Rewilding My Lot

I have been looking forward to this year’s display of bluebonnets in the “meadow” in front of the house since there are a much greater number of plants than last year. Last year’s plants produced plenty of seed and I’ve been watching the hundreds of new plants grow since November.

They stayed close to the ground until the last of the winter freezes and then started growing taller. On March 6 I spotted the first flower bud and there are already several more.

That’s the good news.

On the afternoon of March 6 I noticed that a significant area of the bluebonnets in the center of the meadow were wilting, whereas they had looked fine just a few hours earlier. Those are the pale patches in the photo below.

By March 8 I could see that there were some plants in the meadow that were looking very sorry and others that were better but nevertheless had leaves curling at the edges. Some plants look fine, however. In total, there may be about 80% of the meadow that is affected, but how badly I don’t know yet.

So what has happened?

I have no proof, but this is my theory…

We had some very windy days in early March. What I am seeing is consistent with a cloud of herbicide that has drifted from some other area that was being treated with a spray.

So this is my earnest plea — PLEASE, if you feel that you have to use a herbicide or pesticide spray, DON’T DO TREATMENTS ON WINDY DAYS. You just don’t know what the unintended and irreversible consequences might be.