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2011 Wildflower Outlook Iffy

After a lush 2010, the wildflower outlook for 2011 is not as colorful.
Photo by Callie Hernandez for KUT News
After a lush 2010, the wildflower outlook for 2011 is not as colorful.

What better way to get one's mind off the recent cold weather than to think of the coming warm spring and the annual colorburst that is wildflower season?

Well...don't get your hopes up too high, according to a senior botanist at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Damon Waitt tells the Associated Press that low rainfall amounts this winter have stunted the progress of next spring's wildflower crop.  Young plants that provide that crop should be the size of dinner plates, according to Waitt.  But this year, he's seeing that the "rosettes are very, very small."

If the cold weather has you longing for a glimpse of Texas wildflowers, check out this video from local artist Dean Wolf

Ian Crawford joined KUT as News Editor in 2008, after spending over four years as a reporter/anchor at KLBJ Radio in Austin. He began his broadcasting career while still in high school in Southern Oregon. During high school and college at the University of Oregon, he worked at times as a reporter, news anchor, sports play-by-play reporter, music host and commercial producer before moving to Texas in 2003.