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Darth Vader’s Heavy Breathing
The bloom of Japanese flowering apricot (Prunus mume). is a sure herald of warm days to come! News headlines have been repeating themselves of late, and on about every level the news is bad. It is as if Darth Vader’s musical theme is playing over and over in our sub conscience. ( You know,…
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Romance is Sure to Follow
Spring is in the air and Valentine’s Day is coming up next weekend. When the rest of the world’s thoughts turn to romance, a gardener’s thoughts turns, not to romance, but to pruning roses. For Southerners, the Valentine’s season is the perfect time to prune America’s favorite flower. Everybody loves a rose. They are the…
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Winter’s Sweet Sometimes Smiles
Haven’t we been having a wonderful winter? The cold has kept the botanical world in a deep slumber. Nothing stirs in our gardens except little flocks of songbirds. Our gardens are mostly monochrome grey with only the darkest of greens providing any variation. There is little for the gardener to do outdoors, so when…
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A Winter Walk
It was a fine day last week when my four year old granddaughter and I set out on a walk to explore the byways of old Nacogdoches. The air was cool, the sky was blue, and in the trees, little flocks of chickadees and titmice followed us down Price Street discussing our progress towards…
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The Fireplace and Firewood
See the video and stand by the fire! Fireplace11-15-14 I suppose today’s column has nothing really to do with gardening except in a secondary way. Our subject is trees, firewood, fireplaces and the holiday season. I have been thinking a lot about firewood lately. When I was a little boy around Christmas season, the…
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Do you feel like taking an evening trip through time and space? Italy is the destination!
Italy. The very word is powerful. Few places on earth inspire the imagination like Italy. The SFA Gardens at Stephen F. Austin State University will host the next installment of the Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 18. And the subject- Italy! Before we get to the details about the lecture let’s think about Italy…
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Porch Roses
How do you greet visitors to your front door? In the old days folks usually planted a rose that would say the first hello. There’s nothing like stepping on to someone’s porch and there to be greeted by the bloom and fragrance of a rose. Porch roses are roses that fit the purpose of growing…
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The flowering dogwood has no peer when it comes to beauty and elegance
The bloom of dogwood trees and the Christian Easter season is a serendipitous occurrence. The tree is renowned for its Christian symbolism. Let me recount just a few: The Cross is represented by the four “petals” (bracts) of many dogwood flowers which form a cross. The nails of Jesus’ suffering are figured in the “petals” which often…
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WORDS & PHOTOS: Duranta repens
‘Sky Flower’ is one of those plants that I’ve never bothered to grow because it was, supposedly, forbidden to me. It was one of those tropical plants they can grow down on the coast but we couldn’t. It was just too cold here, but this global warming thing has its advantages. I’ve begun to consider…