For those who love to read and who wish to incorporate plants mentioned in their favorite books into their own Gulf Coast gardens, I offer this first installment in what I hope will be a series of posts on plants that appear in iconic works of Southern Literature.
Today: The Crepe Myrtle.
Crape Myrtles are easy to find in many local
gardening centers on the gulf coast, and may
be found online. (Photo Source.)
"The house was set up close to the road, with a good hog-wire fence around the not very big yard, and with some crepe myrtles in bloom the color of raspberry ice cream and looking cool in the heat in the corner of the yard and one live oak, nothing to brag on and dying on one side, in front of the house, and a couple of magnolias off to one side with rusty-looking tinny leaves. There wasn’t much grass in the yard, and a half dozen hens wallowed and fluffed and cuck-cucked in the dust under the magnolia trees. A big white hairy dog like a collie or a shepherd was lying on the front porch, a little one-story front porch that looked stuck on the box of the house, like an afterthought."
Crepe myrtles are popular in my region of Texas for their showy displays of flowers in the spring.
What we consider a drought here in in the greater Houston area is rather similar to a normal year in many parts of my native California. The difference, of course, is that in California they are used to it. So how do they deal?
Bougainvilleas look their best in dry conditions.
Drought tolerant plants
Natives are ideal, but introduced drought tolerant plants can be useful as well. If you can, observe areas near you where plants are growing wild. What is doing well? What isn't? Choose these to replace plants that are unable to survive the current dry spell.
Smart grouping
Keep plants with similar watering needs together. This allows you to use your water more efficiently
Drip irrigation
This can provide a more constant supply of water to your plants. The slow flow of water allows more moisture to stay where it is needed, rather than running off into the gutters.
Watering Basins
Using the soil, create a basin around plants that require deeper waterings. This minimizes runoff and gives water time to seep down to the roots of the plant. These are especially useful for trees and shrubs that require deeper watering. My grandfather, an avid plant collector who loves tropicals and has been gardening in California for decades, has these around almost every plant in his Southern California garden. This page at Learn2Grow.com features a picture of a watering basin around a newly planted rose.
While they can be expensive, these can allow one to make better use of runoff from the roof between rainstorms. This is especially useful if your neighborhood is under water restrictions, as you have an alternative source of water on days when you can't use your hose or sprinklers.
Mulch
Mulch insulates from cold in the winter, and also aids moisture retention in dry weather.
Minimize Lawn Space
While they are attractive and simple landscape features, lawns require a great deal of water, and can begin to look ugly when they do not get enough. Consider replacing part or all of your lawn with something with less demanding water requirements such as drought-tolerant beds, a low-growing ground cover, gravel, or pavers.
Hop on over to Parisienne Farmgirl to see more lovely pictures of Angela's garden.
It's kind of nice to see that someone else is accomplishing in her garden something very like what I want to do with mine. Helps me think that maybe it will all come together eventually.
Someone came across my blog while searching for "Edible cat plants" and since it looks like I don't have a post on such a subject yet, I offer the following:
Catnip (Nepeta Cataria) and/or Cat Mint (Nepeta mussinii) are, of course, a must. Each cat has her own preference. Some like catnip better, and others catnip. Some cats, like mine, are even "catnip connoisseurs", preferring the taste and scent of one individual catnip plant over another of the same species.
Cat grass is essential for indoor kitties. This can be grown from seed, or purchased in small containers in pet supply stores, already sprouted and ready to grow. I found a small windowbox container in which I have sprouted a small "lawn" which my little orange boy keeps very evenly mowed. This alone may be enough for some cats. If your cat goes outdoors, he may be happy to mow your back lawn for you, to the best of his ability.
In my house, catnip, catmint, and cat grass do quite well on a sunny west or south facing windowsill with enough room for the kitty to sit and enjoy his plants. If your windowsill is wide enough, I suggest adding a place to nap. After the Teflon coating began to flake off of one of my roasting pans, I lined it with a towel, and it now serves this purpose. The metal allows the bed to heat up when the sun shines directly through the window, and the cat loves curling up in it. If you really love to spoil your kitty and there is an electrical outlet handy, consider the addition of a drinking fountain for pets.
Dr. Leonard Perry of the University of Vermont also recommends Cat Thyme (Teucrium marum)and Valerian (Valeriana officianalis), though he warns that rodents also enjoy Valerian. This may be fabulously entertaining to your kitty, but not so attractive to humans, especially if your feline herb garden is indoors! He also suggests some interesting features to add to an outdoor cat garden to protect plants from overly-enthusiastic kitties, and to encourage play and frolicking.
I have also read that some cats enjoy parsley and sage.
Some cats also express interest in vegetables eaten by humans. Mine loves canned pumpkin (plain, not the sweetened pumpkin pie filling), which is a good treat for kitties according to Wellvet.com. Some cats also enjoy raw pumpkin:
My furry companion will also ask for lettuce on occasion which, according to the ASPCA, is safe to serve your cat. An old college friend of mine has a cat that craves asparagus. I have no idea if this is safe or not. Spinach is a bad idea though. I have read it can give kitties kidney stones. That can't be pretty.
Indoor plants not only provide nutrition and entertainment for your cat, they can also keep him from eating your ornamental specimens.
Speaking of ornamentals, it is important to note that some cats still do not confine themselves to plants intended for their use. The really determined ones may even attempt to nibble synthetic plants! If this is the case with yours, or if you are unsure, please keep plants not specifically recommended as feline edibles away from your cat.
In 2006, Jackson and Perkins released a variety of gorgeous white hybrid tea rose named for Pope John Paul II.
Often called John Paul The Great by his admirers, he was loved throughout the world by both Catholics and non-Catholics. One of the distinctive features of his pontificate was his frequent travel throughout the world. He made more pastoral visits than any pope before him. When totaled, the number of miles he traveled equal three trips to the moon and back! Along with President Ronald Reagan, he is largely credited with ending the cold war. He is also known for his humility and his gift for encouraging young people to live holier lives.
While I enjoy the many plants that grow well here on the Gulf Coast, I miss hybrid tea roses. They do quite well in gardens in California and the Pacific Northwest (Check out the rose gardens in Portland, OR). But, in the subtropical humidity we have here, they quickly succumb to fungal disease. That is why most rose lovers in this region are so fond of disease-resistant antique roses.
If you live in coastal California, bare-rooted hybrid tea roses are generally available at locally owned nurseries and garden centers in the fall. In colder regions where there is danger of frost, late winter and spring are better times for planting roses, as new plants should not be allowed to freeze.
Since this particular rose is owned by Jackson and Perkins, you will want to look for it at establishments that feature their products. If they do not carry it, ask! Small, locally owned nurseries are particularly likely to be willing to help you get your hands on what you want, even if they do not have it in stock at the moment. Their employees are also most likely to know exactly how to care for hybrid tea roses in your particular climate.
If you live in a region that is friendly to hybrid tea roses, and want to commemorate the occasion of John Paul II's beatification in your garden, consider planting this rose.
Every year toward the end of Lent, we start seeing Easter Lilies for sale outside of our churches and in stores, and their bright beauty graces our homes during the Easter season*.
The question is what to do with them once those lovely flowers drop off.
According to Dave's Garden, these bulbs like neutral to slightly acidic soil and are able to survive temperatures down to around five degrees Fahrenheit, which is well below what we generally experience here on the Gulf coast. Most people recommend transplanting these in a sunny location and insulating dormant bulbs during cold weather by mulching. As these plants prefer good drainage, that means containers or raised beds for those of us with heavy, alkaline gumbo soil.
Though we call them "Easter Lilies", Lilium longiflorum is not gauranteed to bloom exactly at Easter Sunday. Very often the ones that we see in the stores have been forced by their growers to bloom at just the right time. But their flowers are just as pretty, regardless of their timing!
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*Keep your cats from eating your Easter Lilies, as they are toxic!
Every now and then when I was in my teens, my family used to slather on the bug repellent and sunscreen and take our alaskan malamute with us for day hikes up in the hills around where we lived. She loved it. So did the ticks. Inevitably, within a day or two of our hikes I was helping my mother pull these little vermin off the dog. I'd feel crawly for days afterwards.
In the region of California in which I was raised, deer ticks are very common in the grassy places where people often love to hike and camp. Learning to recognize ticks was just like learning to recognize poison oak. They were a fact of life if one wanted to enjoy the great outdoors. Aside from dealing with the dog, I never had any trouble with them on me. Probably because I made good use of bug repellent. That hasn't stopped me from being a little unnerved at the thought of encountering them on my person.
So, when I saw what looked suspiciously like a tick crawling around on a branch I had just pruned from a long-neglected shrubbery this morning, I got that old creepy-crawly feeling again. Ewwww. It's so easy to forget about such things in the supposed civilized safety of one's own backyard. Thank goodness I had been using the rake instead of my hands to load the pile of cuttings into the wheelbarrow.
After a tick check and a run for the bug repellent, I finished my work (still using the rake of course), tossed my gardening clothes straight into the washing machine, checked myself again and ran for the shower. This time I appear to be unscathed, but I shall be more careful in the future.
In my transition to Texas from California, I have had to learn a few new things and re-learn a few old things. Fortunately, what I know about ticks applies in both places.
Ticks like wooded areas, thick shrubberies, and tall grass, so consider the following if you plan to be in such places:
Wear light colored clothing, to make ticks easier to see.
If you can, wear long pants and sleeves, and tuck them into your socks/gloves. This can be difficult in hot regions. If you are a "belts and suspenders" type of person, you can also use some old shoelaces to tie off the bottom part of your pants to make doubly sure. Just tie them too tight. You still need circulation in your feet!
Wear insect repellent that is labeled as effective for ticks. Treat clothes and exposed skin, following label directions. (I'm usually not crazy about chemical repellents such as DEET. If I'm just going to a barbecue, I usually wear a bug band to keep mosquitoes off, but for hiking or gardening in a tick-infested area, I make an exception.)
Check yourself thoroughly for ticks upon coming indoors. Pay special attention to all cracks, crannies, and crevices, and places covered by hair or close-fitting parts of your clothing. Use a mirror or a spouse to help you check hard to see places.
Take a shower and wash your clothing as soon as possible. (CDC recommends within two hours.) If you've been playing in the dirt or hiking, chances are you'll be hot and sweaty and will want to do this anyway.
Keep pets indoors if you can, check them often if you can't. Give them flea/tick preventatives regularly either way.
If you find one attached to you or your pet, see the links below for more information on removal and symptoms of tick-borne disease. If you develop such symptoms, seek medical care.
While decorating books help you find inspiration for your home, Tony Lord's Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations is a guide to help you get ideas for aesthetically pleasing assortments of plants in your landscape.
The book offers general advice on design, including varying color and texture in the garden, as well as basic information on planting and establishing new items. Chapters are arranged by types of plants, and offer profiles of specific plants, along with lists of species that make attractive companions for each. It is fairly easy to use as a quick reference for finding plants that will look attractive together. The book is loaded with beautiful photographs of a variety of plantings to help the reader visualize some of these planting combinations.
The author himself states that his book is meant only to be a general guide with suggestions, and that is exactly how it functions. The gardener who uses is must have a workable understanding of her own local climate and soil conditions. Many of the plants profiled in this work are popular in gardens across the country, and may or may not be suited to the tastes, needs, and time constraints of the individual gardener.
While not an essential component of a Gulf Coast Gardener's personal reference library, it can be a handy resource when one needs ideas, especially in combination with gardening books specific to one's own region.
Those ubiquitous pocketed over-the-door shoe organizers can serve many purposes.
But I never thought of using one as a planter.
For people with limited space, here is an interesting idea involving a pocket shoe organizer similar to the one pictured below:
I'd probably pick one made out of darker fabric, as I expect the lighter-colored varieties will begin to look very stained from the water running through them and bringing soil particles along with it. It would probably require frequent watering, too, depending on how breathable the fabric is.
Still, it is a great idea if you have limited space, and it's probably less expensive that anything at the garden centers that would serve a similar purpose.
I suppose one can always find another home for all of those shoes.
I grow some herbs in containers on my back porch, but it would be very convenient to keep some in the kitchen. Some need to be replanted after they are zapped by winter freezes or fried by our summer heat.
The problem is, my cat is an indiscriminate eater of houseplants, and I want indoor herbs for human consumption. I needed to find ideas to help me keep them out of reach of my curious kitty. The internet seemed the natural place to look for catproof indoor gardening methods.
I'm thinking I might use those water-absorbentpolymer crystals instead of just filling the jars with water. I think they'd be more attractive than soil, and probably more convenient, since I'm pretty terrible at remembering to water things. I haven't found any information on whether those are safe to use for culinary plants, though.
Whether we watch groundhogs, or we just feel it in our bones, we all have our ways of deciding when Spring is here. (By the way, Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this year.)
Since moving to this area, I have noticed that my allergies always pick up when a new season arrives. My nose is itchin', so I guess that means it agrees with old Phil the groundhog.
A year or two ago, someone told me to watch the native pecan trees to see when we were past all danger of winter freezes. Trees seem to take seriously the Entish motto "Don't be hasty," however. They still have yet to leaf out in my neck of the woods.
If you are looking for another indicator, maybe one from the slightly more hasty animal kingdom, there is a post over at the Lazy Gardener on the habits of alligators and what this means for gardeners. Basically, when the alligators get hungry, spring is here. Big Al, the 1,000 pound 'gator living in Gator Country near Beaumont is hungry, and he has a record for 100% accuracy.
As it seems unreasonable to argue with a hungry 1,000 pound animal with sharp teeth, I suppose I'd better start planting.
After almost a year of neglecting my garden, followed by a couple of months of getting a bit ahead of myself when visiting nurseries, I'm getting the gardening gloves back on and having at it in a slightly more organized fashion.
Note to self: don't buy plants unless you have someplace to put them within the next two days. Good intentions don't count! Must build beds first, no matter how cool those plants are.
The persimmon tree damaged in hurricane Ike has been replaced. I am now keeping an eye on my fig, which was rather badly blitzed during our recent December freeze/snow episode. My potted herb garden is being revived with new plants, and we'll see how tomatoes do when they are transplanted very very very much later than they really are supposed to be.
Regular, moderate, sun exposure helps us avoid Vitamin D deficiency and is also useful for combating symptoms of anxiety and depression (seasonal and otherwise). Exercise is also beneficial for one's mental and physical well-being. Gardening provides some of both. How cool is that?
Well, things have been so busy, it's been quite some time since I've had the opportunity to do much out in the garden. I finally got out there to water things today. I'm amazed at how many of my plants handled so much neglect. I've hardly touched them in about a month. The container plants sheltered in my greenhouse have done amazingly well with the exception of my air potato vine , which now appears completely deceased. Rosemary, it appears, also has its limits.We'll see if I can nurse that back to health.
Which reminds me, my persimmon tree did not fare well in hurricane Ike, being almost completely broken off just above the graft. I stood it back up and bound it with grafting tape, giving it additional support by tying it to several stakes. That's pretty much where I left it, having become so busy shortly after that I hardly had time to even think about doing anything else with it. I'm not sure, but I think I may have seen some new buds while I was inspecting it today. I could be completely wrong, of course, but I am curious to see what will happen in the spring. In the meantime, I still haven't ruled out trying to replace the tree entirely. I missed the Urban Harvest tree sale this year, and won't make the Fort Bend County one either, so it may be awhile before we see a new persimmon here!
At this point, I'll just be glad if I can clear the weeds from my unplanted beds and get my roses pruned next week!
While I have yet to put any up for decorative purposes, I have them strung around the inside of my greenhouse to create a little extra warmth. I am also using them on some plants that are outside of the greenhouse. So far, they have proven to be both pretty and useful, especially during our recent and unexpected snow!
...You get out the cookbook and see what you can do with just one!
Yes, not much going on in the garden lately. Very busy times these days. Several potted things have dried up from neglect, but the strong are surviving, thanks to a few well-timed rain showers.
I got one meyer lemon off of the tree today. The other two aren't quite ripe yet. The little Miho Satsuma orange tree has six more this year. Last year it produced six as well, but three of them were stolen (I presume by hungry fruit-eating critters of the non-human variety), leaving us with very little. Better luck this year I hope.
Enchanted Forest has been open since Tuesday. When I went in earlier this week they were still without power, but they were still smiling and happy to help.
Caldwell's is open as well. CayDee and her staff were also busy cleaning up, but still happy to help. I dropped by for some grafting tape and was quite happy to find that they stock it!
Calling your locally-owned nursery ahead of time can be a good idea, since some of them may be out of certain things that are in high demand after a storm. If they are still without electricity, cash is usually much appreciated.
If the local places do not have what you need, the big box stores are also open. If you need fencing material to stake your trees, Lowe's of Richmond/Rosenberg is well-stocked with u-posts. Home Depot's selection is usually not as good as Lowe's anyway, and this week it has been even worse. If you need anything sturdier than a bamboo stake for your trees, save yourself the trip.
Well, the important things came through fine (husband, house, cat, electricity, running water).
Some of the fun stuff, not so good. No cable. Which means no internet. Which means I had to find a public place to use the web and e-mail relatives to let them know we haven't been sent tumbling off to Oklahoma by any hurricane force winds.
Most of the damage in the garden was minor. Potted plants were all sheltered and/or turned on their sides, so nothing in containers blew away.
Treewise, things are a little more interesting. Our larger trees (the ones that would be really dangerous if they fell) appear fine, having only dropped a few small to medium-size branches. Amazingly, none of these damaged the house. Other people in our subdivision did not fare so well. Some have similar-sized trees that fell on their homes.
My little trees are interesting cases. The Methley Plum is still shorter than I am, and planted in a protected area, so it appears untouched. The fig and the pomegranate were slightly uprooted, so fixing them should not be too difficult.
The worst damage was to my Saigo (Saijo?) Persimmon tree, which was snapped like a toothpick just above the graft. It was not broken off entirely though. About half of the trunk is still attached. Even though it is nearly four days after the fact, it still looks alive. The rootstock appears fairly healthy, and (as I was told at the plant sale where I got it) has pretty good structure. I hate to let even part of a good plant go to waste.
I have no idea what to do about this. Stand it back up, and see if it heals? Take cuttings and re-graft? (Which means I have to learn how to graft, and fast.) Call a tree expert? Go back to the plant sales and replace?
Since the next major plant sale around here isn't till January (and will likely be very crowded, since I'm sure many people lost fruit trees to Ike), I figure I have nothing to lose by trying.
