Texas Spring Means Wildflowers

Though sometimes during the past long, cold winter -- well, long for the Houston area -- I doubted if spring would ever come. I'm delighted to say that I was wrong.

Spring is here in its full glory: bluebonnets, pink primroses, orange Indian paintbrush,  and baby goats and fawns frolicking in the meadows.

Of course, the flipside of beauty is the dark side of spring. We've had that too in the form of a hail storm here at our house in the Hill Country last Saturday night. Marble-sized hail and a storm system that dropped the temperature from sixty to forty in the space of five minutes.

Though our wildflowers this year aren't as plentiful as usual due to our drought, I still give a silent thank you to the late Lady Bird Johnson. The former first lady was responsible for the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. She, like so many of us, had an abiding love for nature, and especially for wildflowers. As a result of that legislation, wildflower seeds were sown along the highways in Texas and mowing plans that allow for that germination and reseeding were instituted.

Takeaway Truth

So I salute the late Mrs. Johnson, founder of the National Wildflower Research Center, who said: "Where flowers bloom so does hope." That's a sentiment I want to believe.