Full frontal

As I sometimes like to do when I find no bugs on my vegetables during my morning garden walk-through, I dedicate today's blog to my front yard. I was hoping that some of you would have been inspired by yesterday's mail bag edition to ask me for insightful insights into your gardening problems. I was also hoping that someone would be able to identify the strange flower that sprouted up in the midst of my morning glories for me. But, I can see now that I have a passive blog audience. That's ok. I'm happy to tell you things with no input, or even real interest, from you.

I've referred a couple of times (here and here) to the gigantic and ever-expanding echinacea (also known as coneflower, even though it's clearly not cone-shaped) slowly overtaking my entire front yard. I've also noted how this yellow echinacea is not the purple variety most of you are familiar with (humor me and pretend you're familiar with it). The yellow variety is native to Texas so it isn't bothered by our wild swings in weather from extremely hot and humid, to extremely hot and dry, to mild with flash flooding, and then, back to extremely hot and humid with periodic flash flooding (coming soon). I suppose this explains its sprawling growth that can't be tamed.

This morning I noticed that a purple echinacea has just flowered. I don't think the purple type is native to Texas because in all of my intrastate travels, I have never seen one growing outside of someone's (typically little old lady's or young gay men's) neatly manicured flower beds. I don't know where the purple echinacea actually comes from, probably California or China or something. 

The purple coneflower wasn't born in Texas but got here as fast as it could

In this picture you can see the main differences between the two types of flowers. Aside from the differing colors (which I hope that you've already figured out), the native yellow flowers are smaller, despite the fact that the plants themselves are much, much larger. The yellow flowers are also a little shabby by comparison. For those of you not familiar with the phrase (like my Russian fans - yes, I'm aware of you and curious who you are), the picture caption references a "popular" Texana bumper sticker. Follow the link to purchase one.

Somewhere behind that jungle of grass is my house

The other current topic in my front yard that I would like to inform you of, for no apparent reason, is that with the recent rounds of rain, I have been unable to practice one of my favorite pastimes, painstakingly mowing and edging the lawn. It is in really sad shape at this point. I could possibly have done it this morning (if I wasn't busy blogging), but I think it's too muddy, which means my mower would leave unsightly tracks. This rain is supposed to fire up again this afternoon and keep on through the weekend.  Based on the rate of growth over the past four days, by Sunday my grass should be approximately 8 ft. tall.