The Nature of Things

Salvia, commonly called sage, is the largest genus of plants in the very large mint family, Lamiaceae . Within the genus, there are nearly a thousand species. They include a wide variety of growth forms such as shrubs, herbaceous perennials, and annuals. Some even have hallucinogenic properties. There are salvias that are native to practically every region of the world. One that is native to the rocky soils in Central, West, and South Texas, as well as Mexico, is Salvia greggii , often called autumn sage or cherry sage. I grow many different kinds of salvia in my garden, but I have to admit a particular fondness for Salvia greggii . These salvias are characterized by small, dull pale green, glandular, aromatic leaves. They are essentially small evergreen shrubs that have a loose, open growth. They normally have red flowers, although, through the work of horticulturists, you can now find them in many different colors, including orange, yellow, fuchsia, salmon, purple, red-violet, burgun...

The Old Wine Shades by Martha Grimes My rating: 4 of 5 stars A man walks into a pub and starts telling a story to a stranger. The stranger is Superintendent Richard Jury of New Scotland Yard and the storyteller allegedly has no idea who he is. Over the next three nights, he returns to the bar to meet with Jury and continue telling him his baffling story. The story concerns a woman who has disappeared, along with her nine-year-old son and their dog. The man claims the woman is (was?) the wife of a friend of his, a physicist who is now in a psychiatric hospital, having suffered a breakdown because of the unexplained disappearances. The disappearance occurred some nine months before. The woman, child, and dog had gone to Surrey to look at some property. The couple was considering moving there. They looked at one house and had tea with the residents and then went on to a second property. The woman was seen there but neither she nor her son have been seen since, seemingly having vanished i...

Don't forget to wear your green! Click to enlarge for easier reading .

Purple Martins are among the earliest spring migrants to return to our area each year, normally arriving in late January or early February. They were reported in the area on schedule this year, but I had not seen or heard any over my yard until this week.  On Monday, while working in the garden, I heard that familiar liquid, warbling call overhead and looked up to see three of the birds circling over my backyard. Since then I've seen and heard them every day - old friends back again.   That familiar shape was a welcome sight. Martins really are one of my favorite summer visitors. For several years, we hosted an active colony of the birds in our backyard every summer. We had put up a couple of martin mansions for their nesting and summer habitation, and I waited impatiently every year to see when the first bird would return. All summer long I enjoyed their circling flights overhead. Their voices were the music of the season for me. Unfortunately, all of that came to an end a f...

Our temperature got up to 90 degrees F yesterday and is expected to flirt with 90 over the next few days. Last week we got seven inches of rain over a three day period. The air is yellow with pine and oak pollen. Welcome to the Ides of March in Southeast Texas. And if it is March in Texas, there must be bluebonnets blooming. This wild allium seeded itself in one of my flower beds a few years ago. I liked it so much I kept it and propagated it. Now it blooms for me every March. Some of the citrus trees are in bloom. This is a Mandarin orange tree, covered in blossoms. The wild oxalis that infests many of my flower beds is in bloom. It'll soon be disappearing now that the temperatures are heating up. The purple oxalis that I planted on purpose is also in bloom. Indian hawthorn ('Clara') is a staple in gardens hereabouts.   Violas are still blooming. I do love their sweet little blossoms. The Copper Canyon daisy that in a normal winter would have long been dormant is still blo...

The headline in Slate read "Is Hillary Clinton likable enough to beat Trump?"   I read it and felt my blood begin to boil! Does any media type ever ask the question "Is Trump likable enough to beat Hillary Clinton?" Indeed, does any media type ever ask such an insulting, demeaning question of any male politician? Admittedly, I haven't seen everything written or heard every broadcast political interview or pundit's analysis but I am not aware of any such question being asked of them. If you ever begin to think that our society has made progress in effecting equality of treatment between the sexes, all you have to do is watch and listen to the coverage of this presidential election season to see how very wrong you are. Sexism and outright misogyny still dominate. There is one rule for covering Hillary Clinton and another rule (or no rules) for covering any of the male candidates. She is always held to the stricter standard. As just one example, she is called...