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After Gourdough's, we took a break from food for a trip to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
I had high hopes for the Wildfower Center; it was my last best hope for broad fields of Texas wildflowers. These hopes didn't quite come true. There were some very nice flowers, but they came in portions that were garden-sized instead of field-sized. I found myself acutely conscious that it wasn't quite measuring up to my hopes, and hoping that Chris and Amy weren't too disappointed.
I have tried to research just who was responsible for the name "Horse-Crippler Cactus", with no success. This means that I can neither confirm nor deny my idea that it was named by an botanist who carried a grudge. (It is apparently also called "Candy Cactus", which carries much less bitterness.)
The color garden did offer some swaths of flowers, but they didn't extend as far as the eye could see.
California poppies apparently grow in Texas too. I love their intense orange.
In a little building at the far end of the gardens, there was an exhibit of some very beautiful art made in pressed paper. Unfortunately, photographs were prohibited.
Indian blanket is one of the wildflowers I expect to see along Texas highways.
Yellow and pink primrose complete the set I expect to see on the roads.
The lily pond showed a bit of wildlife in the form of snakes and turtles.
This is the variety of honeysuckle that grew on the neighbor's fence when I was a child.. We used to pluck the blossoms, bite the bases off, and suck out the nectar inside.
My mother fought against trumpet vine for many years.
Yes, I have an inner fifteen-year-old snickering at this.
We took one of their walks among the fields outside the more cultivated part of the center. It did have patches of bluebonnets.
And from the top of the tower, you could get a real sense of Austin landscape.
(We took many more pictures there, but I tried to present just my favorites. I invite you to click through and look at my Flickr collection.)
I had high hopes for the Wildfower Center; it was my last best hope for broad fields of Texas wildflowers. These hopes didn't quite come true. There were some very nice flowers, but they came in portions that were garden-sized instead of field-sized. I found myself acutely conscious that it wasn't quite measuring up to my hopes, and hoping that Chris and Amy weren't too disappointed.
I have tried to research just who was responsible for the name "Horse-Crippler Cactus", with no success. This means that I can neither confirm nor deny my idea that it was named by an botanist who carried a grudge. (It is apparently also called "Candy Cactus", which carries much less bitterness.)
The color garden did offer some swaths of flowers, but they didn't extend as far as the eye could see.
California poppies apparently grow in Texas too. I love their intense orange.
In a little building at the far end of the gardens, there was an exhibit of some very beautiful art made in pressed paper. Unfortunately, photographs were prohibited.
Indian blanket is one of the wildflowers I expect to see along Texas highways.
Yellow and pink primrose complete the set I expect to see on the roads.
The lily pond showed a bit of wildlife in the form of snakes and turtles.
This is the variety of honeysuckle that grew on the neighbor's fence when I was a child.. We used to pluck the blossoms, bite the bases off, and suck out the nectar inside.
My mother fought against trumpet vine for many years.
Yes, I have an inner fifteen-year-old snickering at this.
We took one of their walks among the fields outside the more cultivated part of the center. It did have patches of bluebonnets.
And from the top of the tower, you could get a real sense of Austin landscape.
(We took many more pictures there, but I tried to present just my favorites. I invite you to click through and look at my Flickr collection.)
