Celebrating National Wildflower Week!

The first full week in May is designated National Wildflower Week by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin.  The center formerly marked the occasion with a tour of native plant gardens in the Austin area, but sadly the tour has been discontinued.  So this week I honored our local wildflowers with a couple of my own tours.

I began the week in appropriate fashion with a visit to Sheryl Smith-Rodgers and James Hearn's garden in Blanco, about an hour north of San Antonio. Sheryl blogs at Window on a Texas Wildscape and recently mentioned in a post that she and James would be celebrating their 10th anniversary by opening their garden.  Count me in along with my friend Melody who is also a fan of Sheryl's blog.  As an added bonus, their garden was featured that same Saturday morning in a wonderful segment on Central Texas Gardener.  Since the new shows are up on You Tube by Thursday I was able to check out the preview.  We made the hour's drive through the gorgeous Texas Hill Country to the historic town of Blanco and knew we were in the right place as soon as we spotted The Meadow on the corner.

Visiting Wildseed Farms for Autumn Fun

In early October I joined members of my neighborhood garden club for a trip to Wildseed Farms in Fredericksburg just over an hour away from San Antonio.  Wildseed Farms is the largest working wildflower farm in the country and is well known as a mail order source for wildflower seeds.

It's a beautiful facility designed to match its surroundings of historic Fredericksburg.  We were greeted by John Thomas, President and Founder of Wildseed Farms, who guided us on a detailed tour of the main buildings.

Wildflower Wednesday June 2014: Teucrium canadense

A photo of Teucrium canadense in my Garden Blogger's Bloom Day post last week generated some comments about the plant so I'm featuring Canada or American Germander for Wildflower Wednesday.  The fourth Wednesday of each month Gail at Clay and Limestone invites garden bloggers to join her with a post on flowering native plants in our gardens.

Wildflower Wednesday: April Wildflowers

This week I'm joining Gail at Clay and Limestone for Wildflower Wednesday.  Wildflower Wednesday is a special opportunity to track the progress of the wildflowers I am establishing in my yard.

It's amazing what happens when you put out the welcome mat for native plants and flowers.  For example, these Indian Blanket flowers (Gaillardia pulchella) or Firewheel surprised me by blooming this week.

Hill Country Roads: Blanco to Johnson City

The legendary Texas Hill Country wildflowers are out in full force this year.  A welcome change from the last two drought years.  We took the long way around to our initial destination Friday before heading to the Blanco Lavender Festival and were rewarded with some memorable sights.

GBBD May 2012: Mexican Hat Wildflowers

For Garden Blogger's Bloom Day (GBBD) May 2012 I'm featuring Mexican Hat (Ratibida columnifera) wildflowers.  These common wildflowers here in south central Texas are currently blooming in my back yard.  With their high rounded crowns, it's easy to see why they are commonly known as Mexican Hats.  A striking color combination of gold and red.

The color pattern of the flowers on this plant are quite different from the others

Wildflowers are the best flowers for this sunny, rocky slope where little else will reliably grow.

For several years we've been collecting seeds from neglected and undeveloped commercial spots around the edges of our neighborhood and scattering them in the toughest part of the yard to create a wildflower meadow in this existing patch of buffalo grass.

That effort is beginning to pay off with blooms like these.

Join Carol of May Dreams Gardens and bloggers from around the world as we celebrate what's blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month.