Welcome to LARVALBUG'S GARDEN PAGE. This is the home of Garden Bits: short articles with pictures about the plants and animals in our yard and gardens.

Our gardens are located in Austin, TX, which has mild winters with some freezes down to the 20°s, very hot summers with temperatures usually going above 100° for at least several days, and a moderate amount of sporadic rainfall with droughts that can last for months, or rainy periods resulting in flooding. The soil in our yard is clay with a limestone rock base. A detailed overview of our yard includes descriptions and photo galleries of the individual gardens.

Japanese lily, wood ferns, and caladiums


Most of the photographs in this section were taken with a Pentax K1000 35mm camera, 50mm lens, and extension tubes for close-ups. A few pictures were taken using a polarizer filter, a Pentax 80-200 zoom lens, or a Fuji TW-300 38-65mm tele-wide point-and-shoot camera. Starting in July, 2003, almost all new images were taken with a digital Pentax Optio 450.

The larval insect that you see in the background is an original graphite drawing of an cicada larva. The image on the background of "Garden Bits" is a June beetle grub.

Please visit our other sites: larvalbug's home page, which has a family newsletter called "larvalbug bytes," dog photos and commentary (Frisky's Section and Periwinkle's Page), and archives of past "larvalbug bytes" articles; Austin Bug Collection, a photographic guide to insects and spiders here in central Texas; larvalbugtoo, where you can view artwork by Valerie; larVALUEbug, a collection of value investing articles by Larry; larvalbug eye, free digital nature photos in large and small file sizes for personal, nonprofit, and educational use; larvalbugGIF, a free clip art site; and larvalbugzoo, which presents photos of wild and zoo animals. The links below will be helpful in navigating our site.

All photographs and artwork are copyrighted and are the property of the owners of this site.

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