Back
when we bought the country house, the Big Backyard had a very nice
thick saint augustine lawn. It helped that the drain field to the
septic system was back there and so it was well watered even during
times of no rain. We have managed to keep it alive and looking
fairly well until last summer when it got some sort of
infestation...bugs, fungus, I don't know but large areas of the grass
died. Because we don't use poisons or fertilizer it has over the
years become the home to quite a few early wildflowers.
This
year it's the more opportunistic grasses and wildflowers and, yes,
weeds, than it is grass.
Walking
around out there the other day patrolling for and digging up sow thistle and
sticky weed I saw oxylis, dandelion, fleabane, evening primrose,
henbit, walking onions, wild onions, woodland violet, 10 petal
anemone and those are just the ones I can name. You can't kill st.
augustine grass so I expect that long about mid-summer it will have
filled in again if whatever knocked it down in the first place has
run it's course. If not, then I guess we'll have a mowed field
instead of a lawn.
That
lighter green horseshoe around the end of the old garden bed in the picture above is
orange cosmos which is doing it's best to completely colonize the
yard. At the other end the rocket larkspur is making a similar, if
weaker, attempt.
It's
Sunday and the start of my week alone having taken Marc to the
airport early yesterday morning for his week with my brother in
Colorado at a ski resort. No, Marc does not ski but he does enjoy my
brother's company and of course, pot is legal in Colorado. Plus one
of his brothers lives in Denver so they will meet up at some point.
My
journey back was a long and meandering one since I was taking
advantage of passing through Sugar Land and Rosenberg to run a long
list of errands...9 to be exact though the last three were all in
walking distance so I only had to park once for those. Poor Minnie,
stuck in the house alone from 7 AM to 2:30 PM.
Today
I'm meandering around the house and yard, starting one task and then
another with no thought to finishing any of them.
last
night looking east at dusk across the fallow field
Wow, you have a lot of land as far as the eye can see! Peaceful. Yes, as from a recent post I made, my lawn is always weeds.
ReplyDeleteNot all my land. The house is on half an acre, the shop across the street is an acre and a half. We have a 12 acre fallow field behind us and empty half acres on either side that belong to others. My street in this small neighborhood dead ends into the plowed field in the last picture.
DeleteI begin unfinished tasks with no thoughtful intent at all.
ReplyDeleteLovely photo... I took a drive to Blanco yesterday with Jake. We visited Blanco State Park and took photos of the Blanco River. Thankfully it's in its banks now and the clean-up is over... I love driving over to this little town at the edge of the Texas Hill Country... no wild flowers yet; at least not many. I saw a few pPrimrose but not much more. I have one Indian Paint Brush in my yard!
ReplyDeleteLove that big blue sky.
ReplyDeleteOur "lawn" is the same. There's actually no pretense to grass. I wonder why we don't care? Who knows?
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your week of solitude, woman! If you're like me, I'm sure you will.
I'm always impressed by people who own land and know what to do with it.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds so nice to find all the little wild flowers, and amazing that you know the names of so many.
ReplyDeleteLovely post, Ellen.
Could it be chinch bugs? I don't really know what a chinch bug is but I know people with St. Augustine lawns in Florida complain about them a lot!
ReplyDeleteSeeing some green moving in,the oats I planted as a cover crop coming on strong in the Veggie garden
ReplyDeleteI would love some alone time!! I usually try to complete a task once I start it, but lately, I am finding myself flitting around. Anxious for outside time, I suppose!
ReplyDeleteSaturday was so gorgeous a friend and I went down to Brazoria. The flowers are peeking out around there, too, although there's been a lot of mowing all of a sudden, which has put and end to a lot that was coming up. I suppose it makes sense -- mow now, and then again once the flowers have done their thing. But we did see evening primrose, Indian paintbrush, native lantana, anemones, and two blue flags. It won't be long!
ReplyDelete