Milberger’s

My husband had taken the day off today. We had no committments and, other than getting up to walk the dog, no where to be at any particular time. For us, this is a rarity to be cherished. On the spur of the moment we decided to go to the Antique Rose Emporium but within minutes of our arrival the sky opened up and down came some much needed rain. It’s dry here. It’s beyond dry, really. We entered stage 2 water restrictions several days ago. According to the LCRA we only got 13.76 inches of rain here last year, making for the third driest year on record since 1871. Suffice to say, while the rain might have ruined our plans, we didn’t complain too much.

Rain is a funny thing around Texas. When traveling through a storm one doesn’t gradually come to a softening edge of precipitation. No, it’s more like a wall of rain where visibility goes from clear to zero and things go from dry to wet. As funny as it sounds there are certain places where it’s not uncommon, due to whatever surrounding conditions influencing such matters, to see a storm on one side of the yellow line on a two-lane farm-to-market road while the other remains perfectly dry.

In typical fashion this storm had come out of nowhere with enough power to blow the electrical equipment at the top of a power pole right near us as we were stuck in traffic on 1604. Also in typical fashion the edge was a sort of demarcation line and so, rather retreating the full distance back to the house we stopped at Milberger’s. Milberger’s has been around pretty much forever, to hear my husband tell it, and if they don’t have it, you probably don’t need it. Potted plants, vegetable starts, water fountains, bird baths, pots, potting soil, top soil, mulch, shrubs, trees and tools, they have it all and in huge abundance. They had more hibiscus than you could shake a stick at. Just row after row after row of them in bright pinks, citrusy orange and scorching reds.

They had plenty of Esperanza as well, limbs drooping beneath the weight of clusters of sunshine yellow trumpets. This plant is literally everywhere, and it seems like it will grow in almost any condition. I’ve seen it in the ground, I’ve seen it growing in half wine-barrels, and I’ve seen it clinging tenaciously to the embankments on the side of the highway. As a native Texas plant, you just can’t go wrong with a tolerant plant like Esperanza, so long as you give it plenty of room and some well-draining neutral soil. It’s blooms seem to stay about almost year-round as well, livening things up from Spring to Fall.

As much as we’d like to have stayed awhile longer, the storm caught up with us within the hour. I did get a few more beautiful shots, however, which you can catch in the gallery.