Texas Native Plants & Wildflowers Picture Directory

Due to adopting a new pet that needed constant training and supervision for a year and now having been given a young bird that needs constant training and various health problems of my family and myself, I have not been able to search for, photograph and gather information about our Texas native plants for quite some time. Nor have I been able to work in my garden. I visited the Texas Native Plants & Wildflowers Picture Directory this morning thinking that with all of the rain and the abundance of wildflowers this year that there would be lots of new entries here. All categories except one categories have not been added to since 2007, 2008 and the fall of 2009. I was saddened that this project has few updated material. Thank you debnes_dfw_tx and Allwild for posting to the Yellow Bloom section.this spring. This is a worthy project and can be very useful. Please help with posting photos and information here. Maybe one day soon I will be able to do so again.

For those who know me, I am doing better now as evidenced by the sequential photos that follow. I lost over 35 pounds and my muscles deteriorated in a short period of time due to undiagnosed diabetes. There are still other problems as well. I am posting this so anyone else who might have sudden, unplanned weight loss and/or muscle shrinking will seek medical help to determine if they are diabetic. I never thought that diabetes could do this even though my husband is a diabetic. :

Photo of myself in early May after being diagnosed with diabetes after severe weight loss at the beginning of March and in May having the glucose levels well under control with changing my diet and taking medication:

Me at the first of June ...

Me July 4 ...
May God bless all my friends at Dave's who have emailed me inquiring about where I have been and/or have been wondering if I'm still around.

Excellent! I am so glad to see you posting! My thoughts and prayers have been with you in your absence. You have shared a valuable wealth of plant information and your assistance and kindnesses have been appreciated. Wishing you only the best! Kristi

Definitely. I'm amazed by the all the work you did filling in PlantFiles info for many of the natives.

I wouldn't be too concerned if folks aren't much adding to the wildlflower by color threads. That probably just means they are well-populated with all the obvious flowers. Everything I've tried to look for this summer has already been right there.

Glad to hear you're on an upward course.

Thanks for your kind words, Kristi.

realbirdlady, I was hoping that some plants that weren't already listed would have grown from seed that had lain dormant through our prolonged drought. Thank you for your nice comments.

Hazel!! it is so good to hear from you and to know you are doing well now, you look positively beautiful my dear.
I haven't been posting on the directory simply because I have too many irons in the fire since retiring.
I have gotten into so many projects that I had to slow down on some of them, but I am still quite active on Dave's and the Texas forum.
Please stay in touch.
Josephine.

Thanks , Josephine. I a m intending to try to be more active here again. I sure have missed everyone. I have been able to work in my yard some the past 2 weeks. I have a lot to do.

I didn't see you before Hazel...but you look fantastic and healthy now. Look to hearing more from you.

Super beautiful lady. Will pray for your continuing improvement in your health. When I first joined, in 2005, Mitch told me to watch for your posts.

Sheila_FW, I'm trying to build my muscles back up ... what better way than working in the yard. Thanks for your comment. I have missed chatting with you here. Have been checked for cancer from head to toe with many screening tests and have been blessed by no cancer cells being found except for skin cancers which I have had removed for numerous years.

LouC, thank you for your comments and prayers. I have enjoyed our past conversations. I received good news yesterday that I do not have lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune hepatitis, Sjogren's disease nor primary biliary cirrhosis of the liver. Again, I have been blessed.

Great news being clear on those tests. Hope you can get the diabetes under control and regain the muscle strength. You are right about the gardening to do that. I get up sometimes feeling the twinges of two past back surgeries and refuse to give in. After being out in the yard working for a few hours all I feel are sore muscles from over doing it.
I look forward to more posts from you, and who knows maybe getting to meet one day.

My diabetes has been well under control for several months now. The doctors have been concerned because I continue to lose weight. I think it's just because I'm watching what I eat and am going back down to my "normal" weight. But, the doctors want to rule out any possibility of some other problem going on.

Back surgery must be awful. I hope that your surgeries solved your problems. I bet when you feel good you overwork. Do you rest for a while between yard chores? When I recovered from my quadruple bypass heart surgery so quickly, my cardiologist told me that my gardening is what had kept me so strong. I passed the walking stress test before the surgery even though 5 of my arteries were 90% blocked. I was walking around the hospital with no assistance the day after getting out of ICU and everyone was amazed. Of course, that was when my muscles were in condition. They are slowly building ... I keep forgetting that it took some time for them to deteriorate so it's going to take some time to rebuild them.

I hope that we are able to visit in person some day. I have been caring for my husband since last August after he had foot surgery (on the sole) which eventually required a skin graft which still has not completely healed so I can't really go anywhere for any length of time because of his doctor visits and because he can't walk very much.

Oh...didn't pick up on the diabetes being under control now, that is super. Also to have gone through the bypass, it does speak for gardening as a healthy activity. Hope the DH heals without any further set backs. It is not easy to be a caregiver, but we know that they would do for us. So many people don't have family to care for them, he is blessed. I hope you have someone come in occassionaly so you can take some time for yourself, it can be stressfull.
As for my back, it doesn't give me any problems except for the mornings before I get moving. I had a good surgeon, and I am sure he had several good vacations. I say that because my DH has had four back surgeries and me the two. We over did it when we built our koi pond and other landscaping. We don't have access to our back yard big enough for a front end loader or back hoe. So we hauled it all by wagon or dollie, and dug with shovels. In hind sight we could have gotten out cheaper by paying someone to do the pond and retaining walls! But thank the Lord he has gone a year or more without another.

It sure would be nice to finally meet you Hazel, if you come up this way one these days, maybe we could have a get group together, it would be great!

That would be fun!!!

Yes indeed it would. There have been several I have met from around TX but so many more yet to meet.

i want to be there

Sorry to hear about your health problems, but I'm glad that your blood sugar is under control and you're back in the garden! Good to see you posting again, too.

Thanks.