Pictures!!! Finally! Part 1

The first group of pictures I'll post will be from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. If you ever get to Austin, it's a place you need to go visit.
Our intrepid tour guide, who was able to tell us a lot about the buildings and the rainwater collection system the center uses. Their cisterns and irrigation system are amazing. They rarely have to supplement the irrigation system with water from the municipal system. And every cistern that's in the view of the visitors has its own beauty.

Even as you enter, you begin to see the native plants, looking as if they'd rather be no where else.

Bluebonnets, the state flower of Texas. They not only grow here, but, thanks to Lady Bird Johnson, they are actively planted and cultivated by the Texas Department of Transportation. They are seeded in areas that have had new construction of highways, the medians and the land and embankments along the highways. That land is mowed sometime in the fall, and then not mowed again until after most of the wildflowers have set the seeds for next year. We have Mrs. Johnson to thank for that. The private landowners are encouraged to plant wild flowers in their fields. I wonder sometimes, how many species we might have lost if small things like flowers hadn't been celebrated and protected.

There are things of beauty placed everywhere, even in this corner where an arched entryway meets a wall.

The member's garden, and a statue.


Tucked farther back, an alcove with a rustic bench and a cross-vine draped over a fence. I would guess that this area is probably visited by a lot of butterflies and any passing humming birds.

Indian Paintbrushes are a good pairing with bluebonnets and the dozens of varieties of yellow flowers that greet spring.

Everywhere you look, there is something special to see, both large,

and small. This is a Pink Evening Primrose. I love this flower. It looks so delicate, yet can cling tenaciously to even the worst of soils and find a way to both survive and make where it lives a more beautiful place to be.

There are several water features in the center, though ponds aren't a usual feature of the area. This pond does hold several species of water plant I recognize as plants growing in the area spring fed rivers. I'm glad they're represented too. This pond came equipped with minnows to eat the mosquitoes and some Red eared Slider turtles to eat the minnows and larger water bugs.

I didn't get to see everything in the center, I was in my electric cart and it couldn't go everywhere. But, I think I got to see a beginning. I'd like to go back again and explore.