Bloom Day June 15th - a day late

OK - So I'm a day late with bloom day. This drought is seriously getting me down. We had NO rain for like 18 months which includes all of last fall and winter, and then I was hoping for more rain this spring, but alas, it is not to be. Sure we got about 1/2 inch last week (along with tornadoes and funnel clouds, how nice), but that is not enough to help my poor garden and now the triple digit temperatures have settled in for the forseeable future. The farmers around here are plowing under their fields and collecting the insurance. Blah. Color me unexcited about gardening this year. My plants are alive and surviving, but that's about it. I gave up on watering this month. Only the veggies and hanging pots will henceforth be watered. Everything else will have to fend for itself.

Just look at my Rudbeckia. I mean really. How craptacular are these? They obviously need way more water than I can provide. I give up on these (avert your eyes if you are stunted-wilty-plant-squeemish):



I do have lots of other things blooming, they just are not spectacular. Good thing almost all my plants are drought tolerant, 'cause those that aren't will soon be dead.

Here we go...

Rock Penstemon:



Wright's skull cap:



Lion's Tail:



Yellow Primrose:



Russian Sage:



Mountain Sage:



Laceleaf Lavendar:



Lantana:



Golden lead-ball tree:



Pink rain lily:



White rain lily:



Agapanthus:



Coral Nymph Salvia:



Black and Blue Salvia:



Sweet Potato Vine:



Shrimp Plant:



Scarlet Runner Bean:



Winecup:



Coneflowers:



Parsley with Caterpillars:



Pride of Barbados (ok - these do LOVE the crazy heat!!)



Big red sage:



Texas Bluebells:



And the hummingbird/butterfly garden:

Fairly Freaksome Storm

So yesterday evening we had a fairly freaksome Supercell Thunderstorm roll through the area. Now I realize that we do live at the bottom of tornado alley, but we just don't get that many tornadoes around here and so this was a little frightening. I think it was right around 8:15-30 yesterday evening when the storm suddenly turned the waning afternoon light into near complete darkness. We were pummeled by dime to quarter size hail and we had a small tornado touch down in the neighborhood right behind ours. I don't believe there was any damage - it seems to have come down in an open field directly behind the new housing complex. Here is a photo of it from KXAN:



Small, but still scary. It's not like I live in Oklahoma ya know! I am not used to this kind of stuff! I guess we can have big tornados here though. My neighbor was telling me about the Jarrell tornado of 1997 that devestated the area just to the North of us and how that storm spun off tornados all over and tore up the old Albertsons down the road. So I guess we can get really giant scary tornadoes here (I have only lived in Central Texas since 2002). I'm sure glad that this storm only spit out funnel clouds a few tiny tornadoes. Phew! That was a close one!

And in other gardening news...

My Texas Bluebells are now beginning to bloom. Oooh pretty. I can see why these Bluebells have been nearly picked out of existence in the wild. Sometimes the Native American Seed company has seeds available for purchase.:



And the blue mistflower is simply covered in Queen butterflies. How many do you see in this photo? I count 10:



Last year my garden saw a duel between anoles, this year it is a duel of the geckos for the best bug-catching spot on the porch: