Even without bluebonnets the wildflowers are spectacular
Winecup, coreopsis, and (possibly) Blackfoot Daisy.
Another unidentified wildflower with native grasses
Scutellaria wrightii and coreopsis
This plant with the unusual pods is new to me. If you recognize this please chime in!
The backroad Hill Country is soooooo quiet. Imagine stopping to take photos and all you hear are the breeze and birds.
This rare cloudy day in June was welcome out here.
The clouds kept the temps in the low 80s and there was even a slight coolness in the shade. Water in the creeks has been a rare sight for the last two years
The buzzards began circling whenever we stopped for photos. Apparently they thought we were stuck without food or fuel. It is a long way to anything out here, I didn't check my phone but we may have been out of range.
No place to pull over so we left the car on the road to get out and take photos. We only encountered one other vehicle on this 16 mile stretch of road and that was the postman.
Cattle guards were in the road every mile or so. Watch out for cow pies!
This is a cool side gate for horses or moving livestock around the cattle guard
A long stretch of this road, probably about eight miles, is unpaved. We are just over an hour from San Antonio here and it feels like much farther.
More stunning views
And then "Your destination is on the left."
Where in the hill country are we? It's a special place which I'll share with you in another post very soon.
So breathtakingly beautiful. We don't get sights like this here in the tropics, but in central and western parts of Oz there are some spectacular wildflower display in springtime. You're so lucky to be able to see sights like this every year.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed the tour. It is fun to see how things look around the world.
DeleteVery nice...that gloomy sky is somehow nice, even to this blue sky desert rat! Looks moisture laden.
ReplyDeleteClouds are not always gloomy when you need the rain! We had several days of clouds but no rain except to the east of us.
DeleteLovely display. The pods look like they belong to Primrose.
ReplyDeleteThank you! That looks right, I used to have the pink evening primrose in the yard but didn't remember seeing those seed pods. I need to add some this year.
DeleteBeautiful. I think fields of wildflowers are stunning. Thank you for sharing your trip.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed it too Mary.
ReplyDeleteHey Shirley. You went to the Lavender Festival when Ragna said you might come to the city wide sale here. You made the right choice ! I was in that area a month ago and found the best bluebonnet field I've ever seen. A different set of wildflowers are blooming now and the show is lovely, as you've seen. I think the first unidentified purple flower may be a stemodia, which I have blooming now in my garden. You really should have one ! So, this secret place you went to....Escondido ? Hmmm ?
ReplyDeletepatty
So many choices, I do need to do a post on your beautiful area sometime. Stemodia looks right and it is beautiful, now I need to figure out the one surrounded by grasses.
DeleteWe didn't go that far north! You'll see soon...
Hey Shirley, maybe I miscounted. I thought your first un-ID'ed plant was the purple flowering plant with the grasses. That's the one I believe is the stemodia. I've been looking for the picture of mine to send you. As luck would have it the stemodia is blooming now, so I can take another picture and send it to you. Will do soon.
DeleteThe photos on the web are not from similar angles so I can't tell for sure and would like to see your photo.
DeleteThe first one has been identified as horsemint.
That road looks very familiar to me as I've taken back roads from Fredricksburg, Luckenbach to Blanco. Love that look.
ReplyDeleteThey are beautiful and changing fast. A large ranch along here has recently sold for development.
DeleteIt’s nice to see so many of the flowers in my garden growing in their natural habitat. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteMy Missouri primrose has a similar seedpod to those in your photo. It has large yellow flowers in the spring.
The photo looking down the dirt road is interesting. It shows quite a contrast in plant growth and diversity on opposite sides of the fence. I suppose that is due to overgrazing.
It does look like quite a bit like a larger version of your garden and I did think of that along the way. Far fewer opuntia, sotol, and yucca than around here and definitely more prairie and plains like than San Antonio.
DeleteMissouri Primrose, I looked it up and that seems to be it. Clears up why I'd never seen those pods on the evening primrose we have around here.
Love the combination of the hot oranges with the lavender-to-pink in the top few photos. Mom Nature always seems to get it right. Humans took a long time to catch on. I remember, way back when, those colors were first used together in An American in Paris and it caused quite a stir.
ReplyDeleteThose color combinations are fantastic. The movie did influence colors for quite a while. I guess it didn't take me too long, my Barbie had an orange and pink corvette. :-O
DeleteNow I'm more likely to use those colors in the garden!
Hi Shirley,
ReplyDeleteI loved seeing all the wildflowers in bloom on my drive from Austin to Blanco last weekend and I'm really glad you stopped to take pictures! I was told that the flower in picture #5 was called Horsemint - is that correct?
I linked to your post in my post about the Lavender Festival - check it out if you have a minute :) http://theitineranttexan.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/the-8th-annual-blanco-lavender-festival-june-8th-10th-2012/
-M
The flower is horsemint and one I should know but just didn't come to mind.
DeleteThanks for stopping by Margie. Congratulations on your recent graduation from UT and beginning a blog about this new chapter in your life. I look forward to reading about your adventures around Texas.