was my first thought upon entering the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin.
Not true though.
It’s only that they have such a massive presence everywhere you look.
Other flowers also are poking up.
Most of them I don’t know by name, though the garden is if anything overboard with its signage. Now even I can recognize coral honeysuckle.
I know what I like. The shy kind of blooms. I feel that way sometimes too.
Trees flowering also. Mexican plum.
Other fetching amusements. Tiny lily pads in a discreet little pond. Tiny tadpoles, soon to be tiny frogs.
A hobbit door for children, unfortunately not open for visitors small or big at the moment.
Something else wonderful, a gazebo that has benches of repurposed wood, with each of the boards labeled. Live oak, harvested from Dell Medical School campus in Austin.
You can run your hand along the grain and know the tree that gave it to you.
Sculptures of wildlife dot the woodland trails.
This forest is wonderful, private, shady. A massive post oak.
But you always come back to the native beds.
What is the name of those wonderful flowers? Who cares? The air has a syrupy sweetness. There’s mountain laurel.
A few monarchs already float by, though many more will come to this pollinator sanctuary. I rest on a bench, and something tickles the back of my neck. Oh, wouldn’t you know, Anacardiaceae, in the sumac family. Should’ve recognized ya.
I’m leaving to fly home to New York, but will definitely come back when the beds are a riot of color.
Jean Zimmerman 