Oh, by the way…

First, I confess that I swiped the picture I used in this month’s header. And then I have to tell you it’s an old photo – you won’t find such bluebonnet abundance around Austin this year. In fact, we didn’t even see any bluebonnets at all until Easter Sunday this year, and the patches we see even now are really disappointing. Bluebonnets need appropriate amounts of rain at just the right times in order to really put on a show and that just didn’t happen here this year. Other wildflowers are contributing to the show, but bluebonnets didn't make it this year.

We did notice that you can buy flats of blooming bluebonnets at Home Depot. We considered getting some, but we didn’t know where we would put them. Knowing our lawn crew, they would probably get mowed down, anyway.

The bluebonnet almost wasn’t the State Flower of Texas. There was an acrimonious battle between the groups that proposed the cotton boll, the prickly pear bloom and the bluebonnet – and when they did decide on the bluebonnet the Ledge named Lupinus subcarnosus, a rather plain variety that grows only in a few places in Texas (because that happened to be the species that they had a painting of). So many people preferred the showier and more wide-spread texensis, in 1971 the Legislature made any species of bluebonnet the State Flower. Aren’t you glad to learn that?

And oh, by the way – it is not against the law to pick bluebonnets along the right-of-way. State and National Parks, yes; right-of-ways, no. You may get a ticket for parking illegally, but you can pick away.