A Better Sense of Place

I'm noticing that the exotics flower early in spring, and that's what everyone associates with a Louisiana spring, azalea cultivar mutants being the main ones. There's also the Bradford pear, a cultivar of the invasive Callery pear from China and Vietnam. Well, the real Louisiana plants — at least the ones I have — flower a little later than that. I'm guessing it's because they and the insects that feed on them have evolved together, and insects aren't active until later on in late March and April. I don't know, but I decided to go around this morning and take pictures of all the pretty colors. Mostly, these are isolated plants, so don't think that I have lush gardens of mass plantings yet.

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Woot! It's fall, the usual weird mix of warm, humid days and refreshing cool fronts. I decided a while back to make sure I have native plants with strong fall color. It's taking a while for things to mature, of course, but this is the first fall where there's a good hint of what's to come in the future.

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It's looking like the hot summer drought has ended here. As the sun is moving closer to equinox, temperatures are now only going up to about 92°F. Many plants are doing better after some rain showers last week gave them water to drink. We even had a pretty good cold front come through. Fall is coming, so I figured it's a good time to focus on all the fruit and flowers around the yard to make me feel like my efforts didn't all end in failure this summer.

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