Welcome!

Welcome to austinagrodolce … My family and I garden with more intention and enthusiasm than allocated budget or overall design plan. It shows. Wildlife populations don't seem to notice our lack of cohesive design, they just like the native plants here. It seems by growing local we've thrown out a welcome mat. Occasionally, we're surprised at who (and what) shows up.



Saturday, June 7, 2014

After the Rain

Everything is happier when we get a good rain.  As we are heading away from May with its generous chances for precipitation, I wanted to stop a moment and reflect on how lovely it was to live in a world that was, for once, well wetted.

The plants, the wildlife, the gardeners, everything and everybody responds enthusiastically to a thorough soaking.
The overcast skies delivering drenching rain create other opportunities, including a subdued appreciation of ordinarily brilliant blooms.

A good rain in concert with the residual moisture in its wake, gently coaxes out the rarely seen.

Including a stunning display growing on the stump and root remnants of a hackberry tree shown below.   

I don't know what type of mushrooms these are, but I'm lost in admiration of their exquisite forms.  If ever a fungus deserved the designation "floral", these certainly fit the bill.  Another hackberry trunk nearby served in past years as a home styled bottle tree.  I share that to explain the appearance of the cork mulch. 
As has happened before with birds and bees, butterflies and moths, I searched high and low to identify this fungi without definitive results.  I sense a new obsession taking form....

4 comments:

Rock rose said...

Those fungi look good enough to eat! i wonder if they are edible. Yes, the rain worked wonders- the Texas sage and rain lilies are starting to bloom. What is that first plant. It looks like a euphorbia. Weed?

TexasDeb said...

Jen: It is good to have you back in Texas! That first plant is a Coral Honeysuckle, after the flowers have been pollinated. Not so showy as the blooms but still interesting...

I so wished I could taste just a little of those mushrooms - I think they looked absolutely delicious but the warnings about not doing that are so abundant I heeded them...reluctantly.

Debra said...

Brava. These are *amazing* photos. With all the moisture and shade we have I have been researching outdoor mushroom cultivation. I bet the people at 100th Monkey Mushroom Farm would help you identify that beauty. They are local and seem like really nice people.
http://www.100thmonkeymushrooms.com/about-us/our-story/

TexasDeb said...

Debra: Thanks for the ID tip - I will check it out. We don't get mushrooms often but these, if edible, would be worth the effort to cultivate. They appeared in abundance and to my eye anyway, certainly looked delicious!