It’s Saturday, and the sedum watch continues into week 4! Wild sedums at the Lost Madrone Ranch in Comfort, Texas continue growing closer toward their yellow bloom.

If you missed any of the first three Saturday Sedum Watch postings, click here for the stories from March 4, March 11, or March 18 to learn about Sedum nuttallianum, a succulent perennial plant native to Texas.

So far, ruby red, rosy pink, lime green, and pale green are the shades observed over the past few weeks.

The soft shades of pink and green are lovely.

As the sedums grow, the red color is seen mostly on the lower leaves and stems.

The slowest growing sedums are still along the edges of the limestone rock outcropping where the soil is the most shallow. Even there, the red color of the sedums is giving way to varying shades of green.

The fairy-sized forest referred to in last week’s post is more dense and slightly taller this week.

As the sedums lengthen with new layers of leaves, their stubby plump leaves are thinning in profile.

The taller sedums are stretching above, around, and through the surrounding rocks and leaves

and are flopping over, widening their footprint across the hillside.

Lifting these dried stems off a patch of sedums

reveals the most mature sedums I have seen this year. The stems are an inch or two long.

Compare how the leaves have changed — from looking like stubby red stones to little green corn dogs.

The grass is greening up and becoming thicker, but the sedums are still mixed deep within the turf.

Where the sedums are still red, they are easy to find between the blades of grass.

Once the sedums have turned green, it takes a closer look to realize they are interspersed throughout the grass.

This Saturday Sedum Watch has spanned only four weeks — my what a change.

Here is what the ground looked like up close, four weeks ago, when the sedums were first growing through the soil.

Zooming out, the sedum site near the house was winter brown.

This week the ground up close is a melody of native forbes, grasses, and green sedums.

Zooming out, the sedum site this week is springing with green.

Did you know every year, Pantone — the world-renowned authority on color, and the company that provides the standardized color numbering system used to communicate about color in design, manufacturing, and retail around the world — selects a color of the year?

According to Pantone, the color of the year is “a symbolic color selection; a color snapshot of what we see taking place in our global culture that serves as an expression of a mood and an attitude.”

The Pantone color for 2017 is “Greenery.”

This week, along with sharing photos of sedums, let me show you some of the Greenery bursting forth across the Lost Madrone Ranch.

The captions to the following photos are all from the Pantone website announcing Greenery as the color of the year.

GREENERY, PANTONE 15-0343

“A refreshing and revitalizing shade,

Greenery is symbolic of new beginnings.”

“Greenery is a fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew.”

“Illustrative of flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors, the fortifying attributes of Greenery signals consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate.”

“Greenery is nature’s neutral.”

“The more submerged people are in modern life, the greater their innate craving to immerse themselves in the physical beauty and inherent unity of the natural world.”

“This shift is reflected by the proliferation of all things expressive of Greenery in daily lives through urban planning, architecture, lifestyle and design choices globally.”

“A constant on the periphery, Greenery is now being pulled to the forefront – it is an omnipresent hue around the world.”

“A life-affirming shade, Greenery is also emblematic of the pursuit of personal passions and vitality.”

While the vistas with Greenery are stunning to gaze at, Greenery is found all around the ranch.

Texas Primrose.

Antelope Horns, a favorite milkweed of the Monarch butterfly.

I can’t wait until these antelope horn buds burst open into bloom. I’ll give you an update in a couple of weeks.

Even the weeds are pretty.

The valley below the lake looks like a green pasture

And, green grasses are filling in along the lake shore.

Up close, the grasses growing from the bottom of the lake,

are breaking the surface of the water.

Did you see this little guy resting in the shade of his green umbrella? Look closer, he is in the previous two pictures!

Even Jim’s fish shines a cast of green.

I love finding pops of green where unexpected.

On a recent gorge walk,

(read about gorge walking in the post Arrive at the Lost Madrone Ranch)

I found rock ledges,

spotted with patches of green moss.

Moss up close is as fascinating as sedums up close.

On the rootball of an upended tree

is the perfect place for a pop of green.

Last weekend, I saw an unexpected flash of greenery as a little green-eyed spider scurried under the mulch.

At least I thought he was green-eyed. I did not see the round, close-together, glassy, black eyes just above the iridescent-green “fake me out” eyes until I downloaded his picture to my computer.

At least I thought I saw round, close-together, glassy, black eyes just above the iridescent-green “fake me out” eyes until I zoomed in on his picture. Are the two little beady eyes that are set wider than the round, close-together, glassy, black eyes his real eyes? Are four eyes looking back at me?

Fool me once, fool me twice.  Forget glasses, a Jumping Spider actually has four sets of eyes! What greenery on this little spider!

The next trick is hiding the ranch house. When the trees leaf out they will make a green wall, screening the house from view, along with protecting it from the summer sun.

Jim maintains a grass road around the house site hill, and where he mowed last fall the spring green grass rolls out like carpet.

The “wine walk” is open for business. (I’ll explain in a future post, but you can probably imagine.)

Follow the wine walk toward the garden,

and the green keeps on coming.

Remember the Pantone quote above about nature’s greens reviving, restoring, and renewing?

A literal interpretation would be accurate.

A favorite part of spring is enjoying the fresh lettuces that make their way to our dinner table. I can’t wait for the summer produce.

I’m not sure why, with acres of “Greenery” around them,

the Longhorns still run to a brown round bale of hay.

Have a Happy Saturday!

I hope you will keep reading!