Three White Flowers in Bloom Right Now: Happy 3 For Thursday

Do you like white flowers?  They seem so underappreciated, but can be so beautiful. Here are 3 in bloom here in Houston in early March.
And please go visit other 3 for Thursdays on my sidebar favorites. It's a fun way to organize your garden topics and all because of my garden friend, Cindy at http://www.mycornerofkaty.com/  Please go check out her wonderful garden. :-)

Black Foot Daisies already in bloom! Melampodium leucanthum

 Crow Poison  Nothoscordum bivalve

picked by schoolchildren to give to their teachers every Spring. It's poisonous if ingested, so don't eat it.

Bradford Pear is blooming on my street. Pyrus calleryana from Korea

THREE FOR THURSDAY: 3 " WHAT IS IT?" PICS FROM LAST WEEKEND

Do you like mystery and intrigue in the garden? I love it!
My wife's new camera brings out a whole new perspective on the flora and fauna. Here are 3 puzzling pictures that take a little deciphering to figure out. Happy Three for Thursday. Visit Cindy at My Corner of Katy for some more wonderful garden shots. She's the inventor of the style. And don't stop there! Try your own Three for Thursday. It's a fun way to show your garden to the world. :-)

                                  How this leaf managed to land in between the spikes is beyond me!

                              A butterfly puffball?  Notice the antennae peeking out above the leaf.

The textures are really weird at this stage, then fall off as the stems unfurl.

Answers:  1)Oak leaf wedged sideways in a Sago Palm, 2) Skipper butterfly behind leaf, 3) Terminal buds of a tropical plant (Erythrina)

THREE FOR THURSDAY: 3 AGAVES FROM MY COLLECTION

It's been 22 days since our last rain, so my thoughts turn again to what can grow in such dry conditions. These agaves are all fairly new to the garden, but are so far, very adaptable to both wet and dry fluctuations and high humidity. Not all agaves can perform such tricks. Thanks to Cindy from My Corner of Katy for the format and great ideas. You'll find her wonderful garden blog on my sidebar favorites.



In the foreground, Agave geminiflora. In the back, Agave americana.

Agave parryi var. parryi. There's also a A. parryi var. truncata for dry climates.

Both of these are quite beautiful and should be available in southern areas.

Agave desmettiana  'Joe Hoak'. This is a very difficult agave to grow in Houston and it's challenged my patience to the limit. This one is two or three years old and still pretty much a baby. I've not given up on it since it is so unusual.

Do you have a difficult plant that you haven't given up on? I'd love to know.

THREE FOR THURSDAY: 3 LEAVES ON LEAVES

Most of us garden bloggers have that artsy photo muse gene somewhere inside of us. And I'm one as well.
I love to find leaves on leaves. These were all from my garden this summer.

Old Bauhinia leaf fallen upon a palm

Curled up pecan leaf hung up on a bluish Sabal palm frond

                                 Freshly fallen pecan leaf on white bird of paradise leaf after a rain.
                     Thanks to Cindy at My Corner of Katy for starting Three for Thursday. Go visit her great garden blog over on my sidebar favorites.  }}}}}}Want to  you join in on the fun. Find any 3 garden related pics and post. Three cool bugs, three weeds that need whacking, or three bugs that bug ya.  :-0 Thanks for visiting Tropical Texana...where it MIGHT finally get cool in 4 days.  Lows in the 60s? Did I hear correctly? We've been waiting since May to hear those beautiful words here in HOT, HUMID, HOUSTON!!!

THREE FOR THURSDAY: 3 ABSTRACT PICS FROM THE PAST

Are you sad when you see the photos you've taken of plants you had in the past? These 3 shots are exactly that: tropical plants that fizzled out for whatever reason. Yet the memories are worth it and hey... we can always try again. Right?

Peace Lily ~ Spathiphyllum species ~large leaf variety

Cat palm in bloom. Died in the last freeze. I'll definitely try this one again.

Chamaedorea cataracterum

I actually had two gardens back in 2004. My neighbor let me grow all of our sunloving favorites in her front yard. We loved our sunflowers the most. This one even looks like the sun itself.

Sadly, my garden buddy passed away a number of years ago and our dual garden is now only a fond memory.

Gardens ebb and flow and I'm happy for the memories.

Do you have a nostalgic Three for Thursday tucked away?

Thanks to Cindy in Katy for the fabulous format. Please join us sometime. It's three related pictures of anything gardenesque.

THREE FOR THURSDAY: 3 TREES WITH FINE, FEATHERY FOLIAGE

Thanks to Cindy at My Corner of Katy for starting the Three for Thursday format. She's on my favorites list, so please go take a look. :-)

The mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) has some fantastic foliage. We had some on our farm growing up in the 60s and it's been in America since 1745. It's considered invasive in parts of Texas, so I probably would recommend Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) instead. It's really not a very common tree here in Houston. I can think of only 10 or so trees in my part of town. Leaf girdlers and a fusarium wilt make it very short-lived.

I wish we could grow Jacarandas here, but only a few survived the last freeze.

This is the Chinese Rain Tree (Koelreuteria elegans). There are 2 other Koelreuteria species commonly grown in the U.S. This one is the least cold hardy and least common. A freeze in 1983 and 1989 almost wiped them all out. Some people find them too aggressive. In my yard, 3 or 4 have voluntarily come up over the past 5 years. Compare that to the thousands of tree legustrum seedlings I have every year! Not bad.

I love them since I can't grow tree ferns anymore. These are best grown as an understory tree.

Check with a local urban forester to see if they are troublesome in your climate before you plant one.

Ours are kept in check by dry conditions and cold.

This is the pygmy date palm (Phoenix roebelenii). I lost all of mine in last year's freeze. It is

not nearly as cold hardy as some say. I'd say at 28 and below, cover it!

So why did I get some more? Because mine were about 7 feet tall and gorgeous when they died.

They are really beautiful shade tolerant palms and one of the few that have smaller trunks.

Some of the older ones survived down to 21 in parts of Houston, so they do become stronger as they age.

They look best grown in sets of three.

THREE FOR THURSDAY: 3 INSECT VISITORS TO TROPICAL TEXANA

Thanks again to Cindy from My Corner of Katy for thinking of this great idea. There are a number of us with this Thursday format, so why not join in? See my Blog Favorites and please go visit Cindy's  great garden! :-)

All gardeners know that the more time you spend observing, the more you see in a garden, even one that you  know inside and out. Here are three visitors we had this summer AND that held still long enough for me to photograph.

Always a favorite, this giant swallowtail just suddenly decided to land and soak up some sun. Fortunately, I had my camera.

If there are citrus trees in your neighborhood, chances are you'll see this visitor. I see them weekly and sometimes daily.

Looks scary, doesn't it? It was sucking on a fly when I first saw him. This Robber Fly is considered a good guy since they eat mosquitoes and flies.  The larvae live in soil and eat grubs and grasshopper eggs. My book on Texas insects says it can give a painful bite, so I didn't try to annoy him.

BTW: Click on the photo to enlarge and see his awesome 'feet'. He can catch prey by pouncing on them.

I wish this Green Fruit Beetle or Fig beetle had a cool name, but it doesn't. I see this member of the scarab family about once a year.

They are also considered good guys since the grubs live in soil and eat bad guys. The adults eat rotten fruit.

Latin name: Cotinis mutabilis, formerly known as Cotinis texana! (Wow!)

The underside is outstandingly irridescent and beautiful. He crawled away before I decided to go back outside and flip him over for another picture. I find them in our compost pile.

That's my Three for Thursday. Your turn. :0)