Uh, hello. My iNaturalist app tells me that this might be a variety of bark scorpion that was crawling across my back porch. It was on its way to being a former bark scorpion; I’m pretty sure it was suffering from the effects of the spray the exterminator put down around the house last week (not around the coop, just the house). It did not have to suffer long. Out in the meadow, under a nice rock is a good place for scorpions. On my back porch is not.
Aren’t these pretty? The app PlantSnap identifies these as Scarlet gilia. Here is an interesting article on the Scarlet Gilia, which is native to the western US. I’ve spread native wild flower seeds, but this one wasn’t in the mix. Bonus flower!
The hummingbirds love them, which I love, because I am terrible about remembering to change hummingbird food every three days, and after reading that the black mold kills hummingbirds, I don’t even bother making sugar water anymore. I plant flowers the hummingbirds like instead. Win win.
We ordered some Scarlet gilia seed too, since this plant is doing well. We are all about planting native species that don’t need lots of specialty care and attention!
Here is another early spring bloomer in Texas: Nothoscordum bivalve also known as false garlic or Crow poison. We had so many in the lawn at our last house that I would make wreaths and crowns for my kids. The long thin stems make it easy to braid into garland (albeit tiny tiny garland!)
I was excited to see it bloom in our new neck of the woods. It has definitely been a sure sign of spring for me for many years.
I stumbled upon a good article about the toxicity and history of this plant too. Apparently some chicken farmers would spread a paste of this flower in the heads of their chickens so if a crow ate the chicken, the crow would die.
I think I will just cover my runs, thank you very much.
When we first moved in I discovered a pesky thorny vine sprouting up all over the yard. The exterminator called it “heart shaped briar”, but I couldn’t find any online references to such a vine in Texas that matched what I was seeing. Some more searching brought up Sawbriar, which certainly fits with the sharp thorns along the vine. It also has tendrils which help it entangle the trees and other sawbriar vines. When they all gang together they form a scratchy nearly impenetrable mass that is very difficult to clear. I tried to dig up the root node, to make sure the thing didn’t sprout again, and after digging down over a foot on the first one, I settled for cutting the stem off at ground level at every opportunity. I’ve mostly cleared the large grabbing vines from my paths, and I recently picked up a long handled weeder that does a good job breaking the stems at ground level. I’ve adopted the weeder as my walking stick.
Sawbriar spreads by runners and seeds. The birds eat the berries faster than I can find them, and thus continue the spread. I have found that when I cut them at ground level, and leave them to die for a season, the vines are more brittle and easier to break down. Still as sharp, though.
These things are everywhere, grab at your legs and basically make a nuisance of themselves.
Looking up into the trees is one of my favorite things. Balance is important not only physically, but mentally, socially and personally as well. It seemed appropriate to combine the words with my photo. I put this one together in Adobe Illustrator so I could put the word on a path (I like words on a path better than warping text, for most applications.)
Critters and Craft 