A while back I went to a wedding at this location and had a lovely time. It was at the brides home in northern Caddo parish. While we were waiting for the bridal pictures to be taken I was admiring the rocks that they had in their gardens. I took some pictures of them and did this post on it.
http://rockhoundingaround.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-feel-like-im-such-rock-loving-nerd.html
I didn't know if I would ever be there again and was so thrilled to find out that the house was going to be on this years - Masters Gardner's tour of homes called - Le Tour Des Jardins -2014. To be honest I probably would have gotten a ticket even if this house wasn't on the tour. I just love looking at beautiful gardens and finding out about plants and flowers. It's always so nice to see the Master Gardner's places. They are usually so beautiful and you can tell a lot of hard work and love went into creating them.
This post is just going to be on stop seven of the tour. You can see the other gardens at this post:
http://rockhoundingaround.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-le-tour-des-jardins-2014-shreveport.html
This is their house as seen from the road.
Once I got out I couldn't help but take some pictures of the rocks I was seeing. We did get to talk to the owners and he confirmed that the rocks are of the Wilcox formation. He said as they were building the house they ran into all sorts of problem with them. They moved some of them and had to work around some others. He said that it seemed like there was a whole band of rocks that had a lot of iron in them and he was curious as to where the iron came from. It got me thinking about it. I just said I wasn't too sure but it would make a great thesis for someone to work on. It is really fascinating stuff to look at.
He took me over to this one and asked what the white veins were. I said they are most likely calcite deposits since they could be scratched with the penny. I must admit it was an interesting rock to look at.
I wasn't too sure how these rounded pieces got into the rock. I told him that when the sandy looking bigger part of the rock was forming it was most likely on a beach. And these rounded pieces were transported into the area and deposited. The sand then settled around them and they got included into the matrix of the formation. I thought it would be real interesting to get some pieces of these and look at them under the microscope. They looked liked they had too much iron for them to be of limestone origin but I could be wrong on that. ***
This is what I expected the Wilcox to look like very sandy and friable
Here you can see another one of those boulders being surrounded by the sandstone.
But we didn't come to this place to look at the rocks we came for the garden and the owner was very proud of his vegetable garden and wanted us to see it. It was the only vegetable garden we saw on the tour. I must admit it was impressive and wished I had taken a broader vies image of it instead of focusing in on some of the things that were growing and looking so healthy.
Like these squash plants. At first I though they may be pumpkins but was told they are squash. That didn't surprise me since pumpkins are in the squash family.
These cabbages were incredibly big and I wished I had something there for scale. They almost looked like they were pieces of art and were planted there. In front was some onions growing and behind was various lettuces.
They had blackberries and raspberries bushes but the berries were just starting to form on them and it wasn't so impressive. But when I cam to these blueberries my mouth started to water. They looked so good and it wouldn't be long before they would be ready to eat.
They even had asparagus growing. I was so impressed because normally it takes 3 years to grown asparagus so that you can eat it. This was their third year and it looked like they would have some soon on their table.
I had seen a peach tree with some fruit on it and was surprised to see this one. The fruit didn't look the same as the peaches and so I asked what these were - Plums. I should have figured that one out but I'm not used to see plum trees.
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| Plums growing on a plum tree. |
After we saw the vegetables it was time to wander around the property. The owner did tell me if I had time I should walk over to this one area where the rocks outcropped. We talked about it but didn't have time to go to see the outcrop if we were going to do the other things we had planned for the day. The owner did give me permission to come back again as long as I cleared it with his wife first. Since my husband has had some business dealing with them, he said just contact them through the business.
In the mean time I did walk around and admired the rocks and flowers and how they worked to incorporate both of them into the landscape.
Thought it interesting to see how this one had weathered out and was so rounded.
This is the scenic view they have of there back yard.
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| Wilcox boulders used in landscaping a yard |
This rock actually looked like it was in place an this may actually be part of the outcrop.
Another one with a rounded boulder inside of it. This also looked like it was in place.
Here's some irises that were blooming.
I thought these were pretty views of the house.
The vegetable garden was where the building were but the cars are blocking it.
Some more interesting ones.
I do hope I do get out to this place again.
***The rocks are of the Wilcox formation and here's a link to an image showing were they outcrop:
http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/2009/10179warwick/images/fig10.htm
The Wilcox is late Paleocene to Eocene in age. I know this is about it in Texas but in the North East corner it continues into Louisiana. Caddo parish boarders Texas and the city of Shreveport is only 25 miles away from Texas.
http://academic.emporia.edu/schulmem/hydro/TERM%20PROJECTS/2008/Jones/carwil.htm
There is set of diagrams for the deposition of the Wilcox that comes to you when you do an image search. I should note this is for the Wilcox aquifer. Here's the image search..
http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0LEV0u7L2lTll4ADtRXNyoA;_ylc=X1MDMjc2NjY3OQRfcgMyBGJjawM0YTNmYTFkOWxhb3ExJTI2YiUzRDQlMjZkJTNEdS4wTTBVcHBZRUl2T21nU05jQ1pNdHppd0c2amc1eTVNSGFJbXctLSUyNnMlM0RyZCUyNmklM0R3Q1VrQmxDMHg3NXlYeEcuZWFSawRmcgNtb3ozNQRncHJpZAN2bXMuWG1nVFNibU5ORndIdXg5d2JBBG10ZXN0aWQDTE9ORyUzRERGRDYEbl9yc2x0AzEwBG5fc3VnZwMxMARvcmlnaW4Dc2VhcmNoLnlhaG9vLmNvbQRwb3MDMARwcXN0cgMEcHFzdHJsAwRxc3RybAMxNwRxdWVyeQN3aWxjb3ggZm9ybWF0aW9uIAR0X3N0bXADMTM5OTQwOTk5NTQ5MQR2dGVzdGlkA0RGRDY-?gprid=vms.XmgTSbmNNFwHux9wbA&pvid=ohNFkjk4LjFFDeoLU1VjQQtbNTAuMVNpL7v_pIZY&p=wilcox+formation+&fr2=sb-top&fr=moz35
When I click on the one I can read it but it wont let me create a link to it without paying for it. It's with World Oil and look for this caption under it:
fig 1 paleogeographic map of drawdown climax with residual gulf of ...
If you click on this image it may take you to the article that is really good about the Wilcox formation and the depositional model for it. It's too complicated to explain here but if you're into geology its worth looking at.
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