“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”
— His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso
MAGENTA BLOOMS FOR ENERGY AND OUR NEW BENCHMARK FOR COLD
BY BRENDA BEUST SMITH
For its 2023 Color of the Year, Pantone picked“a bold shade of pink christened “Viva Magenta 18-1760.” They say it “. . . vibrates with vim and vigor . . . a shade rooted in nature . . . new signal of strength . . . brave and fearless . . . promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration.”
Yep, that’s what I need. More magenta flowers.Here is some more color trivia maybe you can use (Who else would tell you these things?)
Red, yellow and hot pink make us more energetic.
Reds makes us happy, transmits feelings of power and control. Think how you feel when a male cardinal lands on the birdfeeder. Red also stimulates appetite. (Why restaurants use a lot of reds.)
Yellows make us happy.
Soft pinks, lavenders, blues and greens soothe, relax.
Pink looks sweet, fragrant. It’s said it is difficult to argue with someone in pink! Wear when asking for a raise. People often bend to smell a pink flower, even one that has no fragrance.
Blues and lavenders are cooling. Use by summer evening sitting areas. To make a small yard look bigger, plant “hot” colors (red, orange, fuchsia) close in. In back of the yard, use pastels and white (they look farther away than they actually are), making the yard look bigger.
To make a too-large area look more intimate, do the reverse: “hot” colors in the back of the yard and pastels close in.
Want more?
For eye-popping front yards, use yellow, hot pink, fire engine red and white — easier to see by passing cars than lavender, muted red or pink. Use lower-growing yellow or orange flowers along uneven pathways where folks might trip. Yellows and oranges draw the eye faster than any other color.
Check brick color before planting close to house. Some colors do clash! Don’t like combination of bricks and existing colors? Add white or gray flowers or foliage. They help create color harmony.
White also intensifies colors of nearby flowers and plants and is only color seen at night.
Blasting hot sunny areas (especially near water) often make pale pastels and variegated plants look washed out or like they’re dying. Vivid better: Strong solid greens, reds, oranges, yellows, etc.
All colors have greater impact when coupled with hardscapes (rocks, birdbaths, fences, benches, etc.). Large rocks pull us back to nature by anchoring us to Mother Earth. Their strength offers sort of a metaphysical protection from the stresses of everyday life. Locate at least one large interesting rock or other hardscape somewhere near the site where you sit outside at night.
To add a professional touch: repeat same color shades in different in- bloom flowers in different spots. Eg, repeat bright yellow daylilies across the yard from a bright yellow esperanza (Tecoma stans/yellow bells) . . . automatically pulls the eye from one site to another.
I’ve often wondered — and tried to research — WHY a given plant originally (at the beginning of it’s time) developed a given color? Why are magnolias white, lobelia blue, poinsettias red (before man-manipulation, that is).
The only expert who’s ever given me sort of an answer is Dr. David Creech, Director, Stephen F. Austin Gardens (Nacogdoches). He opined (said no evidence) “the thought is that when more heat is needed, plants evolve dark flowers . . . when cooler temps in the plant are needed, whiter flowers evolve.” Interesting, but why specifically reds, pinks, oranges, blues …? Can’t all be soil related, or can it? Speaking of Dr. Creech . . .
DR. DAVID CREECH and SUZZANNE CHAPMAN, two of my gardening gurus, are both noting phenological answers. How are climatic changes affecting our plants? It’s obvious some bloom times and quantities (or lack thereof) are among observable changes.
Suzzanne, Retired Botanical Collections Curator of Mercer Botanic Gardens, opined that the early hard December freeze just might have started the chain of events that led to these two outstanding spring blooming delight. If so, I may never fuss about early hard freezes again. (April fools joke!)
Dr. Creech, Director, Stephen F. Austin Gardens (Nacogdoches), notes“Texas has a brand-new benchmark for cold.” He is involved in a project to help establish a more realistic “tome that describes winter storm Uri’s impact on the Texas landscape” — plants that thrived, survived or died — to aid landscapers and home gardeners. He will elaborate in his April 18 talk in Sugar Land:
“CLIMATE CHANGE FRIENDLY PLANTS for the 21st CENTURY” by DR. DAVID CREECH, TUES., APRIL 18 — 10am, St. Basil’s Hall,
702 Burney Rd, Sugar Land. Free. sugarlandgardenclub.org
For now, we just have to plant with open minds and hope in our hearts. But, then, isn’t that what we’re already doing? * (Peggy Martin Climbing rose story )
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Brenda Beust Smith’s column in the LAZY GARDENER & FRIENDS HOUSTON GARDEN NEWSLETTER is based on her 40+ years as Houston Chronicle’s Lazy Gar,dener
Email: lazygardenerbrenda@gmail.com
Please note: Personal reports must include by your area. My column focuses on gardening
advice ONLY for the Greater Houston area
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NEWS FROM THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF SOIL AND PLANTS # 232
Last week we were talking about the importance of using our landscapes to help protect our pollinators and birds. This week I read an article on how wildlife can also play a part in reducing global warming.
From 1970 to 2018 global wildlife populations dropped 69%! The process of restoring animals is sometimes referred to as rewilding.
The study found that preserving and restoring wildlife in wilderness areas increased carbon sequestration. The scientists studied nine species from whales to wolves and wildebeests, elephants, and American buffalo.
They found that preserving or restoring populations of just these few animals
would help ecosystems capture and additional 6.41 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. Nature Climate Change (2023)
A few years ago, I read the book below about using animals to remove carbon from the air and use it to build humus in the soil and restore the organic matter and fertility. The numerous case studies indicate animals can be a powerful tool to help mitigate climate change.
Geotherapy- Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase, Edited by: Thomas Goreau, Ronal Larson, Joanna Campe, CRC Press, 2015, ISBN: 13:978-1-4665-9539-2
I read an interesting article the other day that was in the Agronomy Journal (2022) on using microbes to increase carbon sequestering, increase grain yields and use less fertilizer. This was the result of 30 different studies that used data collected over ten years.
The researchers found that by inoculating Maize (corn) with only two types of bacteria, one that makes phytohormones and one that fixes nitrogen they could reduce fertilizer requirements by 25% but increase yields.
Using this method, they also reduced costs by $15/acre and reduced CO2 emissions by 236 kg equivalents (519 pounds).
All we have to do is study nature and follow what God has given us to solve many of our environmental problems.
As gardeners we all know how important light is to grow healthy plants. Plants have evolved to use the visible portion of sunlight but not the ultra-violet or higher frequencies of sunlight.
Researchers in Japan used the element europium (Eu) to make a thin film coating. This coating can be applied to plastic sheets that converts the energy in ultra-violet light to red light frequencies that plants can use for photosynthesis.
Visible light passes on through hence with the conversion of ultra-violet light more usable energy from sunlight reaches the plant. This will allow greater productivity for many plants especially in lower light latitudes, winter, or cloudy winter days.
Speaking of energy, researchers from several universities have published a fascinating article on how swarming insects (bees, locust, etc.) can contribute/produce as much electrical energy as a thunderstorm cloud.
This type energy in the form of electricity helps shape weather events, lifts spiders up in the air to migrate over large distances, or help other insects find food.
Historically we have studied how physics affects biology, now we are finding that biology can also be affecting the physics of our environment. Journal iScience (2022).
Most gardeners know that the neonicotinoid family of pesticides are very harmful to our pollinators from bees to butterflies. We had to quit purchasing milkweeds from some commercial growers in our area, as they had been treated with these chemicals. When a Monarch butterfly lays their eggs on the treated plants the larval hatch and soon die.
The EPA has failed to act and protect people and wildlife. Hence, last year New Jersey became the first state to restrict the usage of these toxic class of chemicals. Five other states have similar legislation in progress (Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island).
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ABOUT US
BRENDA BEUST SMITH WE KNOW HER BEST AS THE LAZY GARDENER . . . but Brenda Beust Smith is also:
- a national award-winning writer & editor
- a nationally-published writer & photographer
- a national horticultural speaker
- a former Houston Chronicle reporter
When the Chronicle discontinued Brenda’s 45-year-old Lazy Gardener” print column — started in the early ’70s as a fun side-project to reporting, it then ranked as the longestrunning, continuously-published local newspaper column in the Greater Houston area. The name, she says, is not just fun, it’s true. Brenda’s gradual sideways step from reporter into gardening writing led first to an 18-year series of when-to-do-what Lazy Gardener Calendars, then to her Lazy Gardener’s Guide book which morphed into her Lazy Gardener’s Guide on CD, which she now emails free upon request. Brenda became a Harris County Master Gardener and, over the years, served on theboards of many Greater Houston area horticulture organizations. She hosted local radio and TV shows, most notably a 10+-year Lazy Gardener specialty shows on HoustonPBS (Ch. 8) and her call-in “EcoGardening” show on KPFT-FM. For over three decades, Brenda served as Assistant Production Manager of the GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA’S “BULLETIN” magazine. Although still an active broad-based freelance writer, Brenda’s main focus now is THE LAZY GARDENER & FRIENDS HOUSTON GARDEN NEWSLETTER with John Ferguson and Pablo Hernandez of Nature’s Way Resources. A native of New Orleans and graduate of St. Agnes Academy and the University of Houston, Brenda lives in Humble, TX, and is married to the retired Aldine High School Coach Bill Smith. They have one son, Blake. Regarding this newsletter, Brenda is the lead writer, originator of it and the daily inspiration for it. We so appreciate the way she has made gardening such a fun way to celebrate life together for such a long time.
JOHN FERGUSON John is a native Houstonian and has over 27 years of business experience. He owns Nature’s Way Resources, a composting company that specializes in high quality compost, mulch, and soil mixes. He holds a MS degree in Physics and Geology and is a licensed Soil Scientist in Texas. John has won many awards in horticulture and environmental issues. He represents the composting industry on the Houston-Galveston Area Council for solid waste. His personal garden has been featured in several horticultural books and “Better Homes and Gardens” magazine. His business has been recognized in the Wall Street Journal for the quality and value of their products. He is a member of the Physics Honor Society and many other professional societies. John is is the co-author of the book Organic Management for the Professional. For this newsletter, John contributes articles regularly and is responsible for publishing it.
PABLO HERNANDEZ Pablo Hernandez is the special projects coordinator for Nature’s Way Resources. His realm of responsibilities include: serving as a webmaster, IT support, technical problem solving/troubleshooting, metrics management and quality control. Pablo helps this newsletter happen from a technical support standpoint.
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