San Marcos Record, San Marcos, TX

October 24, 2009

From brown to green with TLC

By Rowe Ray

Crockett Elementary students spent some time Saturday morning doing their part to keep San Marcos beautiful by planting bluebonnets on the hill behind the school.

For local residents to scratch the often-rocky Central Texans soil to bury a few wildflower seeds isn’t really something unusual.

But, then, this hasn’t been the usual year.

The intense heat and dry-as-a-bone summer has left a good bit of San Marcos looking a bit peaked, as some of our grandmothers often said.

With the return of rainfall and mild temperatures, San Marcos is growing green once again.

A quick look around at local yards, however, paints a challenging picture of the hard work and expense homeowners face in bringing yards back to life.

As heat and drought beat us down this past summer, some of us pretty much gave up on green.

Perhaps the efforts of these young and wide-eyed Crockett students will help us realize that all is not lost.

We can be blue over our landscape losses and let brown win the war, or we can fill our wagons with dirt, compost and rakes and get back to work putting that glow back into local landscapes.

As our little bluebonnet planters showed us Saturday, a little spirited TLC can go a long way toward helping to make the world right – and colorful – once again. RHR