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Prickly Pear( Opuntia) With Portulaca
Several years ago I bought a pad of Prickly Pear (Opuntia sp.) at the fresh produce “Mexican Section” of an area grocery store and rooted it in a 1/2 pot. It has been happy as a meadowlark even though it grows on our west wall where it roasts in the afternoon sun. I’ve taken…
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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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Little Botanical Jewels
Dawn Stover up at the SFA Gardens gave me three, small pots of these little botanical jewels. As she handed them to me she said, “Watch them; tell me what you think. They are native right here in Nacogdoches!“ This is a summary of what the reference books say. Sisyrinchium sagittiferum, Blue-eyed grass grows 8-12…
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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…