Blathr Wayne Lorentz

We got a nice little Christmas present today. After a year of doing a whole lot of not very much, the camellia bush is blooming.

Autumn is here. Time to replace all the plants in my garden that were killed by the Texas summer.

This morning, one of the bushes in my garden decided to surprise me with yellow flowers.

Good bush.

Grass, flowers, turtle, rock. Everyoneʼs looking in the same direction. Except for me. Iʼm looking at them looking at something else. Must be quite a show.

It is said that in Houston, you can plant broomsticks and grow brooms. Itʼs a way of saying that the cityʼs location, geology, and weather are so well-suited to growing plants that if you canʼt grow something, the problem is you.

Thatʼs mostly true, but only if you get enough light. If youʼre in a north-facing apartment, youʼre just as hampered in your growing efforts as someone facing north in Chicago, or Los Angeles.

To grow plants in Houston, you need a lot of sun to counteract all of the excess moisture you have to deal with. That's why under the city's proud canopies of oak trees, the vegetation is usually sparse, or in varying states of decay. If you get dappled sunlight, you might have luck with foxtail ferns, but the important word there is still ”luck.”

A good example is at Houston City Hall, where the mighty oaks spread their branches, bogarting the sunlight and leaving everything underneath to rot. It all looks really bad. But in the sunny spots, you can see the landscapers are doing a great job with the flowers.

There are parts of Houston that are really ugly. But there are also parts that are really pretty, and very often those are places where the city has made an effort to plant flowers.

I wandered through Main Street Square in the rain today, and the flowers are in full bloom.

My tiny moss has made a tiny flower.

The two sunflowers Iʼm trying to grow in three-inch terra cotta pots have gone from silly to ludicrous. Oneʼs about four feet tall, the other about three-and-a-half. The seed packet said theyʼd grow to between 12 and 20 feet tall. Theyʼd better get a wiggle on if they want to reach that height before I move.

A few weeks ago, one of Darcieʼs fleaBay packages arrived with a packet of sunflower seeds in it. So I stuck one in the lavender pot on my desk.

The packet says it should grow between eight and 12 feet tall. What could possibly go wrong?

I wonder if a daisy smells the same to her as it does to me.

I hope my neighbors like flowers, because my flowers sure like the neighbors!