the end of March, doubled in size. 

Recently, after watering, I pinched a few sucker stems off the tomato plants.  Once again, I was struck by that tomato plant smell, sticky and hairy and green, transporting me back to my garden two years ago, to the rainy summers at the community gardens, and to my mom's garden so many years ago.  I guess, in a way, I grow tomatoes not just for this summer's garden but also to remember all to the gardens of summers past, and to remember how good it feels to be immersed in summer.

Red Buckeye

I have a fondness for Red Buckeyes.  They were one of the first wildflowers that I learned to identify in Texas.  They are one of the earliest bloomers along Barton Creek, and they have bright red, tubular flowers that they hold right at eye level, like a trail-side banner announcing the arrival of spring.  Buckeyes also have distinctive, palmately-compound leaves shaped like five-sided stars.  Their leaves emerge even earlier than their flowers, all bright green and shiny and so stiffly-creased that they remind me of newborn horses struggling to stand on all four legs.

Red Buckeye (Aesculus pavia) new spring leaves

I first met the buckeyes, the Aesculus genus, in northern Ohio.  I was an undergrad doing a research project and my mission was to survey the understory plants of floodplain forests.  The problem was that it was winter, and winter in northern Ohio was no joke – biting cold, lots of snow, and not a leaf to be found on any of the young trees that I was trying to identify.  I had to learn to distinguish between the mess of sticks that was the winter forest understory using branching patterns and overwintering buds, and I quickly found that, among temperate trees, alternate branching was more common than opposite branching.  If mycologists had their "LBM's," or little brown mushrooms, so many average-looking, average-size mushrooms, that winter I struggled with the "ABB's," or alternate brown buds, so many alternate-branched trees with frustratingly average-looking brown buds.

What saved me were the opposite-branched trees – the maples, the ashes, and the buckeyes – and their uncomplicated branches.  The Ohio Buckeyes (Aesculus glabra) were particularly easy to spot, with thick, opposite branches and fat, shiny, many-scaled buds that stood out even in the stark Ohio winter.  I am a buckeye, they shouted, and they were common in the most disturbed and saddest floodplain sites that I visited.  They became early friends, lending me a sense of competence long before I could tell an elm twig from a cherry twig just by the angles and lines, and inspired me to keep on with my baggies of twigs and identification keys.

Red Buckeye (Aesculus pavia) overwintering buds

A couple of years later, when I moved to Austin, discovering the Red Buckeyes (Aesculus pavia) along the Greenbelt was a reunion of sorts.  Just as their relatives had in Ohio, the Red Buckeyes stood out in contrast to the late winter landscape, with fat terminal buds that swelled and turned red as the new spring leaves began to emerge.  Even more amazing, these familiar shrubs produced amazingly showy tubular flowers in clusters of red to pink to peach, flowers that I would expect to see on display in a botanical garden, not in flower in early spring in the xeric woodlands of central Texas.  I had trouble believing that these beauties were native wildflowers.

Red Buckeye (Aesculus pavia) flowers

Two varieties of Red Buckeye are native to central Texas – the common, red-flowered variety (Aesculus pavia var. pavia), which grows throughout the southeastern US as a small tree or large shrub, and a yellow-flowered shrub (Aesculus pavia var. flavescens) that is endemic to the western Edwards Plateau.  West of Austin, in the midst of the Hill Country, the two varieties hybridize and form peach- to pink- to orange-flowered varieties.  The showy flowers of both varieties appear in early spring, February to April, attracting hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees.  For me, spring has officially sprung when the buckeyes along the Greenbelt begin to bloom.

This year, the buckeyes began blooming later than usual due to the cold weather of early February, and it took three trips to the Greenbelt over the course of four weeks to document the shift from fat buds to open flowers. In mid-February, when the buckeyes begin blooming in some mild years, the overwintering buds were fattening and becoming more visible against the backdrop of late-winter browns but were showing no signs of opening into leaves yet.

Buckeye buds not yet open (February 19)

By late February, the buds on many buckeye shrubs had begun to open, turning pink as the leaves within began to expand.  On a few of the buckeyes, spring leaves were beginning to emerge, looking newborn, perfectly green, and not yet worn, torn, or faded by the rigors of the upcoming season.

Buckeye buds opening (February 26)

By mid-March, most of the buckeye shrubs had leafed out but were not yet flowering, still waiting for warmer, longer days and a stronger guarantee that the cold of winter was gone for good.

Buckeye after leaf out with flower stalk (March 13)

But a few buckeyes had begun to flower, officially beginning spring at the Greenbelt.  With the start of the central Texas summer less than two months away, that means that this spring, as with most springs, promises to be our shortest, fastest season.

Red Buckeyes begin flowering (March 13)

First of Spring

Spring is the season of acceleration.  The sun shines warmer, closer, and longer, and the plants respond by growing faster and faster.  If we lived in a more temperate climate, I might have an easier time accepting this speeding up, but in central Texas the first warm day of spring reminds me of the many hot days of summer that are coming, and I can't help but feel a bit of dread as I watch the green of spring quickly overtaking the yellow of my winter-dormant front lawn.

In actuality, my lawn is really more of a mowed weed patch, and only part of the recent green glow is due to spring annuals, like Bedstraw, which looks innocuous now but which will easily take over the shadier parts of my yard in the next month or two.  Also germinating, or sprouting from last year's roots, are hardy perennial weeds like Straggler Daisy, which, once I have pulled or mowed the taller spring weeds, will have regained control of the shady sections of my yard by summertime.  But, while the Bermuda grass smartly waits a few more weeks to break its winter dormancy (if only it were so easy to kill the stuff), the real players in the sunnier parts of my yard are the winter annuals, those quiet, small weeds that germinated between the freezes and waited patiently for this, their moment of sunshine before the big weeds of spring take over.

Shepherd's Purse, a winter annual in the Mustard Family, is a reliable early season weed in my yard and it is easily recognizable by its flowering stalks holding heart-shaped fruits.  (Unfortunately I pulled a patch of them yesterday before thinking to take a picture.)  Henbit, a winter annual from Europe that has made itself at home in yards and disturbed areas throughout the US, also flowers in early spring, covering many lawns in east Austin with its tiny purple flowers.  Up close, Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) has the attractive, tubular flowers and upright, square stems characteristic of the Mint Family.  Henbit grows close to the ground, making it a nice early-spring ground cover for those of us who aren't concerned about lawn purity, but, for serious lawn growers, I imagine that it is the first enemy of the season.

Henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) in a lawn

The real announcement that spring is here, though, doesn't come from the weeds in the lawn but from the trees above.  The American Elm (Ulmus americana) trees are always the first to bloom, usually in the first week of February.  This year, with our two coldest weeks at the start of February, the elms waited until later in the month.  Their tiny flowers were hardly noticeable except for the faint, green glow on the trees and the first of the spring pollen levels.  After flowering, the elm trees produced loads of light green, wafer-like fruits called samaras.

American Elm (Ulmus americana) samaras

Once they have matured and dried, the elm samaras will carry the seeds of the tree on the wind, much as maple-tree flyers (also a type of samara) do.  But for now, while the elm trees are covered in the young, green samaras of early spring, they are the most visible trees in the neighborhood, highlighted in the green glow of spring long before the surrounding trees have begun to leaf out.

American Elm (Ulmus americana) covered in samaras

While the elm trees are lit up in green, the cherry and plum trees of the area are covered in white flowers that are sweet-smelling as well as attractive, much to the delight of many nectar-starved bees, flies, butterflies, and wasps.  In the weeks right after the late-season freezes, the honeybees were so desperate for food that I was regularly finding them in my kitchen, drinking from the dish sponge, so it is a relief to see them employed again, happily buzzing from one spring blossom to another.

Cherry or plum tree (Prunus sp.) in flower

Two native species of plums, Mexican Plum (Prunus mexicana), a small tree common along waterways, and Creek Plum (Prunus rivularis), a thicket-forming shrub, contribute to the early-spring show of white flowers in and around Austin, but in town many ornamental species of plum and cherry also bloom at the start of spring, making identification difficult.  Plum and cherry trees bloom in clusters of white flowers that appear before the leaves or just as the leaves are opening.  Their flowers are five-petaled, with the many stamens and the radial symmetry characteristic of Rose Family flowers.

Cherry or plum (Prunus sp.) flowers

Texas Redbud (Cercis canandensis var. texensis) is a small, Pea Family tree that also blooms in the early spring, before its heart-shaped leaves expand.  Its rose-purple flowers decorate yards, parks, and wild spaces throughout Austin from late February and to early April, attracting bees, butterflies, and moths.  Texas Redbud is a drought-tolerant variety of the Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis) that is adapted to the limestone soils of the Edwards Plateau. 

Texas Redbud (Cercis canandensis var. texensis) flowers

The beauty of spring is in the stark contrast, of spring green in an otherwise brown landscape, or of bright white or purple against a deep blue sky.  To appreciate it, I had to get out in it, to feel the warmth of the sun and to smell the plum blossoms.  Then I got my shovel and gardening gloves and did some digging and weeding on the south side of my house, where the afternoon sun is concentrated.  Out in it, with my hands in the soil, my sense of dread, that spring and summer and all the planting deadlines in between are looming, finally faded away.  Because spring, short and fast as it is in central Texas, is a season of doing, not of worrying about the summer to come.

The Greenbelt in February

I go to the Greenbelt to get away – away from my house and yard and all the work that needs to be done, away from all the distractions embedded in my daily routine, and away from my day job, which is "easy" and hourly yet still manages to come home with me.  The physical act of walking releases the catch in my brain that holds all those spinning thoughts, allowing the smells and sights and sounds of the woods along the creek to grab my attention and pull me out of my head and onto the damp trail under my feet.  So maybe it would be more accurate to say that I go to the Greenbelt in order to return, or to reset, to close all those windows that are open in the computer screen of my mind and to restart with just one focus, the plants of the forest along the creek.

Which is a huge expectation to have on the creek, and the trail, and all the plants that grow along it.  In that state of mind, distracted and restless and not sure whether I was ready to embrace the late start of spring, the season of acceleration, I went to the Greenbelt expecting to be dazzled by bright, fat Buckeye flowers and vibrant spring ephemerals.  Instead I found quiet.  The creek was still running, though barely so and only along the upstream half of the Greenbelt, the trees were still leafless, and the browned, crispy, long-dead grasses and herbs of last summer and fall still lined the trail and the creek.  Even the once-purple berries of the Beautyberry shrubs had shriveled and turned black.  The obvious landscape of greys and browns certainly wasn't about to grab my attention.

But the creek, even when it's barely running, and the experience of being out in the woods, even when the branches are bare, still has the effect of slowing me down, and, despite my impatience, I began to appreciate the damp smell of the woods and the misty, almost-raining morning that was contributing to the quiet.  Then I noticed the plants that thrive in the cool humidity and quiet between winter and spring.  The mosses seemed especially happy with the misty, damp conditions.

The ferns growing from the rock walls along the creek showed signs of freeze damage, with browned leaves and partially dead fronds.  But the ferns or parts of ferns that had survived the freezes of early February were growing as happily as the mosses, enjoying the non-stressful, humid weather.

Cliff Brake Fern (Pellaea ovata)

Once I began noticing some green, I realized that, actually, at the ground level, green was overtaking the brown.  New blades of grass were emerging from the leaf layer and green rosettes of annual herbs were establishing themselves, gathering strength to become the wildflowers of spring.

In the understory, native winter berries – red Yaupon and blue-black Silktassel – added color to the branches of evergreen shrubs.  Berries also hung on the branches of non-native shrubs, escaped from cultivation, including the small, blue-black fruits on Japanese Privet trees (Ligustrum japonicum) and Chinese Privet shrubs (Ligustrum sinese).  Nandina shrubs held huge clusters of red-orange fruits.  Nandina (Nandina domestica), like Japanese and Chinese privet, is a native of Asia that was brought to the US for use in gardens and has escaped from cultivation.  Unfortuantely, Nandina, Japanese Privet, and Chinese Privet are invasive and are spreading into streamside habitats around Austin.

Nandina (Nandina domestica) berries

And, though small and subtle, not yet grabbing my attention in numbers but there to be noticed as individual dots of color in the underbrush along the trail, the earliest wildflowers of the season were just starting to bloom.  The first wildflower that I spotted this season was Golden Grounsel (Packera obovata), a sunflower-family herb with bright-yellow flowers.  Golden Grounsel grows as a rosette of almost-round to oval leaves that become deeply lobed when the plant makes a flowering stalk.  Golden Groundsel prefers to grow in moist, calcareous soils and blooms February through April, making it one of the first wildflowers of the spring in central Texas.  Its yellow flowers attract bees and butterflies.

Golden Groundsel (Packera obovata) leaves

Golden Groundsel (Packera obovata) flowers

Roemer's Spurge, an annual herb of moist, shaded woodlands, was also beginning to bloom.  Roemer's Spruge (Euphorbia roemeriana) has unique leaves and branching.  The lower leaves on a stalk are alternate and elogated, then a whorl of three leaves gives rise to three stems, each holding an inflorescence (cluster of flowers).  The bract at the base of the inflorescence is almost circular, made of two fused leaves.  The flowers are tiny and bright yellow, appearing on the plants late February through May.

Roemer's Spruge (Euphorbia roemeriana)

Missouri Violet, a perennial herb that is a common spring ephemeral in moist, streamside woodlands throughout the central United States, was also blooming.  Missouri Violet (Viola missouriensis) is a perennial herb that grows as a rosette of heart-shaped leaves and blooms early in the spring, in February through April in central Texas.  Flowers on the wild violets signal that spring, though delayed by the cold weather and slow to get started this year, is on the way.

Missouri Violet (Viola missouriensis)