Nature’s Time to Play
There is nothing more spring than colors. And this spring is becoming more springy than last year and Spring Has Sprung was nothing shabby.
I am not even going to attempt to name these fantastic beauties. That would require a degree in plantology. Yes, plantology.
A botanist I am not.
Nor a Master Naturalist which I would love to become if I had 500 hours of time to devote to class and field study. Okay, not 500 hours but more time than I can devote right now. Schooling is something I take seriously. If I cannot guarantee I will achieve a 4.0GPA or the equivalent then there is no reason to do it. Those who waste learning waste both their time and their professors time. Other people could have been taking that spot. One day, TAMU, I will take your class, learn your lessons, and spread your knowledge. One day, hopefully before I am too old to get my times worth.
Good grief, for that matter, I am not even a local plant store professional. There is a local team here, a husband, wife, and child team that are the guru of local plant species. Native plants at that. They are awe-inspiring. They specialize in restoring native lands to native species. Plant only native species. If paid, they will assess your wild kingdom several times a year for selective removal of non native species.
Being able to distinguish a plant by the flower is easy but by the leaf. Amazing.
Luckily there are some flowers that I do know like these Mexican Hats (above left), sowthistle (above right) …
and of course the common ditch sunflower. What we discovered this year when removing from undesired locations was a two different sunflower plant. How you ask when they look the same? Root variations. Some sunflowers have long deep roots others are just shallow large balls of roots. Balled root sunflowers are much easier to pull up. When closely inspected the leaves were different on the two plants. Nice. I wonder which one regenerates easier?
And lastly, I know buttercups. What child/adult who has ever played in fields all across this state does not know buttercups? They were cherished possessions growing up. As a kid in school, it was a mad dash to the soccer field at lunch recess to pick buttercups. Delicate, sweet, and soft. Precious.
Even the salvaged oleanders (right) from Harvey plant sale are blooming. Must have done something right to save them. Not knowing what colors I was getting when choosing them, it turns out I selected all three colors. Red, pink, and white.
Spring, what a sight to see. In order for spring to bloom year after year, bloom spreaders must exist.
Yup as you may have guessed, I am not a bugologist either. With an exception to the ladybugs above and below, I do not know the names of most of these blossom spreaders.
While I do know this is a ladybug, what I do not know is it a native ladybug or not. There is some trick about dots vs no dots but I cannot remember tricks of the trade.
The world is full of bugs. More bugs than scientists even know about. So that fact that I do not know what these cool yellow bugs are or what they are doing crawling all over this vine does not make me less informed. At first, I thought they were aphids but upon closer inspections they are too big and have yet to be seen inside tight spaces.
To be a fully versed entomologist in all bugs in all lands is impossible. Impossible. According to the Smithsonian, there are something like 10 quintillion insects. Therefore it is okay I don’t know these bugs. What I do know is important enough. Bugs spread pollen and pollen is good. Therefore we are kind to all bugs, insects, bloom spreaders.
Weeeellll. Not kind to all bugs. If this ridiculous horned caterpillar was eating my tomato plants he would have to go. But since he was only munching his weight on a yaupon sapling, it was spared.
I even spare these nasty little creepy things. Black and orange usually are signs of danger. Danger danger cause these have been told to cause great pain when they sting. In fact, the only bug/insect/nasty buggers that are NOT spared are roaches. Figured there are plenty of them to spare killing a few (as in every single roach seen) is tolerable. However, since having the chickens, roaches are harder and harder to find. YES! And if you are thinking where is the picture you can just keep thinking cause there is no way I am going to disgrace my blog with those things. Nope. Not gonna happen. This is a post for beauty, not ugly. Yesh.
Beauties such as this, my favorite wildflower. Petals so blue it was almost purple. Purple and pink in the middle. Bright yellow-orange anther. Perfect representation of spring, if I do say so myself.