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Parks department letting bluebonnets bloom at Marble Falls Cemetery

The conditions early in the year were perfect for a beautiful bluebonnet season this spring.

JENNIFER FIERRO • PICAYUNE STAFF

MARBLE FALLS — To mow or not to mow at the Marble Falls Cemetery? That’s the question the city’s Parks and Recreation Department is asking itself after bluebonnets, the state flower, erupted in the cemetery.

Spring holidays such as Easter, Mother’s Day and Memorial Day often draw loved ones to the cemetery. In the past, the parks and recreation staff didn’t mow the cemetery to allow the wildflowers to bloom and reseed. Officials wanted to inform residents about why city crews weren’t mowing some parts of the cemetery.

But allowing the flowers to grow can make it a bit difficult for people to visit some plots because of the nature of how the bluebonnets grow.

Other factors such as grass height, weeds and other priorities determine when the department mows the city’s parks, including the cemetery.

But with the vast amount of bluebonnets at the cemetery and the manner in which they propagate, Parks and Recreation Department Director Robert Moss said staff members have decided to hold off on mowing the areas containing the flowers for now.

“To have those types of flowers, to have something like that in the future, they have to reseed naturally,” he said. “This time of year, we’re trying to … keep up with everything. With everything we have to mow, we have a hard time keeping the cemetery mowed. This spring, our plan is intentionally not to mow those bluebonnets until they dry and go to seed. They won’t be ready to be mowed (before Memorial Day).”

Members of the Parks and Recreation Department will mow along the areas where bluebonnets are not growing, which is fine with Parks and Recreation Place 4 Commissioner Charles Watkins.   

“I fully support the parks department’s decision to leave the bluebonnets in the cemetery,” he said. “Bluebonnets are our celebration of spring in the Hill Country and the best way to honor our departed. We allow them to bloom and go to seed. That’s the cycle of life.”

Watkins, who has a passion for wildflowers and is trying to raise money for a wildflower center, said the Highland Lakes received the perfect balance of cold weather, rain and sunshine the past three months for the bluebonnets. January rainfall in the Highland Lakes was at or above normal. The last two weeks of February and the first week of March featured the last hard freeze in the area, and the consistency of warmer weather in March allowed bluebonnets to thrive.

“Bluebonnets are kind of different from other species in that they spread themselves,” the commissioner said. “They depend on a previous batch of bluebonnets. We just got the special combination.”

Moss agreed.

“It looks for certain conditions,” he said. “The right conditions come along with weather, rain and temperatures.

“I want people to go to the cemetery and look at it,” Moss said. “Go check out the cemetery. This year is the perfect year for the bluebonnets.”

Watkins said the bluebonnet seeds are not mature yet, adding the lifecycle of a bluebonnet is 6-8 weeks. And mowing right now could hamper bluebonnets from returning in the future, he said.

“For that purpose, we should tolerate them and be smart about when we allow them to grow,” he said. “If you mow now, you’ll lose the beauty of this year’s crop. They’re trying to reseed.”

To say that staff members will not mow until closer to June 1 also is not necessarily true, the director said. If a family needs to bury a loved one where bluebonnets grow, staff members will mow that area, he said.

Still, both Moss and Watkins hope residents see the value of waiting a few weeks to mow the cemetery and simply enjoy how the flower has spread throughout that area.

“Once the seed heads dry, we’ll mow,” Moss said. “Mother Nature takes care of the rest, but we’ll have the seeds on the ground to grow.

jfierro@thepicayune.com