April Showers Bring May Flowers.

Growing up, I heard my Mom say “April showers bring May flowers” every spring. I remember hoping and wishing it would rain a lot in April because I so loved the flowers of May. Unfortunately, growing up in Texas, April showers were not as prevalent as I had hoped for. Many a spring passed with little rainfall and consequently the May flowers were a bit disappointing. On the flip side, sometimes it would rain so much (read lots of flooding) that we hardly had any flowers at all. Texas weather can be a bit harsh but every once in a while we get the perfect amount of rain and the flowers are stunning.

Some of the most beautiful May wildflowers in Texas are butterfly milkweed, purple poppymallow, lanceleaf tickseed, purple coneflower, firewheel, bloodsage, daisies, and wild bergamot. These flowers create a dazzling display of color and texture to the Texas landscape and it was a favorite game of mine growing-up to try and name each of these- of course I gave many of them my own creative names. Purple poppymallow became purple marshmallow, purple cornflower (my favorite) became purple umbrella, and bloodsage became red weeds.

Many friends have gotten married surrounded by the beautiful hill country flowers of central Texas- they were lucky that it turned out to be a just-rainy-enough year, and there are few people who grew up here who haven’t had their pictures taken in the middle of the stunning wildflowers. Sadly, it is looking like one of those years where April showers will be few and far between so I’m not holding out high hopes for May flowers. Nevertheless, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.