February Finishes With Flowering Fanfare

Even with this February being a once every four years Leap Year, it's ends without much fanfare.  At least here on CollectInTexas Gal.

However, it has contributed Five February Collection posts to the Collection Label.
~Violet Survivors
~Hearts, Hats and Hello From 1903
~Fan of Fans and A Family Fannie
~Please Pass the Peas and Pass On the Phone
~February Hanky and Headache Vase

This February also presented the opportunity to explore and write about 'Leap Year'...February 2016~An Uncommon Solmonath...where I stepped out on ledge and declared February to be a Horologists/Astrologist nightmare with these stats...

~February 2016  STARTS on MONDAY and ENDS on MONDAY!
~There will be NO FULL MOON!
~A rodent named Phil will NOT see his shadow due to predicted cloud cover!
~Croaking Wood Frogs will NOT emerge from the 'Middle Ages Mud'!

 

 

It all happened, too...except...THERE WAS A FULL MOON!!!  Yep, the Horologist/Astrologist got it wrong for there it was a 'Full February Moon' on Monday, February 22nd.  At least it followed the Monday-Monday pattern.

Then there was the Rodent Phil's prediction of an early spring.  Boy, did he get it right this year...at least here in Texas.  It has been an Uncommonly Warm Solmonath, with early buds and blooms of trees, bushes, flowers and WEEDS...February Flowering Plant or Weed?

 

I do hope Phil consulted with Texas Mother Nature and suggested she not pull an

April Fools Freeze on February's Flowering Fanfare.

 

February Flowering Plant or Weed?

For years I have saved this flowering plant from the 'Weed Wacker's Wicked Knife' under the auspice that anything that flowers in Texas is not a weed.  He...the 'Weed Wacker'...agreed to leave them in the rocks and along the edges of borders and fences.

But NOT in the middle of his lawn! 

For years, he has assured me this pretty bright pink flower is most definitely a weed and a menace in the grass.  But then, anything other than blades of Bermuda and Saint Augustine are weeds and target for his wicked knife. 

Yes he weeds with a knife.

Once again I saved this February Flowering plant from the knife, and decided once and for all to prove or disapprove it's botanical species.  By the way, if it turns out to be a Texas Wildflower...it get's to thrive among the blades of the lawn.  The 'Weed Wacker' agreed.

It is called 'Henbit'.

It is not a Texas Wildflower although it is beginning to bloom along the roadsides like the Bluebonnet, Indian Paint Brush, Wild Verbena and others.  It's early greenery is sprouting and the tiny buds are blooming in manicured lawns, early flowering gardens and landscaped rock gardens.  Why so early in February?  Because the 'Weed Wacker' and other 'Weeder's' did not treat their lawns and gardens with a Pre-emergent aka Wicked Knife. 

It is a WEED.

Not even a native weed, but a pernicious non-native one.

pernicious...having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way.

synonyms:  damaging, destructive, wicked, malevolent, noxious, poisonous. 

It is a winter annual and will be dead by late spring but drops, many, many seeds!

Mark one for the 'Weed Wacker' and his Wicked Knife.