Sporadic growth, early morning glories more cause for climate concern | Leggett

We all know I’m no gardener. I don’t have a lawn, just a few native plants in front of the house.

But for years I walked and ran a mile from our house up to FM 3509 and back. Along the way I would pass a small spot of morning glories that grew off the ground and wound their way onto a fence just off the road.

I was always excited to see them when they began to bloom and came to sort of consider the plant my own. However, one year the landowner there decided to clean up along that fence line, and the morning glories were pulled out and destroyed.

Becoming a part of my daily routine

That had to be at least 10 years ago, and I’d given up on finding them growing there in the early summer. But one day last summer, in June, I was walking along that same stretch of road and was shocked to see several lavender flowers growing up through a thicket of live oak.

I admired them and showed them to a neighbor but forget about them as summer heated up. They came back this year, but I was concerned because they and several other plants wound up blooming way early, either because of the rains we were getting or because the earth’s biological clock is seriously screwed up.

I have lately begun to believe a lot of the clamoring about climate change around the world, and when I see something like the morning glories blooming in late May, it worries me. Not as much as the tiny lace cactus, which typically blooms in early June.

When that happens, we are blessed with a riotous landscape with dozens of fluorescent pink blooms, which last only a single day and then are gone. It’s a stunning display by the smallish cactus, which is sometimes called a hedgehog cactus.

Either way, they are my favorite desert plants here in the Hill Country, and when they bloom in the spring, usually late May or early June, they give me a delightful day of bloom watching and make me happy.

Signs of concern if you look for them

Did I tell you that they all bloom on the same day and you can see them hanging off the side of cliffs along the highway or dotting the brush and wild areas alongside people’s yards here where we live? The worrisome part of the agreement we have with the lace cactus is that this year all the little guys bloomed at least a month ahead of time, maybe more.

What’s more, my morning glories have stopped blooming and gone into hiding. And we didn’t get any fawns in the neighborhood until mid-June, which is late for us. I don’t know how early blooms on flowers and late fawn arrival match up, and maybe I’m just projecting doom onto the natural world in Burnet County.

But if Baffin Bay starts creeping up through Kingsville and inching way into the Hill Country, remember: You read it here first. Sort of.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Sporadic growth, early morning glories more cause for climate concern | Leggett