The recent rains have delayed work at the Wildscape including planting free milkweed from Monarch Watch.
Mason bee in nest!
Natives waiting to go in include new Side Oats Grama, Shenendoah and Heavy Metal Switchgrass, Maiden, Karl Forester, and Little Bunny grasses, Dwarf Adagio Miscanthus and Nolina for the Southwest garden.
Heavy Metal
Shenendoah
Maiden
Navajo Princess, Jumping Jacks, Falling Water Mangaves
Some of the new plants
New natives being tended include Common Bluestar and Wild Quinine (not pictured).
Moonglow Mangave
Karl Forester
Adagio
Nolina, Side Oats, and Little Bunny
More new additions
Between stones of the new patio will be Creeping Germander and Texas Sedge. Soon, there will be more native plants for sharing.
[Better late than never, we’re catching up with contributions!]
Earth Day at the Birds and Bees Wildscape proved to be a banner attendance day for both members and visitors. There were 15 members of the El Camino Real Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalist present to visit with the 80+ visitors that came to the site Saturday, April 24.
Some of our group! Catherine Johnson, Donna Lewis, Donna Dworaczyk, Joyce Connor, Kim Summers, Carolyn Henderson, Scott Berger, Alan Rudd
Members visited with visitors and handed out bags full of goodies. There were pamphlets, booklets, posters, wildflower seeds, vegetable seeds, bird feeders, painted rocks, and snacks to be had. They also got to stroll through the wildscape and the bird farm.
Catherine Johnson, event organizer, shares educational material and seeds with a visitor.
The wildscape has quite a few blooming plants. I found Zizotes Milkweed and Butterfly Milkweed that are just starting to bud out. Verbena and Blue Sage were big draws for butterflies and bumblebees. The rose bush was in bloom, and the Malabar Spinach is making a strong comeback.
American Lady on verbena.
Alan Rudd and Scott Berger hung Mason Bee nests, and Alan gave several to members. He’s tracking where the most of them get nested in the area to decide the best places to put them. Alan, I, and a cute little blonde-headed girl also discovered a stinging plant hanging out around the flowers. It really stings (see our recent stinging nettle post!). Ask the little blond-headed girl. Painted rocks and chocolate chip cookies couldn’t even stop her fussing.
Alan Rudd and Scott Berger hand Mason bee nests.
Members got Guinea eggs that had been laid in the wildscape under a plant, and some new native flowers to plant at home. Alan Rudd took many of the eggs to hatch. I hope we’ll get to see pictures here.
Darlene Rynolds, Donna Lewis, Jackie Thornton, Chapter President Sue Ann Kendall
And a word of caution, wear gloves when cleaning out around the flowers, and don’t leave your phone in your back pocket when you go to the outhouse (that happens to be plumbed).
Scott Berger, Liz Lewis, Eric Neubauer, Pamela Neeley Kim and Donna giving the resident donkey some love.
Our Master Naturalist chapter is slowly and carefully starting to do some activities that fall under our guidelines for safety. We really wanted to do something for Earth Day, so a few members got all organized and set up some tables over at Bird and Bee Farm, where our Wildscape project is located. I headed over there, since I had some little pins to give out, and since I hadn’t seen most of them since last year.
By the way, check out my hair. It’s SILVER, from Overtone. No more 1-inch roots!
Our members had put together all sorts of stuff to give away for adults and kids, and by the time I left, they’d had nearly 80 visitors! Luckily, they were spread out over 4 hours, so we didn’t have any scary germy crowds. We were all very glad to see each other, which was a nice feeling.
Due to recent storms, we were able to see which native plants were toughest. We have exchanged some for sumacs, elbow and Mexican honeysuckle bushes, Gulf coast muhly and brake lights yucca.
The ducks!
Iris and verbena
Bluebonnets
Apache plume
Wisteria
Indian blanket
Rose
Dianthus
Milkweed
Beautiful roses
Grapes
New water feature and fencing for shade garden
New building for baby Rio Grande turkeys
Lots of pictures! Click on any of them to see them larger.
Come see what’s blooming at our Earth Day celebration on Saturday April 24, at Bird and Bee Farm from 8 am-12 pm.
Gary drove me to the Milam Wildscape in the storm through back roads, which were safe. In addition to the snow, the Wildscape had also just recently received 9 inches of rain, but it held!!
Enjoy some photos of the wintry wildscape!
It’s almost unrecognizable!
In the gallery below, be sure to click the images to see them full size!
Nature Along the El Camino Real 