Cute Viewer Photo!
One of our biggest joys in creating gardens is inviting wildlife to join us in the habitat we’ve made for them. Each of us can contribute to the habitat highway even in very small gardens. Flowers for nectar and pollen; host plants for caterpillars, seeds, berries, and fruits. Provide spots for safely, nesting, burrowing, and basking.
Across Texas, viewers are bringing wildlife closeup and sharing their stories with us.
From DFW, Candy Whitten sent these fun pictures of two blue jays that look like they’re in the middle of negotiations! Candy’s got 52 trees on her three lots to host hundreds of birds. In September, dozens of hummingbirds stop by on their way south.
In San Antonio, a viewer spotted this sphinx moth on her balcony garden. And on location near the parking lot at her job, a red bird of paradise is thriving. Around other areas of San Antonio, she caught this stunning sunset-hued hibiscus. And while traveling around, she stopped to admire a yellow bird of paradise in San Angelo.
In Houston, Nicky Khan’s growing a lovely variegated bougainvillea, with pink and white blossoms on a single branch. In some cases the flowers are dual-colored pink and white within the same flower. It’s no wonder that her subdivision awarded her Yard of the Month for her hard work, which paid off dramatically, in spite of the heat!
And from Wimberley, here’s a clever tip from Twinkie and Mark Schwend. They gather wine corks to partially fill large containers before adding potting soil. This decreases the overall weight, allows for use of larger, more decorative containers for shallow-rooted plants that would struggle with deeper soil, and perhaps best of all, saves money!
