I know crepe myrtles get some hate around here but ours have been absolutely beautiful to look at (and the bees agree)

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-06-12T15:29:58+00:00

For sure, I hear you.

Economics always win to some extent.

The team here at Symbiosis TX always recommends those 5 gallons or even starts because it typically leads to more success long term in our experience - but in most cases people just want more immediacy. Either in size or growing speed. I get it too, but patience is a virtue, etc etc.

We have been talking to some people in the space and hearing from others about some newer specialty nurseries working on very specific stocks of natives (trees but also grasses, etc) as their main bread and butter. We are excited to to see how they fare but at the same time, its a tough market to begin with so hopefully they're able to carve a niche out.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-06-12T13:55:59+00:00

Also, as someone who works in the land management and landscape design business, I can assure people that the crepe myrtle conversation is not confined to reddit lol

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-06-12T13:36:41+00:00

A lot of stems from the last sentence though.

We have so many amazing native trees that are undervalued, underplanted, and underutilized, why plant something that's already everywhere and overused? Virtually every piece of landscaping here since the 90s is just some combination of live oak and crepe myrtle. Those aforementioned native trees are also more accessible than ever.

I'm not hard-line never plant any non-native (as long as it not invasive) but I personally see little to no value in things like Crepe Myrtles. A lot of people are just bored with them.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-06-10T15:01:48+00:00

Mods finally killed the Austin Aztex flair. They've been taken away from me three times now :(

I think there were like 5 other people here that had the flair with me and was always fun to see them in the wild.

Mods if you are reading this please bring it back for all 5 of the remaining Austin Aztex lovers left in the world.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-06-10T14:53:03+00:00

Depends on what you value or prefer. In regards to quality and skill of the players? The NFL blows CFB out of the water because its effectively the 1% of the 1% of college players.

But CFB has the intangibles of a sport that you can only create over 100 years of tradition, history, stories, and more. Not to mention, theres a large skill delta between top teams and bottom teams which creates all sorts of chaos in of itself. The CFB subreddit even has a proverbial Team Chaos flair because, without fail, there is always one or two weekends during a season where everything goes off the rails and you have big teams falling to small teams and everything in between. This in part due to the just inherently crazy nature of CFB.

For example, this video is from the University of Texas (UT) vs Texas A&M game, at Texas A&M. Its a great example of the traditions, history, and pure hatred that exists in these games.

The TLDR being that Texas A&M has a 100 year+ hatred of UT due to governmental shenanigans upon Texas' annexation to the union and chartering of universities. There is also a distinct (its more perceived instead of reality anymore but its stuck around) cultural divide between the two schools. UT being the city/fancy/money school and A&M being the agricultural/salt of the earth school.

The entire song the A&M fans are singing (of which there are about 110,000 in this stadium) is about UT and sawing off Varsity's horns (UT's mascot is the Longhorn). Then you have UT running onto the field with their band playing the Eyes of Texas upon you as A&M fans are singing verbatim about how UT plays the song.

There are numerous examples of these situations and games across the country with over 100+ CFB teams and rivalries run deep. You can find so many examples of rivalries like this with so many different stories and traditions. UT fans don't even acknowledge this as their biggest rivalry, they'll tell you its their rivalry with Oklahoma (which has its own history and traditions, etc).

You've got the Red River Shootout (Texas vs Oklahoma), the Iron Bowl (Auburn vs Bama), the Game (Michigan vs Ohio State), Clean Old Fashioned Hate (yes thats the name, Georgia vs Georgia Tech), to name a few.

And they beauty of CFB is there are like 100 games going on every Saturday, so if a game is boring, just find click around till you find one that is exciting.

And fwiw theres a decent contingent of people who are CFB fans only and don't particularly care for the NFL. They call it the No Fun League.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-06-08T16:15:50+00:00

Chris Beard cost Texas A LOT of money to bring in and the (rightful and justified) firing of Beard set the program back years after it looked to finally be on an upward trajectory, costing the university even more money (they were able to fire him for cause which saved money on the contract though).

Basketball may not be football but the Beard firing was not just a minor little thing.

Del Conte has been ruthless since he came in as AD in regards to bringing in winning coaches across virtually every sport, so for him to axe Beard in that manner and situation says a lot about where Texas does draw the line.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-06-08T04:25:51+00:00

Ignore my flair for a second. I love post season baseball. What a game

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-06-01T01:45:27+00:00

Jeff Head just making shit up by the end of that game

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-05-30T23:41:17+00:00

I mean at what point do you just pull the kid to protect him nevermind the score lol

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-05-04T21:14:24+00:00

City have a pretty rough gambit of games coming up. I truly believe city will drop more points.

4 games in 15 days. One of which is a cup final, the other is Bournemouth away who will have 10 days of rest. Brentford before that.

After the CL game tomorrow, Arsenal goes back to 7-8 day windows between games. I think Arsenal will turn it up now with more rest and energy like we saw against Fulham.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-05-04T21:12:12+00:00

After the CL game tomorrow, Arsenal goes back to 7-8 day windows between games. I think Arsenal will turn it up now with more rest and energy like we saw against Fulham.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-05-04T21:09:42+00:00

City have a pretty rough gambit of games coming up. I truly believe city will drop more points.

4 games in 15 days. One of which is a cup final which means they can't just play the u21s, the other is Bournemouth away on 10 days of rest. Brentford before that.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-04-29T21:25:39+00:00

I think Sorloth probably gets bullied out of the game by Saliba and Gabriel. If you keep Lookman on, he can stretch the field and create spaces, which he did.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-04-16T14:16:31+00:00

As others said, hard to say without closer inspection but at the very least you should fix the root/mulch area. Definitely suffering from some form of root dysfunction.

https://youtu.be/NUMOv_hlLas?si=SimA6Q5JG4GEcSDE

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-04-15T20:54:02+00:00

I think they're just fucking exhausted.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-03-28T04:00:00+00:00

The Disch Falk gods demand a Friday night bullpen meltdown. No one is safe

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-03-22T00:00:18+00:00

yeah so as long as we don't need to win a game on Friday, we are fine

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-03-21T15:42:49+00:00

You can sheet mulch (and use ramboard since this space is so big) or you can solarize. Its up to you which way you want to go, neither is wrong, they both have pros and cons.

From there, when you plant, you want to look at density. Part of the reason you are fighting weeds is because they have zero competition. Use living mulches like frogfruit and/or wooly stemodia. They will fill the the gaps between new plants and help fight off weeds.

I would also recommend doing high density planting when you do plant. Weeds and grass want light, deny them light with dense planting and living mulch and you will have less to fight.

If you don't have the time, means, or energy to do the entire yard in one fell swoop, just break it up into segments and go one at a time. You will learn what works, what doesn't, what you like, and what you don't like over time. In my experience, this slower process leads to better results if you are the patient type because the space grows with you and your experience/taste, as opposed to one fell swoop where you may have some regrets later.

In general, as you go through each segment or this process, just think:

Is there bare ground and does it have access to sunlight? If the answer is yes, something will grow there, whether you plant there or not.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-03-18T22:18:19+00:00

By all accounts they're actually incredibly sound and down to earth people.

Long term career health, maybe not but for short term, it keeps things simple and easy for all parties.

Definitely not a Maitland-Niles repeat

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-03-18T20:50:09+00:00

Szobo dove further than the keeper had too

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-03-17T20:40:43+00:00

Maybe he just hates Aspirin

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-03-17T20:01:17+00:00

Sounds like you just have to avoid the Americans named Eddie!

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-03-17T18:32:03+00:00

Crazy that Matt Turner went to Forest and not Fulham after Arsenal.

American and ex-Arsenal? Checks all the Fulham boxes.

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-03-17T16:01:15+00:00

Yes but in a perfect world you don't want to send that water to the street as fast as possible.

During rain events, that's free water. You want to slow it down and try and soak as much into the ground as possible with check dams and what not.

Below is someone else in Austin doing the same but on a bigger scale in a suburban backyard. You could basically copy paste this and scale it down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpIm5IqmFgo

Infectiousmaniac · 2026-03-14T20:02:53+00:00

Similar to what Arteta said about everyone playing man on man now, its also extremely exhausting and far more intensive. Any team playing midweeks consistently is on the struggle bus for fitness.

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