Garden Mavens' Blogs

Sun, 07 Mar 2010

Accessible Vegetable
My friend and acupuncturist Paddy Tawada aka Dr. Pea, has an awesome idea that is powerful in it's simplicity. Basically gardeners can plant a few extra veggies in their front yards (or wherever) and make them available to the general public. Accessible Vegetables fundraiser/launch and movement: A simple human movement to make fresh veggies, fruit, nuts and herbs accessible to all...one pod at a time. Sun. Mar. 14 1 - 4 pm 1309 Singleton Avenue Austin, Tx 78702 www.accessiblevegetables.com It is a great idea for people who live in neighborhoods where fresh produce is hard to find, where decent grocery stores are miles away and many people do not have reliable transportation. Hooray!

posted at: 19:19 | path: /colleen2010 | link for this entry

Mon, 08 Feb 2010

February To Do List
Most gardeners in Austin don’t realize that February and March are the busiest times of the year in the yard. Most parts of the country are still buried under snow, but here in Austin it is the best time to get ready for spring. Here is a list of things that I do in February and early March: Prune all roses except climbers Acidify soil around and give a granular, slow-release organic fertilizer to roses and other acid loving plants like camellias, gardenias, citrus, azaleas, hydrangeas Prune citrus trees Cut back all perennials that froze to the ground Cut back all ornamental grasses except bamboo muhly Clean out evergreen bulbous plants like bicolor irises, butterfly irises aka African iris, lily of the Nile aka Agapanthus, society garlic, alliums, chives and irises Look for leaves and other debris that may have gotten caught on top or in the middle of plants. If you used leaves to keep some plants warm over the winter, scoot them away from the base of the plants to avoid rotting the plants in the spring. Add compost and mulch to your flower beds Topdress your turf grass with compost Prepare your vegetable garden beds with compost and mulch so they are ready to plant peppers and tomatoes in late march- consider adding minerals, worm castings and cottonseed meal to garden beds that have heavy clay or compacted soil Plant a final crop of cool season veggies that will mature in less than 60 days Plant woody plants, especially hardwood trees Prune fruit trees Prune deciduous trees Transplant plants as needed Use corn gluten on weedy areas Use a hoe or a rake to cut down and scrape up spring and winter weeds like sticky weed and hedge parsley Use compost tea and/or a soil activator on the soil over your entire yard Spray plants with seaweed or superthrive to help them recover from stress caused by cold weather Do not prune: Evergreen trees and shrubs Lady Banksia roses and climbing roses Sago Palms Do not plant: Tender perennials or marginally hardy plants Annuals Perennials that typically die back to the ground each winter that have been kept in a greenhouse this winter Succulents

posted at: 13:14 | path: /colleen2010 | link for this entry

Sun, 10 Jan 2010

How to start cuttings follow up
Many of you may have read my article about starting new big tooth maple trees and grape vines from cuttings. If not, you can read it here: http://www.growingpleasures.com/memberarea/projects.html?inc=projects/0044_Starting_New_Plants_From_Cuttings_101_For_Home_Gardeners.txt Well, it has been about a month now and it is really hard to tell how they are doing. I am keeping them moist. A few of them died but others still have life left in them. There is some mold growing on the top of the soil- I haven't been super diligent about spraying them with fungicide. I understand that it takes a long time- a whole season- to get them to grow roots so I will be patient. I will keep them until the summer to see if they grew. I don't feel very confident. After I got them all ready I was talking with a friend who recommended that I use a stronger rooting compound than the one I used. So that is bad. Then I think I may have taken the cuttings from the plants too early- They still had leaves on them and the leaves died. I think I was supposed to take cuttings after the leaves dropped in the winter. Oh yeah, and then the day after I planted them, an animal dug them all up and made a huge mess of them. So they have alot against them! If they don't take, I will just try again.

posted at: 18:47 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Fri, 08 Jan 2010

Back from the holidays!
What an exciting holiday season I had! For Thanksgiving, Eric and I met his parents in Hot Springs, AK. It is just about halfway between our home in Austin and their home in southern Indiana. It is a beautiful place with a with a strange history. There are historic bathhouses in the national park there, and one of them is still in operation. My sister-in-law and I took in a tradtional bath and it was fun and relaxing and also inexpensive. We stayed in cabins at nearby Lake Catherine State Park and hiked there. The terrain was rugged but beatiful. The plant life was very diverse. Then, we went to Cleveland to see my mom aka garden maven Peg and the rest of my family and a bunch of friends. We enjoyed some snow- gorgeous fluffy stuff. We left just before we got really sick of snow. Now we are back in Austin and we are having record cold, after one of the hottest summers in history. Thankfully, the cold is going to pass in just a few days. The low tonight is supposed to be 18 and it has never been that cold since I have lived here. I covered many plants incluluding pansies, cyclamen and all winter annuals, all citrus trees, all succulents, bougainviellas, philodendrons, olive trees and newly planted or transplanted plants. I think despite my covering them many of them will die anyway. After the heat and drought and now this severe cold I am expecting a vey busy spring for my business and for area nurseries. The bad economy hasn't hurt my biz much. I think I fill a good niche of providing folks with advice and ongoing care and then I do simple small plantings occasionally. It seems like the companies that rely on large scale plantings for most of their income are really hurting. I feel good about growing a sustainable business. I think the nurseries might do well this spring because people may stay home over spring break instead of vacationing and they will want to work in their yards. We shall see.

posted at: 10:36 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Wed, 21 Oct 2009

Upcoming Class
I am wishing people would sign up for my next gardening class that I am co-teaching with Amy Crowell. It is about how to grow vegetables in pots/conatiners. It's on Saturday Oct 31 from 10-1 and costs $3o. Handouts included. It will be at the American Botanical Council here in Austin, TX. Register by emailing Amy at EatWild@gmail.com.

posted at: 14:30 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Sun, 27 Sep 2009

Fun Weekend
My speaking event at the Renewable Energy Roundup was great. Eric told me he counted 80 people there. I gave out at least 70 Growing Pleasures cards there, so I hope the folks will check out this site. Everybody had great questions and only one person fell asleep (you know who you are). This weekend the weather has been nice. I decided not to do my fall veggie garden this year. Usually I always plant veggies on Labor Day. But this year I went to Atlanta on Labor day, and with the severe heat, exceptional drought and police-enforced water restrictions, I decided to skip the fall veggies this year. But now that the weather has changed a bit I am having second thoughts. The rest of my yard is looking horrible, and I ought to devote time to that instead. But the allure of fresh radishes, parsley and cabbages is almost too hard to resist. My yard looks horrible because of the heat and drought, and the heat and drought made me not want to work outside at all this summer unless it was earning money at my customers' yards. Also, a large tree in our front yard died in the spring and we had to cut it down in the early summer. Suddenly a section of the yard that had been shaded was now is horrible scorching sun. So everything needs some work. I guess I will do the right thing and focus on cleaning up the landscape this fall and winter and pass on veggies. I can get most of the veggies I want at Boggy Creek Farm with the gift certificate my husband's mother got us for Christmas last year!

posted at: 18:13 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Thu, 24 Sep 2009

Compost Tea
Since the weather cooled off and it started raining a bit here in Austin, I decided to start making compost tea again in my brewer. Compost tea is a liquid that has a really high concentration of beneficial microbes that ordinarily live in the soil and make soil and plants very healthy by breaking down dead stuff into little bits that the plants can eat. The microbes are incredibly diverse in their characteristics, but most are fungi and bacteria. The fungi is really important to woody plants like trees and shrubs. The bacteria are more beneficial to perennials, annuals and veggies. Typical garden soils benefit from having more of these microbes. For me, the important thing about compost tea is that compost tea takes the essence of compost and all of the good things about compost and puts it in a convenient liquid form. I got the brewer last year at Geo Growers and it holds 15 gallons. It is a big plastic barrel on a metal stand that has an aquarium bubbler and a heater on it. I also bought a filter that will clean the chlorine out of the water in my garden hose so the chlorine won't kill the microbes in the compost tea. I got the filter at www.cleanairgardening.com. Anyway, I made a couple of batches and they turned out good- they smelled right- like the tea that I have purchases from different nurseries. To make the tea, I use a small cloth bag filled with worm castings for the bacteria and two fungal pellets for the fungal part of it. I also got the fungal pellets at Geo Growers. Worm castings are easy to find at nurseries around here. I put 15 gallons of dechlorinated water in the tank, plug in the bubbler and heater, then put in 8 tablespoons or so of liquid humate, a few tablespoons of fish emulsion and the tea bag with the worm castings and the fungal pellets. I let it brew for 24 hours or so. If it is about 70 outside I leave the heater off. There is a ton of info about compost tea out there, and I have talked to lots of people about their recipes etc. But I try to keep it simple, and I don't feel like it's an exact science, and it seems like it comes out right and works well in my yard and in my customers' yards. If I were really going to be scientific I would get a microscope to check out the microbes in each batch to make sure they are all alive and kicking, but I have never been that into it. But I can tell by smell if it is ok or not. To apply it, I put it in a hose-end sprayer with the filter attached and I spray the plants and the ground around them. I am still just starting out with this but I think it will yield good results, and it is less expensive and less labor-intensive than adding compost to my customers' yards. I am trying to find something other than the fungal pellets to use because the pellets are hard to store and it isn't always easy for me to get all the way out to Geo Growers in Dripping Springs just for them. The folks at Barton Springs Nursery told me that they use half-rotted leaves from underneath their oak trees for the fungal portion of the tea. That sounded like a good idea. Jacob at Natural Gardener told me that they use their dairy compost because it has some good fungi in it. So I have some experimenting to do! Avid GP readers know of my affection for fungi! OH BOY! I will spare you the clever puns (fungus among us and so on).

posted at: 21:46 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Renewable Energy Roundup this weekend!
I am speaking in the white tent at 2 PM tomorrow at the Renewable Energy Roundup in Fredericksburg. Should be a fun time. The topic is "caring for your native and well-adaped landscape". The notes for it are posted below. I did the same presentation last Saturday at Natural Gardener in Oak Hill and it was a big hit. Everybody is seeking this type of info. Keep checking my blog for more tips on pruning, feeding and generally caring for your native landscape.

posted at: 21:25 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Fri, 18 Sep 2009

Native and Adapted Landscape Maintenance Presentation Outline
1.Intro o Me o Red Wheelbarrow Coaching Sessions- customized to do lists o Growing Pleasures- blog 2.The Native Landscape needs care too! Give reasons- Vigor! Save Water! Save Energy! Keep it looking good! 3.My presentation is about 45 minutes long, and there is plenty of time for questions. Feel free to ask during the presentation and I’ll be around afterwards for more complex questions. 4.I divided it into three parts, focusing on the fall season. Fall includes end of aug, sept and oct. We will talk first about what plants to leave alone in the garden in the fall. Then we can talk about fall fertilization and things we can do for all of the plants in the yard in the fall. Then we’ll wrap it up by touching on pruning techniques for certain plants that are really common in the native landscape, but I chose plants that are kind of hard and complicated to care for. I have some notes for the winter season but we may not get that far. 5.What to hold off on: o Large shrubs like vibirnums, burford and chinese hollies, yaupons, japanese yews, texas sages, loropetalums, Texas Mountain Laurels, are all blooming or growing berries or holding onto buds for next year's blooms. At this time of year try to only prune very gently for shape. Avoid agressive pruning at this time because you will remove their buds, blooms and berries. o Roses: prune only for shape, leave on flower 'hips' or fruit to encourage dormancy for winter o Small trees: also avoid heavy pruning at this time. Prune only if branches are rubbing on each other or on structures or if they are hanging down in walkways. o Turfgrass/Buffalograss: mow less frequently as temperatures cool. Leave your turfgrass relatively long in the winter to prevent weeds when it is dormant. Some people mow buffalograss at this time but I do not recommend it. 6.What to do for everybody- all of the plants in the landscape: o Overview: this is our last chance to prune plants before winter, and to let the plants put on new growth before a chance of freezing threatens the health of new growth. This is also the time to give the plants one last gentle feeding. Basically we are trying to revive some of the plants after a long hot summer while at the same time getting other slower growing plants to go dormant for the winter. It's also a good time to take stock of the landscape- who made it through the summer? It's a good time to plant. o In september and early October the entire landscape will benefit from a slow-release organic fertilizer like ladybug 8-2-4, cottonseed meal, etc. Water in your fertilizer with compost tea or a soil activator like Terra Tonic. I avoid using foliar feeding fertilizers like Johns recipe/ fish emulsion at this time of year because I think it encourages too much vigorous growth that can be damaged by cold weather. o Remove summer weeds to get more bang for your buck. o Corn gluten Composting and mulching 7.Now the specifics- this is what i’ve been up to lately: o Salvia greggiis, rosemarys, and other evergreen perennials like certain types of mallows/rock roses, jerusalem sage, euryops, lion’s tails,- After they are mostly done blooming: o Prune out dead branches o Prune out any branches that have yellowy or diseased leaves o With rosemary, prune out some branches that make the interior of the plant too dense. The plants need good airflow. o Remove any branches that are reaching too far into walkways o Shear off tips of each branch using hand pruners or shears o Woody Herbs like thyme, damianita, oregano, marjoram, Pink Skullcaps: cut back outer 1/3-1/2 of plant when they are mostly done blooming. They might not be totally done blooming but that is ok. o Plants may look ugly at first but they will grow back. o Inland sea oats: cut off seed heads after they turn completely brown to prevent massive spread of plants- spread seeds in area where plants are desired or share with friends! Make the cut 1/4 inch above the top leaf. Later in the season the tops of the plants will start to fade and turn brown. New growth will begin to emerge from the ground. You can trim out the old stems at ground level at this time. o Bicolor irises and Butterfly irises: Trim out dead leaves as far down as you can reach. Cut out any leaves that are growing horizontally that are not mostly upright. Remove bulbs/corms from the center of the plant that are not touching the ground. Remove faded flower stems. o Wiregrass/feathergrass: After they bloom the can get really matted and gross looking. Trim off the top 1/2 of the whole plant. They will look greener and healthier all winter. Pull out any dead sections from each plant. The dead sections are gray- brown rather than golden. They should pull out of the ground and separate from the living part of the plant when you use your hands to gently tug on the dead section.

posted at: 23:33 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Mon, 14 Sep 2009

Rain!
It started raining on Thursday and has been raining on and off ever since! I have gotten 6 inches at my house so far! And there haven't been any bad storms, either. Just gentle rain. It is wonderful. I had to take Friday p.m. off because of the rain. It's been 2 years since I took a rain day, I think. All of the plants are looking so much better, and the temperatures are way cooler, too. I feel so relieved, the drought and heat have been record breaking and horrible. I hope this keeps up all winter!

posted at: 14:10 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Thu, 10 Sep 2009

Fall Feeding
This week I started doing some fall fertilizing and supplementing. Depending on the yard, I use a slow-release organic granular fertilizer and a soil activator to water it in. Yesturday I worked in a yard that previously had been treated using non-organic methods. If you want to convert a non-organic yard over to organics, it's important to get a soil test first. Her soil test showed her yard was over fertilized- something I have never seen in AUstin. i was surprized. So I have been using compost tea, worm castings and soil activators like terra tonic and medina soil activator to get some microbes back in the soil. my belief is that chemical fertilizers kill the microbes in the soil and destroy the soil texture. so adding some microbes back in is crucial. the problem with this yard is that she has over fertilized, so I wanted to avoid using compost because it can throw the nutrient balance even further out of whack. so these other produccts can add microbes without adding more nutrients.

posted at: 09:18 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Sat, 05 Sep 2009

Herb Pruning Time!
It's labor day weekend I this time of year is herb pruning time! This week I spent alot of time pruning herbs. Oregano, marjoram, rosemary, lavender, thyme, chives and basil are all looking a little ugly at this time of year and I prune them all differently. For the woody herbs like oregano, marjoram, thyme and rosemary I trim the whole plant back by 1/3 and remove dead damaged limbs and dead flowers. With rosemary and lavender I also take off bottom branches and remove some of the interior branches to improve airflow and to let sunlight through the middle of the bush. marjoram always looks weird after it blooms so just cut it back by 1/2 or 1/3 and it will grow back to regain it's mounding shape. Thyme is really hard to prune so dont be discoraged. just chop off dead or bald stems that are underneath leafy stems. Then trim the leafy stems back by 1/3 or 1/2. It will look ugly but it will grow back better. Chives get cut down to a few inches high after they are done blooming. yes, you read me right, cut the entire plant down to just three inches of height after they bloom, especially if the leaves are all laying down on the ground and are not longer standing up and perky. The part that is lying down is just going to die and get in the way of new growth coming up from the ground. In austin, basil starts to get tired at this time of year. I cut off any stems that are lying on the ground and then trim back each branch by 1/3. I also trim off all brown or yellow leaves. Then everybody should get some compost and/or slow release fertilizer to help them grow back a little before winter comes. one of my customers put the rosemary I trimmed in vases. She's making pesto with the basil and drying everything else. I smelled good all week long!

posted at: 10:51 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Sat, 29 Aug 2009

Watering restrictions and summer tree pruning
So finally it rained! It had been months since we had any significant rain, and we are having one of the hottest summers on record. The other night I got 3/4 of an inch at my house. The next day I felt like a new person! I hope there is more to come. Some of my customers didn't get any rain, though. The City of Austin and surrounding cities and the county have all enacted mandatory water restrictions, so we can really only irrigate with irrigation systems once per week. There is actually a "water police" who will give you a ticket if you are watering on the wrong day or at the wrong time. It is kind of a drag but I am glad to try to do the right thing to save water. I am a chronic over-waterer so it is good for me to have some guidelines. All of the landscapers around town are trying to gear up to take advantage of all of the business that is going to come up because so many plants died this summer. There will be alot of planting jobs. I am just going to stick with my current customers- they keep me plenty busy! The newer plants that I put in the ground in the spring will have a really hard time with just once per week watering, so I will be hand watering alot in the next few weeks. It is legal to hand water at any time. That is ok with me, standing around with the hose and listening to my MP3 player is not such a bad way to pass the time when it is over 100 degrees outside. While I am watering I am also using liquid fertilizer like fish emulsion to give the plants a late summer boost. My husband put new music on my MP3 player recently, so that has been cool. He included a band called O Death, which is really a downer, as you might expect. That is not so great to listen to when it feels like there are tons of plants dying and the heat is never going to end. But he also put a woman who calls herself St. Vincent on there and she is totally awesome. Very good gardening music. She is an indie artist who does alot of experimental rock. If you like Sleater-Kinney or Tori Amos you will probably like her, though some of her fans might cringe to hear me say that because they think she is way cooler. She's from Dallas too. Normally at this time of year I am doing tons of weeding and summer tree pruning. Because of the drought there is not much weeding which is great! I have been hand-watering so much that I am behind on tree pruning most places. But that is ok, I can do it in the winter. The trees will still be there. It is a good idea to prune small trees like crepe myrtles and wax myrtles at this time of year in Austin if their branches are hanging into walkways or scraping on the roof. Their flowers and berries can make the branches heavy, so a light pruning is good if you can do it. Save the hard pruning for winter. Keep it cool out there!

posted at: 19:21 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Mon, 03 Aug 2009

Stereotypes
Today I was getting some buckets of gravel out of my truck. Across the street a house is under construction and there are many contractors around. Today one of them asked me how much I charge. I said "$40 per hour". He looked surprised and confused. He said "what?" I repeated my first answer. He said 'oh, I'm sorry. I was being racist. I thought you were the homeowner. I was making a joke." I said "No, I'm really a gardener." He said "Oh I was just going on stereotypes" and he looked embarrassed. I was carrying heavy buckets of gravel and I was really busy so I just walked away from him. He said some other things to me but couldn't hear him- that neighborhood is really noisy. I was fuming about that guy being racist AND making my career into a joke. Then I realized that the situation was especially ironic because one of the homeowners is a Latino-American multi-millionaire. I am so pleased that the homeowner hired me, a young white woman, to be his gardener solely because I am a really good gardener and a good businessperson. Unfortunately this is not the first time this happened to me, and probably not the last.

posted at: 15:57 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Mon, 20 Jul 2009

My Jams and Mid summer fertilizer
Today I did some mid summer feeding for a customer. I just finished her mid summer pruning, and as the plants start to grow back I give them some food to help them along. I gave them a granular organic fertilizer, ladybug 8-2-4, and also sprayed them with john's recipe liquid fertilizer. i put is on her turfgrass as well. My husband thought it would be cool if I talked about the music I listen to while I am gardening because music is a big part of my life. I listen to my mp3 player almost all day and almost everyday. Since it has been so horribly hot and I am having trouble staying motivated, i am listening to De La Soul's new album 'Are you in?' which is a special recording they did for Nike (yes, the shoe company). It is music you're supposed to listen to when you work out. It is not what you'd expect a peaceful gardener to listen to while weeding etc, but it is just the kind of jam I need to get me pumped about mundane activites in 100 degrees. It's worth a listen if you're into hip hop/ rap.

posted at: 15:29 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

posted at: 15:18 | path: | link for this entry

Thu, 09 Jul 2009

"We're gonna die out here!"
You may be wondering, how hot does it get in austin in July? I was just shopping at Barton Springs Nursery. I saw two little girls shopping for plants with their mom. Mom was taking a long time picking out plants, and one girl turned to the other girl and said "we're gonna die out here!" SO, yeah, it's hot today.

posted at: 14:15 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Thu, 02 Jul 2009

Pink Skullcap
Yesturday and the day before it finally rained here. I think I got about an inch total at my house. It was great to work outside in the light rain, it was 75 degrees and no sun. Nice change of pace from the 100 plus sunny heat wave we've had. On Tuesday I spent time cutting back pink skullcap that was finishing up its first bloom. It's a tricky plant to trim but it you don't prune them they can loose vigor and become woody and ugly. I take off any broken branches, then I remove the tallest three main branches in the center of the plant to let sunlight in to the center of the plant. Then I cut back the bottom branches that lay on the ground about 2/3. Then I use hedge clippers to shear the rest of the plant to remove the dead flowers and seed heads. It will look kind of strange at first but it will grow back beautifully. If you don't have the patience for all of that I know other gardeners that cut the plants back by 1/3 to 1/2. I think this makes the plant look too ugly in the meantime so I prefer the method illustrated above. It is important to do this kind of trimming again after the plants bloom in the fall as well. This will make the plants grow back more lush and will extend the life of the plants.

posted at: 14:00 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Sun, 28 Jun 2009

Heat Wave
your picture description So, you don't have to be super-creative to imagine what a heat wave in the summer in Texas is like. It's like 10 degrees hotter than normal. This is a picture of my cat, Remmy, today. His posture pretty much sums up what everyone around here is feeling like. We are having record heat, which we had last year at this time too. I can tell that global warming is at work in Austin. Now we have had three years in a row of very mild winters with freak late freezes, horrible storms with huge hail and record breaking heat early in the summer. Not to mention a devestating, record-breaking drought that is going on its third year. Certain plants like avocados and Texas olive, which couldn't be grown this far north reliably because of winter freezes a few years ago are now growing happily in Austin. I had a pepper plant overwinter easily in my garden last year, normally they die during the first freeze. Today I am not going outside unless I have to, and the national weather service issued a heat advisory, asking folks to stay inside in air conditioning if they can. Most of my landscape plants are doing ok- my coneflowers, yarrow, tansy and gaura are blooming happily like nothing is wrong. The veggie garden is looking pretty bad, and I am thinking about abandoning it because I don't think I can water it enough. I have some cukes, peppers and eggplants, which are doing kind of ok, and some chard and strawberries that are certainly doomed. Some of my friends told me they abandoned their veggie gardens for the summer. Other friends are still growing okra and black eye peas, but I'm not crazy about either one of those foods so I tend to let the garden rest in the summer too. I am interested in getting some eggplants and they will eventually produce fruit during the heat so I can't decide if I should let them die or not. I guess we'll see how I feel. I am fairly certain that all of our St. Augustine turfgrass will die soon, especially because one huge tree just died in our front yard and there is way, way less shade than last year. I kind of refuse to water the grass too. I think it's wasteful, but that is just my opinion. However, I am getting a bumper crop of figs, I think they like the heat! They taste like honey and my hubby and I have been stuffing ourselves silly with them.

posted at: 19:01 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Thu, 25 Jun 2009

Central Texas Gardener Taping
Today I was interviewed by Tom Spencer on central Texas Gardenr, our local PBS gardening show. I talked about common garden mistakes. CHeck me out on KLRU July 18 a noon and 4 or July 19 at 8 AM. It will also air in san antonio, kileen, waco, midland/permian basin and in Portales, New Mexico and Denver, Colorado- all on different days at different times. I kind of agonized over what to wear- decided on my trademark red pants so people will recognize me after they see the show. It was fun, and the crew seemed surpized/delighted to see my red pants. I think I did a good job. Everybody in the studio said goodbye by saying 'see you on TV'. I thought that was cool and nerdy at the same time.

posted at: 16:45 | path: /colleen0605 | link for this entry

Mon, 22 Jun 2009

Summer deadheading and pruning
Now that it's getting hot in austin and most of the perennials are finishing their first spring bloom, it's time to cut them back! I love the summer pruning time. When you cut back perennials at this time you are taking off dead blooms and encouraging the plants to grow more busy. Try removing the top 1/3 of your mexican bush sage, salvia gaurantica 'black and blue', salvia gaurantica 'majestic', copper canyon daisy, indigo spires salvia, turk's cap, and anything else that blooms in the spring and fall that gets about 2 feet or taller. If you do this summer pruning you'll notice that the plants stay shorter and bushier which will keep them from falling over or splitting open in the fall. They will also have more vigo and will look more robust in the late summer. If it's too hot outside for you then don't bother. In July, it's a good idea to trim your skullcap, oregano and salvia gregii.

posted at: 15:58 | path: /colleen2009 | link for this entry

Fri, 19 Jun 2009

Summer Vacation!
Today I am returning to Austin after a trip to the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park and Las Vegas. Look for articles about the national parks later. Las Vegas landscaping/plants were not so great except the Bellagio, where it's clear the landscape designers went to great lengths to create an authentic looking Italian landscape complete with Italian stone pines and painstakingly pruned square hedges everywhere. It was impressive and the stone pines offered some much needed shade on the strip. I had planned on a visit to spring preserve, a nature center/botanical garden 3 mi west of downtown Vegas, but I decided to spend more time with my good friends who met me in Vegas instead. Maybe next time. I did not win anything gambling. It was downright depressing. But every American should see Vegas once, it's a bizzare, impressive and exciting place. I walked almost everywhere, and I am pooped.

posted at: 10:57 | path: /colleen2009 | link for this entry

posted at: 10:46 | path: | link for this entry

Wed, 27 May 2009

Tree surgery
Yestuday I preformed surgery on a small lemon tree with my friend Rebekah who is also a pro gardener. She works with me every week for one of my customers who has a large yard. This customer of mine has many citrus trees, including one Meyer Lemon that has been dropping some leaves lately. we realized that the trunk of the tree was being choked by one of its own roots. the root and the trunk grew really fast in the last couple months, and before we knew it the root was bigger than the trunk and was encircling the trunk and strangling it. this is common with trees grown in containers, especially fruit trees that are grafted like meyer lemons. Basically we carefully chipped away at the root until we cleared it away from the trunk. We used pruners, lopers and a pruning saw to very carefully gouge out parts of the root. we took extra care to not hit the trunk with any tools to avoid injuring the trunk. We could tell the trunk had been squeezed- a problem that experts call 'girdleing'. In the process we had to trim off a few other large roots, and we were sqeemish about injuring the tree too much. but we figured the tree would certainly die if we didn't do anything. We shall see how the tree comes out of it. I think it will be ok.

posted at: 10:28 | path: /colleen2009 | link for this entry

Sun, 22 Mar 2009

Owl Action
So a couple weeks ago I was getting ready to leave my house for work in the late morning. I was in my truck and I needed to put my bag in the backseat, so I got out of the truck and opened the back door. Then I saw something fly down from accross the street and landed under the truck. I stooped down and I was stunned to see that it was a tiny screech owl. It walked towards me and my first instinct was to pick it up, which makes no sense whatsoever, so I did not give in to my first instinct. Eric was sitting in the passenger seat and I told him there was an owl under the truck. He opened his door and the owl flew away. It was exhilirating for me because I am a big owl fan. I have alot of owl jewlery and decor in my house, and many friends have given me owl-oriented gifts because I give out alot of good advice/wisdom about all kinds of things. I was worried about the owl, I thought it must have been scared out of it's nest since it was out during daylight and seemed startled, but I thought it would be ok because it had no trouble flying. Then, the other day I was watering my garden and noticed something underneath one of my small Lady Banksia roses near the lettuce seeds I had planted a week earlier. It was a tiny screech owl- dead. I was really shaken up by this, and I suspect it is the same owl that landed under the truck a couple weeks ago. Eric helped me put it in a paper bag and we called 311 to see if anyone at the city wanted to preform a necropsy on a dead owl. Sometimes they want mammals to make sure they didn't die of rabies, but there isn't much interest in owls. No one wanted the dead owl so we buried it in my back garden which is lying fallow this spring. I felt really sad about the owl, and I did a little online browsing and found out that screech owls have tons of natural predators and get infected with parasites and stuff like that, so maybe that is what happened to it. I think I might put in a call to a raptor expert whose phone number I found online.

posted at: 13:48 | path: /colleen2009 | link for this entry

Mon, 26 Jan 2009

Lantana
Lantana is a lovely perennial that is a staple of Central Texas gardens. It comes in many shapes, including trailing and shrubby. It also comes in many colors, from white to purple to red and yellow. Make sure you are familiar with the shape and size of your Lantana variety before you prune it. I recommend wearing long sleeves when you prune shrubby Lantana because the stems and leaves can be thorny and scratchy and some people get rashes from this scratchiness. Care of Lantana is fairly simple depending on weather. In November through March you can cut the plant's woody stems back to 3" from the ground when the plant first shows signs of cold damage. Most trailing Lantanas' leaves will turn purple when they go through a light frost, and you can prune them anytime after that. The larger shrubby types will typically loose their leaves after a hard freeze and they can be pruned back anytime after that. The motivation for winter pruning is to remove the ugly bare stems and dead leaves. Winter pruning is also good for reducing the plant's size if I is getting too large for the space it's in. No matter what variety, Lantanas are notorious climbers and can surprisingly climb up through the center of the plants near them, so winter pruning can solve problems like that. Often the bottom branches of Lantana plants will get shaded out and die off, and winter time is a good time to remove those dead branches. Sometimes branches will die during very very cold weather, especially on the white and purple trailing types and the dead branches need to be removed in the winter. New growth will begin growing back soon after pruning from the ground and from the short stems left after pruning. Fertilize your Lantanas with an organic slow release fertilizer with a higher nitrogen number in March. Many gardeners opt to leave their Lantanas untouched in he winter, and this has some advantages. The leaves will grow back sooner and the plant will bloom earlier than ones that were pruned back in winter. The plant will also grow much larger in size if you are interested in having a larger plant. However, it is still important in March or April to remove any dead branches from the plant when it starts to grow back leaves. This can be kind of tricky and time consuming, but sometimes works out great. You should also try to rake out any leaves that fell on the ground over the winter after you finish pruning out the dead branches to prevent diseases from festering in those leaves. If you have a Lantana plant that is too lanky, leggy or otherwise unruly, you can trim it at any time to shape it. If the plant is particularly bad, I recommend trimming it back by 1/2 after its first bloom of the year in May or June to really keep the plant bushy, robust and under control. This pruning isn't necessary if your Lantanas have a nice shape and aren't getting too big. Feed it with a basic organic fertilize after you prune it in the summer. On relatively rare occasions, these plants can be susceptible to powdery mildew disease, especially if they were planted too low in the ground of have mulch, soil or other debris piled up around their base. If you have a plant that has mildew, you should cut it back to the ground, remove all leaves, mulch and debris that are touching the stems, and give the plant a dose of soil activator and a slow release granular fertilizer. You should treat the new growth with potassium bicarbonate or a sulfur fungicide. They sometimes also get insect problems, especially scale in June through September. This typically happens when the plants are growing very close together and have pop-up irrigation spraying directly on the leaves. Scale love growing in high humidity situations with low air flow. It's a good idea to keep a little bit of space between the plants if scale insects become a problem for you. Cut the plants back by 1/2 and transplant them to other places in your garden where they can have more space. Use horticultural, neem or another organic insecticidal oil early in the morning or late in the evening to kill the scale. Neem will also kill fungal diseases like powdery mildew.

posted at: 14:26 | path: /colleen2009 | link for this entry

Sun, 18 Jan 2009

Beach Vitex
Some of my customers have bach vitex, an unusual small shrub with round, gray leaves and blueish purple flowers and gray berries, in their yards, and it took me awhile to figure out what to do with it. The answer: do nothing with it. This plant loses its leaves in the winter and it is tempting to cut it back to the ground, but you shouldn't. It is a rambling plant that sprawls all over close to the ground, kind of like some other shrubs often grown in Texas like coralberry. I only prune bach vitex in the late spring if it has dead branches or if it grows into a walkway or onto another plant. When pruning out of a walkway you should prune the bottom branches of the plant off completely first, allowing the top branches to fall down into the bottom branches' places. This should keep the plant in a natural shape and prevent it from looking like it was just chopped off. You can prune to shape it anytime. Beach vitex need nothing except hot sun and protection from crushing, so don't plant it near a driveway where it might get run over. I recommend compost and a light mulch once each year, no fertilizer is needed, but it responds well to a soil activator and compost tea treatments. As with most woody plants it is crucial to avoid piling up leaves, debris, compost and mulch around the stems of this plant or else it will rot. It tolerates underwatering and overwatering!

posted at: 21:20 | path: /colleen2009 | link for this entry

Thu, 08 Jan 2009

Pink Skullcap
January is the time to trim your pink skullcaps. They can be really tricky to prune. Typically you should prune them after they bloom, but sometimes it is hard to tell if they are done blooming. And it is also hard to tell how to prune them. I belive that prunung off the top 2/3rds of the entire plant after each bloom cycle keeps them healthy, vigorous and beautiful. This may seem like radical surgery, but you will notice in January that new dark green growth is trying to emerge from the center of the plant, and the old growth and dead flowers need to be removed to give enough light to the new growth. If you don't trim them, the plants tend to lay flat on the ground and look very bare in the center and will only have green leaves on the tips of the branches. To prune them, I grab small groups of branches in my left hand and use my hand pruners to chop off the top 2/3rds. Then I will also remove all dead branches. Skullcaps have very brittle branches that break easily, so it is common to find broken and dead branches on them. Skullcap usually blooms in the spring and you can prune them again then. If you want the plants to get bigger you can skip the spring pruning but try not to skip the January pruning.

posted at: 17:50 | path: /colleen2008 | link for this entry

Wed, 07 Jan 2009

Happy New Year!
I made a new years’ resolution to blog more often. So, here I am. This is my favorite time of year to garden in Austin. The weather is nice (it was 75 today, sorry to those of you in the great white North), and the gardening tasks tend to be fun and easy. I have been cleaning up perennials that died back in the freezing weather we had recently. Today, Rebekah, my gardening partner every Wednesday, and I worked at our regular Wednesday place, a beautiful property in west Austin where I have worked for several years now. The landscape has matured beautifully, and I feel very proud of it. Today we cut back some Salvia farinacea ‘Indigo Spires’, also known just as ‘Indigo Spires’. I’ve mentioned this plant a few times in Growing Pleasures articles, but I wanted to go into more detail here about it. Indigo Spires is one of my favorite plants. I cut it back either in late fall or winter, after the first freeze. It is usually easy to cut back in the winter because the tall stems that had the flowers on them start to die, and new growth comes up from the center of the plant at ground level. This divide between new growth and dying stems makes it easy to figure out where and how to prune it. Cut the dead stalks as close to ground level as you can without cutting off or damaging the new growth. It’s normal to see black, brown or purple spots on the new leaves, particularly on the edges of the leaves, in the winter due to cold weather and wind. The new leaves grow in the winter and early spring and are very tender, and they are easily damaged during cold or windy weather. The plant doesn’t need any protection against this damage, and it should recover easily in the spring. You can expect Indigo Spires grow about three feet tall and bloom in May or June, depending on the weather. The flowers attract many honey bees, which are wonderful in the garden, but make sure you wear gloves and use caution when working with the plants when they have bees on them. You can also expect the plant to become very floppy and weird looking after it has been blooming for a couple weeks. The flowers get longer and longer and make the plant top heavy so the stems tend to droop a lot or lay on the ground. After the flowers have bloomed for awhile they also can start to look kind of gray in color. When they start looking this way I cut the entire plant back by ½, usually in late may or early June. This removes the ugly spent blossoms and forces the stems to branch, resulting in a much more dense, vigorous and robust plant in the summer and fall. Trim each stem back by 1/2, about ¼ inch above a pair of leaves. Indigo Spires will bloom again in late August and September through October. During this time the plants might start to look a little ugly, wild or just worn out. This is a tricky time of the yar for perennials in Austin, and Indigo Spires is no exception. It is ok to cut off the ugly parts of the plant, but only if you want to. For example, you might just trim the spent flower heads off, or you could trim each stem back by ¼ or 1/3. But to ensure the health and long-term vigor of the plant, wait for a freeze before you do any major pruning on them.

posted at: 20:57 | path: /colleen2008 | link for this entry