The Sage in Bloom, Is Like Perfume

The Texas Sage, cenizo, has been putting on quite the show this week.

We finally have been getting some wonderful, glorious rain.

Some call this a barometer plant....it predicts rain, or will burst into bloom after a rain.  Strangely, the ones in our neighborhood have been blooming most of the summer.....the hot, very dry summer.  Not ours, though.  They only bloomed once, and it wasn't quite the show I expected.  I'm not sure why the others bloomed, without a hint of rain.

But, this week the rains came.  And, the sage bloomed.

This one is kind of scraggly.  It really needs to be pruned back quite a bit.  It's in the southwest bed, along the side of the house.  A bed in much need of work. 

The heat and my laziness this summer has kept me from doing much more than the watering chores.... just keeping things alive.

But, these sage bushes thrive on hot and dry.  And then, when they get some humidity and rain, they show their gratitude by giving us these wonderful blooms.

The rain weighed the limbs down....

And, scattered purple petals...making a colorful carpet over the ground.

We got several days of rain.  I'd like to tell you our total, but the batteries in the digital rain gauge went out the first day.  So, we can only guess the amount it missed.  What was recorded was about 5 inches.  And, there was more that didn't get recorded.

We were lucky to have just a steady, gentle rain.  Other parts of the area had some flash flooding.  That's Texas for you....drought and flood.

Of course, the drought isn't near over.  We'll need a lot more rain to get things back to where they need to be.  But, we're all happy to have the rains this week.  It made life much more liveable here.

Deep in the Heart of Texas