By Larry Kocian. Adopted from a Facebook post on Milam County Veggie and Plant Exchange, September 22, 2019.
Free from nature, these vines (also known as tie vine —Impomoea cordatotriloba) make an appearance in late spring, early summer. In mid- to late summer and into autumn, they are showy with their purple/lavender colors.
Tie vine is just as pretty as hybrid morning glories, just with smaller blossoms.
Some people say invasive. I say not, because they are easily controlled by going into the garden and removing/sculpting them. I let mine climb, and they do climb into the mimosa trees. I do control some when they wrap in the wrong place or too much on a particular plant/tree.
My point is that most natural occurring plants that are labeled invasive are not at all. I always encourage everyone who reads this to go outside and get to know your garden. It’s very therapeutic.
I love it when I go for a walk and see things that you’d only see right where I am. This afternoon in Austin, where my housemate and I were enjoying some sun after all that rain over the weekend, I found these guys. Here’s an excerpt from a longer post on my personal blog. Let me know if I’ve mis-identified anything!
Today turned out to be beautiful. Anita and I enjoyed looking at some of the native plants and insects we pass by on our walks. Two were right outside our house, next to a steep rocky slope.
Cedar sage outside the Bobcat Lair (our Austin house)
No matter how hard the landscapers try, they can’t get rid of all the beautiful plants that were here before the development was here. Case in point is the cedar sage you see here. Its native habitat is cedar brakes on caliche, where the ashe junipers are located. They like the rocky hillsides. Yep, that’s accurate! These beautiful flowers cover the rocks our house sits on, right under the native trees that got to stay when the neighborhood was built (now they qualify as “heritage” cedars, so allergic people can’t cut them down).
Slender false pennyroyal
Nearby were these lovely little plants with tiny pink blossoms. There are many tiny plants with pink blossoms this time of year, but these looked different from all the others I’ve been finding. Sure enough, they are slender hedeoma (Hedeoma acinoides). There is not much about them in iNaturalist, but a quick check of their habitat shows it’s mainly the middle of Texas. It’s a local! Further checks on the Wildflower Center site found that their common name is slender false pennyroyal. I learned something new!
At the mailbox, my housemate, Anita, started jumping around, and I saw that there was a large winged insect flying and landing, which caused that reaction. I got everything nice and calm so I could photograph it.
Extreme crane fly closeup.
It appears to be a crane fly, but I’m not sure which one it is. It could be Tipula tricolor or Tipula furca, juding by the wings. I assume someone on iNaturalist will set me straight. I thought it was nice of the crane fly to hold still so I could get such a good picture!
What have you been seeing? Care to share? I’d love to see more posts with your observations in them, to share with our fellow Master Naturalists
It’s a beautiful day today, so I’ve done a bit of wandering around. I’m always surprised at the beauty I see, just walking around the ranch.
Just a beautiful day to have dog fun.
Today the dogs and I checked out the arroyo, and they had a lot of fun sniffing and stomping, as usual.
That is a BIG hole. Glad I know where it is, so I won’t step on it.
I was surprised to see just how big the armadillo’s hole has gotten. Every time I walk by there’s more dirt outside it. That is one busy dillo.
You can’t really see as much orange as I saw in person, but hey, these will be a lot of delicous berries!
The trees and bushes are all budding out, and sometimes the color really surprises me. The dewberries are all red and yellow, and look almost autumnal!
Nature Along the El Camino Real 