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A French-Inspired Garden and Home by Judith Stringham
Showing posts with label wild foxglove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wild foxglove. Show all posts

Beyond Bluebonnets

Sunday, May 3, 2015


Texas Indian Paintbrush
unusual pink color 

Spring in Texas is legendary for fields upon fields of wild bluebonnets, roadsides covered in bluebonnets, and backyards with bluebonnet patches. Newspapers publish subscriber's bluebonnet photos, Internet sites track where the latest bluebonnet fields are blooming, and every small town provides bluebonnet trail maps. Bluebonnets are spectacular, and seeing them in bloom was destined to become one of the rituals of my life each spring the first year I saw my first bluebonnet patch. Bluebonnets became one of the redeeming features of living in Texas.

Texas Bluebonnets
Ennis, Texas 

You see, Texas became home after marrying a long tall Texan who was serving in the US Navy in the Washington, D.C. area.  Before ever visiting Texas, Texas became my home, and my impressions of Texas were all based on second- and third-hand accounts from movies, books, television shows, and friends' and new family tales of Texas.  Not all of those impressions were positive.


Wild Foxglove
along Texas Hill Country roadside  

Have you ever seen The Last Picture Show, a black and white movie, set in a dying small west Texas town populated by townspeople who have affairs with each other, single and married? Their lives were unfulfilled with lost hopes and dreams. The most indelible scene in my mind shows a tumbleweed blowing across a dirty empty street with dust swirling across barren flat land in the background. We saw this movie the night before I was to have major surgery just three weeks after our wedding. Going to the movie was supposed to cheer me up, but instead drowned me in a sea of despair, causing me to cry as I asked my new husband if this was what Texas and the people were really like. He reassured me that this was not what Texas was like.


Winecups on roadside
Of course, after moving to Texas two years later, I discovered Texas was populated by good, kind-hearted people and was not black and white.  Indeed, each spring the land comes alive with stunning shows of multi-colors in wildflowers. Bluebonnets are only the first act.



Texas Indian Paintbrush
in unusual fuchsia color & common orange color

More than 5000 blooming plants make Texas their home, and each spring my spirit is renewed as I make pilgrimages just to look at what is blooming. To drive slowly along, windows rolled down, head and arms leaning out to try to spot every bloom, and to spot the unusual is an annual ritual. Over the years, together my long tall Texan and I discovered the beauty of Texas wildflowers. While he had seen them for years while growing up in Texas, he had never really looked at them before our outings.


Texas Indian Paintbrush
two unusual shades of pink 

Growing up in Alabama, spring meant cultivated flowers such as dogwoods and azaleas, but not  showy fields of wildflowers. Over the years, many a dogwood tree, azalea, and peony died in our yard in the Texas blazing summer heat as I tried to grow the plants from my childhood. Others have grown these successfully, but I cannot. Instead, I now appreciate the plants that do flourish in Texas.


Texas Indian Paintbrush in deep pink 

The pinks, fuchsias, and peaches like these Texas Indian Paintbrushes are not as common as the orangey-red Paintbrushes that grow in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Each year I keep a look out for pastel Paintbrushes, and these pastel Paintbrushes were spotted in Brazos County.


Texas Indian Paintbrush 
Texas is now my home by choice. Now retired, I could move anywhere, but I see beyond the bluebonnets to my friends and family who also are Texans. If you look for me, you know where to find me.
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Hico Antique Show and Wildflowers

Saturday, May 4, 2013

A long-time friend invited me to join her 
and a couple of our mutual friends
for a visit to her Texas country house.

The visit included

Hico, Texas Antique Show, April 26-27, 2013
sponsored by Sugar Moon Antiques

and

Texas wildflowers.
The view from the back deck of my friend's country house...

Wildflowers and an antique show...
I couldn't say, "Yes!" fast enough.



The entrance into the Hico Antique Show tent...
Yes, that is part of a genuine Texas windmill.
When I first moved to Texas almost 40 years ago,
I saw working windmills on many farms and ranches
pumping water into tanks for livestock.



Maps and globes draw me...
My globe collection numbers about ten.



This display of white stoneware and brown and white transfer ware 
is just stunning!  Looks better than my house!
I love the shabby white wooden awning...

The metal food covers with handles were in all sizes.
Unfortunately, nothing in this booth was in my price range.
I will just have to be content looking at this photo
over... and over... and over.....

Now, I'm studying it for design elements.


The white impatiens in the brown wooden box 
are the perfect complement to the dishes.
Oh, yes, isn't that framed picture also just perfect?

Every time I look at this vignette, I see something 
not noticed before.

Do you think the background is a drop cloth?




Be still my heart.
Blue and white transfer ware in a metal chest with blue interior...




Lots of old metal items including gears...  
See the blue gear on the table in the background?
The attached tag recommended using it as a candle holder.




The old washboard has truly beautiful wood.
The curved wooden frame is one continuous piece of wood.
I love the patina.

Once again, the vendor's vignettes were so much fun to view.
This show was just beautiful with plants mixed in with the items for sale.
Great styling...

After browsing the antiques in the tent,
we went to antique shops in Hico.
One antique mall of several dealers had great prices.



On to the famous
Hico Homestead Antique Store
Started by the same folks that owned the
Fredericksburg Homestead.
The Hico store now owned by someone else.



One of my favorite things in the Homestead store is this 
old iron horse painted white.
I don't think it came from a carousel.  Those are usually wooden.
I think this was used for children to ride.
You know, drop a nickel in a box for about five minutes' ride...

At the end of the antiquing day in Hico,
we drove through beautiful countryside filled with
wildflowers.



My friend graciously stopped the car for a closer look
at these wild foxgloves native to Texas.



So beautiful...called for a photo shoot 
with one of my new found treasures from Hico...
The pink ruffled-edge cake plate came from the 
antique show under the tent.

An Indian Paintbrush is just opening in the foreground.
This one's color is a soft peach, not the 
more common bright orange.



We had banana nut muffins in the car with us for a snack.
While I was sitting on the ground taking my photos, my friends were leaning
out the car windows taking photos of me ... taking photos.
Cars passing by s-l-o-w-e-d for a look.
Yes, I was the only one walking around in the flowers taking close-ups,
styling with my new little dish and banana nut muffins.
We were all laughing having a great time! 




I waited until I was home to take photos of the other treasures found in Hico.
This soup tureen has no lid, but I like the yellow foxglove and tiny purple flowers.
It is hanging at the end of my kitchen cabinet.




The green and yellow floral planter will hold an eight-inch plant,
but I like this small lavender plant in it for now.



 
Back home, the pink cake plate will be great next Easter.





Two small metal printers' stamps will make wonderful little
cards and clay tags.




Who's up for a road trip May 24-25 to Hico?

Homestead is sponsoring another Antique Fair.
Very likely, many of the vendors who were at the
Sugar Moon Antiques' show 
will return for Homestead's fair.

Maybe a second chance at some of the transfer ware
I passed up in April...

But, for sure, there will be some kind of wildflowers
on the road there and back.





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