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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 towards 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 proficient people popped over from Studio A the place they had been prepping OverHeard with Evan Smith, however they’re typically 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) soar over their parkway between a college and the entry street.
Looks like each curbside–the warmer the higher–invitations a re-evaluation, particularly when burgundy, pink, and white bluebonnets sneak in. Subsequent week, Daphne explains in the event that they’ll be again once more subsequent 12 months.
Right here’s one thing to observe for! I met this cutie final weekend once I began tidying up container vegetation for an upcoming refresh. It’s an eight-spotted forester moth and solely about 1-½” vast. 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 heaps), so the larvae could also be tucking into plant pots to pupate. Since then, it’s headed out to satisfy and greet a companion.
Just a few Texas mountain laurels are nonetheless blooming, however the huge attraction now are clusters of purple 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- typically disfiguring new growth- they don’t appear to hurt the tree general.” She additionally identifies the voracious genista caterpillars, so hold a watch out for these, too. They’ll shortly defoliate a younger mountain laurel.
Thanks for stopping by! See you subsequent week, Linda
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