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Hibiscus coccineus ‘Lone Star’
Hibiscus coccineus ‘Lone Star’ This tall perennial Hibiscus with maple-like leaves is a trouble free garden plant. It is a little-known cultivar that has pure white flowers rather than the standard red. Grows well in wet to moist soil in sunny locations. This beauty is blooming in my walled garden right now. Texas heat does…
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Flowering Crab Apple
Flowering Crab Apple Malus spp. I do not know the name of this cultivar. There are hundreds of species and hybrids. This double flowered version is, I seem to remember, a French hybrid. There is a native East Texas species- Malus angustifolia. Crab Apples need a cold winter to flower well. …so they are blooming well in Deep East…
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Thankful Coming and Going
It’s been a tough year. As you dig through the year, it seems like there’s been trouble and heartache in layer after layer. Sometimes the soil has been rocky, sometimes dry and hard. Other times it’s been overly soggy and wet. This is true on the level of politics, personal loss, world events, natural disasters.…
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A movie For Some Cold Winter Evening
“Glorious salvia which keep going until the first frost takes them.” We had wonderful rains this past week. I hardly stirred outside the whole day. A trip out to the mailbox in my Wellies was just about my only contact with my garden and the great outdoors. Late in the day my wife and I…
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Dahlias…slipping in and out of my life.
Plants, like people, come and go in our lives. Sometimes an odd jostling of our memories bring back to us people and plants we had forgotten. So, last week when we talked about zinnias, mentioning that some are known as dahlia flowered zinnias, I said to myself, “Hmm, dahlias. Maybe Nacogdoches folks would like to…
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A White Garden
I saw the most beautiful, white garden the other day in Lexington, Kentucky. It was inspiring to put it mildly. I wanted to go home and plant white stuff in my little walled garden. The garden is so small that it is very easy to transform it into almost any color theme. A flat or…
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A Meal for a Common Man / Eating Above Your Pay Grade
Last week my wife and I had the great fun of staying at one of the world’s most luxurious hotels. We were clearly living well above our pay grade. The proprietors specialize in treating folks well. I knew we were in for a treat when a staff member (unbidden) brought to our room a plate…
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Make us something like the low green moss
When I lived out in the country, I cut a short trail through the woods that were behind my home, a little stretch of about twenty yards. There was some dapple shade and it was there I’d planned to plant wild azaleas, a few camellias, and who knows what else…plants that would be happy living…
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Strike Three and the Crape Myrtle is out!
‘Strike two!” says the umpire. Our favorite batter is at the plate, faithfully doing his best. But the pitcher seems to be in control of the situation. No balls. Two strikes. Ugh! The horticultural nemesis of the crape myrtle is on the mound and seems to have the situation well in hand. Fastballs, curve balls,…