flowers

Whether you call it Texas Tarragon, Mexican Mint Marigold, or Tagetes lucida, I call it an absolute beauty for fragrance, flavor, and color every South Texas Autumn! Known for its liquorish anise flavor, it makes the perfect sub for true tarragon that struggles to grow in our area. I love it just as much for the golden flowers that attract many butterflies and honey bees. Their bloom is best and most showy during the Fall season. Trim them early spring to keep tidy. Full to part sun average soil and water. No bugs or diseases. They are a breath of fresh sweet air every morning in my courtyard.

-Debbie

Growing up on a farm, I learned that Clover is a good thing. It adds nitrogen back into your soil, has adorable ball-like flowers, and covers your field in gorgeous green. However, there’s also a weed called Oxalis that has Clover-like leaves, and is deep dark green. Oxalis is a weed through and through, and if it’s in your yard, you know how frustrating it can be to get rid of. The easiest way to tell between Clover and Oxalis is to see the bloom. If the bloom looks like a round ball of pink or white, then it’s the super beneficial Clover! If the bloom is a yellow or pink open-petal flower, then it’s the super annoying Oxalis. We have a number of products to kill Oxalis, like Top Shot and Weed-B-Gon. If you see these weeds starting to pop up in your yard get rid of them now! An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so use these products to nip the problem in the bud.

-Marta

Valentine’s Day is a time to remember our loved ones with candy and flowers. It also is the perfect time to prune roses. Late January to mid February is the best time. Prune established hybrid teas, removing dead and small twiggy growth, leaving strong healthy canes to a plant height of 18-24 inches. Try to prune to an outward facing bud to maintain spreading, open growth. Prune shrub roses like Knockouts 1/3 to 1/2 the plant height. Do not prune climbers until after the Spring bloom, then removing only the oldest canes and cutting back healthy, vigorous canes no more than 1/3. Remove spent blooms throughout the season on all rose varieties, cutting back to the first 5 leaflet cluster. You can also begin fertilizing your roses in late February with Bayer Systemic Rose and Flower Care, or organically with Maestro Rose Glo. Gill Landscape Nursery stocks disease resistant roses (ask for them), but if you have hybrid teas, as soon as new growth appears you should begin a spray program to control insects and diseases. Bayer 3 in 1 Insect, Disease and Mite Control, takes care of all rose problems. For organic controls, use Neem Oil for insects and disease or Serenade to control diseases. A regular spray program keeps your roses healthy and happy. Remember fungal diseases are always easier to prevent than to cure.

Vinca a.k.a. Periwinkle is one the best summer flowers you can grow when planted at the right time and with a few extra steps to insure success. First, wait for longer & drier days to plant. They do not like wet conditions which leads to Phytophthora Stem Blight and Root Rot Fungus. Water management is the main preventative measure. It is important to provide excellent drainage and full sun.When preparing a planting bed be sure to work in plenty of organic matter such as Cotton Burr Compost. Treat the area with Actinovate or Actino-Iron, a biological fungicide to help prevent disease. Space the plants 8-10 inches apart since air circulation is key and mulch heavily with Hardwood Mulch to prevent water from splattering off the soil onto the plants. Always water slow and deep at the base of the plant, never over the top if possible. Once you get these beauties established , they can provide you with easy year round color for several years.

-DeAnna

This past Saturday we had our Creative Container Gardens talk. I enjoy giving this talk because making potted plant combinations is a treat – so easy & fun.

Contrast and repeat for plant selection is key for creating combinations with good visual impact. Choosing the proper container, potting mix, careful planting and using pot feet puts it all together. Timely watering, regular fertilizing, watching our weather, site consideration and pest monitoring helps keep it all going.

Container gardens are versatile. Along with the huge number of plant choices and container styles, you can easily move them around if you need or want to. They can be grouped for greater effect and also raised at varying heights for even more options.

Making a beautiful container garden can also provide more return benefits. They give us the opportunity to experiment, practice patience, engage creativity, see connections, feed curiosity, practice pragmatics, learn – unlearn, slow down, relax, share, play, re-evaluate “perfect”, and even be a little silly – hence the glasses on cacti!

Collect rainwater and pronounce names any way you want.

“I cultivate my garden and my garden cultivates me.” – Robert Braught

Beautifully contains it all.

-Merlien

Plumeria, Frangipanis, Hawaiian Lei Flower, no matter what you call them they are beautiful and one of the easiest plants to grow in South Texas!

Native to Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean, Plumeria have now naturalized throughout most tropical areas around the world. It was on my 1st trip to the Florida Keys that I realized just how beautiful and huge plumeria can get. The one at our cabana was over 25 ft tall and raining fragrant flowers over our patio. Talk about impressive! Closer to home you can find a plethora of specimens at the South Texas Botanical Gardens. Plumeria come in a variety of colors and fragrances from subtle to intoxicating.

Caring for these tropical plants is so easy. Plant in a pot or in the ground, with full to part sun…they really like dry conditions so not too much water. Feed them with Nelson Plumeria Food during the growing season. You can leave them outside in the ground or pot during our mild winters. Keep them dry while they are dormant. If it’s going to freeze…pull them up…yes that’s right…pull them up and store them in a cool dry place over the winter…no light, water, soil, just the stalks.

Come next spring, plant them back outside and repeat…You can’t get any easier than that!

-Debbie

Starting your first cutting garden may be much easier than you would think. Planning your garden is the best way to start: a 3 foot x 10 foot garden bed will produce more than enough flowers to make a bouquet for yourself and a friend each week. Your garden plot must be in a place that receives at least 6-8 hours of sunlight every day. If you are unsure about the amount of full sun a certain spot receives each day, dedicate a day to checking the same spot hourly: from 8am until 5pm. Take notes each hour on what the sun conditions in that spot are. This may sound menial, but when planting near trees, the sunlight can be tricky! The next thing to consider is the location of your garden in reference to a viable water source. Keep it simple for yourself rather than having to constantly drag a garden hose. The final thought in choosing a location for your cutting garden is to place it out of sight. This may sound crazy to you, but will you be able to cut the beautiful flowers if you can see them from your favorite spot in the house or on the porch?

Creating your garden bed is the most important part of starting to grow any plants, especially cut flowers. You will need enough compost to add 6 inches to your 3’ x 10’ bed and enough mulch to cover 3-4 inches to cover your 3’ x 10’ bed. Feeding your plants with fertilizer is not the same thing as feeding your soil, you must plan to continuously add compost to be feeding your soil. You should be mindful of the hundreds of thousands beneficial microbes in the top 6 inches of your soil and your goal should be to constantly feed them and keep them in your garden as they are helping to keep the bad bugs away and to keep your garden soil aerated and stronger. By continuously adding organic matter, you are setting your garden up to become more self-sustainable each season.

My sweet boy, Baylor, always loves to inspect my freshly prepped garden beds. Photo courtesy of The Honey Bee & the Hound

To start making your 3’ x 10’ garden bed, first you must clear the designated area of any vegetation. Burn Out and Horticultural Vinegar are great organic herbicides. Once your bed area is free and clear of grass and weeds, you will start turning the soil in your bed simply by using a shovel. You will dig down as far as you can and place the shovel-full of dirt and make a pile of the dirt you have dug out. You should be digging out 3”-6” of soil. Next you will need a fork to put in the very bottom of the bed you have dug out to aerate and open the sub-soil. Your goal should be to make as many little holes in the very bottom of the bed as possible. Now you will need to get some compost, such as Cotton Burr Compost, to add about 3” of compost to the bottom of the newly dug-out bed. After you have added some compost, you will now add back in the soil that you have dug out to begin with. To top off your bed, you will add another 2”-3” of compost. Your end result should be a 3’ x 10’ bed that is raised about 6” above the ground. While this method of “double-digging” is much more labor-intensive than using a piece of machinery such as a tiller, but it more beneficial for your garden in many ways: it protects the beneficial insects and tiny microbes living in the top six inches of your soil that protect your plants from harmful pests and keeps the soil a healthy, living, necessary part of your healthy, happy flowers. It also helps to keep you accountable for your care of your garden – when you put that much work into starting a garden, you are bound to keep it up and to love and care for it often!

My favorite activity these days is riding around to find someone to share my flowers with! Photo courtesy of The Honey Bee & the Hound Cut Flower Farm

Next is the fun part: picking out the seeds to plant in your brand new garden bed! My three recommendations would be a Zinnia (Pumila Cut & Come Again), a Basil (such as Petra), and a
Sunflower. You will plant all of your seeds on a 6” x 6” grid. This will give the plants enough room to fully grow in while utilizing every bit of your space. With this combination of flowers you will easily have flowers for a bouquet that smells good and will come back week after week in your garden.

Fresh bouquets of zinnia and basil – photo courtesy of The Honey Bee & the Hound Cut Flower Farm

In order to maintain your new cut flower garden, you must stay on top of the weeds! The easiest way to get ahead of the weeds is to begin mulching your garden when your seedlings have grown 6” tall. Add 3” of mulch at a time using grass cuttings and old leaves that you have collected. This should allow you to have a whole season of no weeding necessary!

Enlisting your feathered ladies to help keep the weeds and pests down is always a good idea as long as they do not try to sit on your seedlings! – Photo courtesy of The Honey Bee & the Hound Cut Flower Farm

Lastly, when you go to cut your flowers be sure to do it in the cool part of the early mornings or late evenings. If you cut during the high noon sun, your flowers will likely wilt. Allow your flowers to sit in a bucket of water for at least six hours before beginning to arrange them in a bouquet. This allows them to get maximum hydration. Once you have gone through a season with your first cutting garden, I encourage you to begin looking for the seeds of the flowers that your mother and grandmother grew. This is what helps to make me feel so connected with my cutting gardens – I can cut the same bouquet that my late grandmother used to put on her dining room table and it makes me connect with her in a very special way. Enjoy!

To learn more, be sure to come to Gill’s on Airline this Saturday (September 10, 2016) for Emily’s Garden Talk:

”From Beginning to Bouquets – Cultivating Cut Flowers”

If you would like to connect with a local cut flower farm, visit

www.thehoneybeeandthehound.com

-Emily Capule, Flower Farmer and Gill’s Landscape Design Assistant

If you spend any time outdoors and have anything blooming red, there’s a good chance you’ve got hummingbirds buzzing around. It’s that time of year when hummers begin their migratory flight heading south for the winter. We are so lucky to be a fueling stop along their journey.

Coastal areas see the first masses arrive. They are very hungry and need plenty of nectar. Best food for any hummer is through nectar rich blooms.

Turk’s Cap, Firecracker Plant, Shrimp Plant, Red Yucca

Some of their favorites are Firecracker Plant, Firebush, Hummingbird bush, Turks Cap, Shrimp Plant, & Red Yucca. They will go to most anything red/orange (even a colorful Hawaiian shirt!) but not all flowers and flowery shirts have enough nectar to feed them.

Feeders are good; they need to be changed every few days, cleaned each time with mild soap and thoroughly rinsed. No coloring or artificial sweeteners please. Take time to enjoy this wonderful act of nature, and come see us for your hummingbird plants and feeders!

-Debbie

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