The Yellow Rose of Texas, etc.

Some mornings, I can go out into the yard or garden and find something really inspiring that makes blogging a piece of cake. Other mornings, I end up introducing my chickens or making up some new space-filling tradition to satisfy my addiction to writing for an audience. This morning is somewhere in between. There are some interesting things going on out there, but it's tough to put them into any sort of a coherent narrative.

Here's my best try.

I've never really been much of a rose person. Sure the flowers are nice and all, but when they aren't in bloom, rose bushes are kind of hideous. Despite that, on a whim at the nursery one day, I decided I wanted a rose bush. I bought this one mainly because the name, The Republic of Texas, appealed to my sense of Texan patriotism. 

Roses, nice up close but barely worth looking at from a distance, sort of the opposite of impressionism

Turns out, it's sort of a dud. It hardly ever blooms and the flowers last, maybe, one day. Maybe I don't baby it enough because I do have it in a container rather in the ground. That said, the flowers are pretty when the bush does decide to produce them. Incidentally, I do have another rose that blooms better so roses have grown on me.

Baby green olives, hopefully squirrels don't like them

In a related story (related because the plants' containers are next to one another), I mentioned in my Arbor Day post that the olive tree my mom gave us bloomed this spring. Surprisingly, those blooms actually produced fruit. Now, it's only ten or so olives, but still not too shabby for such a young olive tree. I guess I should start trying to acquire a taste for green olives.

Speaking of plants with fruit, we will soon have more peppers than we'll be able to eat. Hot peppers are ridiculously easy to grow so I grow a lot of them to help maintain a healthy self-confidence. Here are a couple that are laden with fruit. 

Jalapenos - usually only marginally spicy, but, after chopping them, be sure to wash your hands thoroughly before touching yours eyes or going to the bathroom (lesson learned)

Cayenne peppers - usually a bit hotter than jalapenos so, just to be safe, have Travis chop them for you

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.