Our longest, prettiest season

Here in South Texas, our spring starts in late February. Then the evergreen mountain laurels flaunt their royal purple blossoms and the bare branches of crabapple, peach, and plum trees reveal pink buds ready to break into flower.

Around Texas Independence Day — that's March 2, of course — the woods and pastures begin to fill with phlox in a medley of red, pink, and purple. Indian paintbrushes daub their reds and golds across greening fields.

Soon enough the bluebonnets take over, spreading their brilliant hues across prairies and hillsides. Gaillardias in flame and bronze follow with various sizes of yellow sunflowers that look like daisies, and verbenas in lavender blue.

Evergreen anaqua trees will greet the spring with showy pink blossoms. These trees ornament many yards in Seguin, though the semi-tropical species rarely grows north of here.

The countryside color reaches a crescendo about mid-April. You'd better get here to see the roadside wildflowers before they start to go to seed. Then someone is likely to declare them "weeds" and send out mowers to cut them down.