Just got back from a three-day symposium on native plants and prairies in Georgetown, Texas, jointly sponsored by the Native Plant Society of Texas and the Native Prairie Association of Texas. Over 400 people attended the event which was chock-full of great speakers and great ideas, about which I will have more to say later.
Although I have zoomed through Georgetown on the interstate countless numbers of times, this was the first I’d stopped to see what it was actually like. It turned out to be a neat little college town, with a lively town square, and lots of beautiful restored old houses. Unfortunately its also got a busy interstate highway and uncontrolled growth.
It’s said to be the most popular retirement spot in Texas and a good part of the reason is that it has it’s own little suburb called Sun City, which is a planned retirement community. Our symposium was actually held in the facilities at Sun City and they are first-rate. They have their own auditorium, activity center, sports facility, and hiking trails. It looks like a great place to live if you like a lot of planned activities and don’t mind living in a house that looks exactly like a thousand others.
On the way home we took a detour and I made my first ever visit to Crawford. An NPAT member who lives there has restored a prairie remnant that he lucked upon a few years ago. It’s mostly little bluestem which is standing chest high this year.
Comments (4)
Bill, you should have called on the Austin bloggers, being so close for three days. Georgetown is a great, little town, just a hop, skip, and a jump up I-35 from here.
That bluestem shot is nice. Sure looks like fall in Texas.
Pam: You know I did not realize that I was so close until I started thinking about where all that growth was coming from.
My time was taken up from 7 am to 9 pm the whole time I was there. Talk about planned activities.
Thank you so much for your review of my blog on Ronni Bennett’s “Time Goes By” site. I especially appreciate that you did your homework, sampling a wide variety of posts, and that you put some thought into what you wrote.
Not only did your kind words make my day, but the link led me here to this lovely blog and your gorgeous photos. You do beautiful work, both in the garden and behind the camera.
Thanks again, Bill. What a nice way to meet you!
Note to Readers:
Ronni Barrett in her As time goes by blog invited readers to pick an item from her blogroll and write a short review of it. I picked Velvet Sacks at random and it turned out to be pretty interesting reading
It is an interesting kind of meme by the way. You might want to try it yourself.
-Bill
One of these days we might get lucky and meet you and Tricia - and I’m glad to hear you found the symposium worth while. That’s a nice photo of the little bluestem. I was trying to get a patch of it established at our former Illinois garden - and your photo makes me wonder if the people who bought our house kept it.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose