SEARCH FOR LANDSCAPE FRIENDLY NATIVES GETTING EASIER
BY BRENDA BEUST SMITH
IN THIS AGE of instant gratification gardeners aren’t exempt from the frustration of having to WAIT! Nowhere is this more evident than in the locus of planting with natives — a tsunami that’s really taxing nurseries, our major plant resources.
We’ve thankfully moved past the conflict that peaked about the time I started writing the Houston Chronicle’s Lazy Gardener column in the early ’70s. Research had yet to bring to the fore the many landscape-friendly natives so widely available now.
Many, if not most, of our most popularly-available landscape plants required heavy watering to cope with our summer droughts, and lots of insecticides to survive our abundance of insects and disease.
A slowly increasing number of gardeners began switching to the low-water, insect-
/disease-resistant, super hardy natives. But in some cases, these brought their own challenges, like overly-enthusiastic growth not always appreciated by neighbors!
And in came reactive HOA/POA planting restrictions.
What a difference today (except maybe in the restrictions). But we owe special thanks to Texas Native Plant Society chapters and growers who could see $$$ advantages to getting well-behaved natives into the retail market.
One can always plant from seed, of course. But for many our most potentially best landscape-friendly natives, seed hasn’t hit general markets except by a few (albeit quickly expanding) mail-order sources. Tip o’ the Trowel to NPSOT for its extensive lists of resources, including, for example: “Plant Lists by Regions.“ Celebrate Earth Day (April 22) and Earth Week (April 18-22) by downloading and sharing your region’s list with neighbors and friends!
Two events coming up this weekend are ideal starting points for anyone becoming interested in making the garden more eco-friendly through the use of more natives — one to the north, one to the south.
SAT., APR. 15: SPRING NATIVE PLANT SALE, 9am-12:30pm. 2701 Lone
Star Parkway, Montgomery. Native Plant Society of Texas — Pines and Prairies event. amy.birdwell@npsot.org. (Online inventory)
SAT., APR. 15: CLEAR LAKE NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY SPRING SALE,
8am -10am. University of Houston Clear Lake. 2700 Bay Area Blvd.
IN OUR SPOTLIGHT ARTICLE BELOW, Pines & Praries’ BOB DAILEY highlights a few of the native that are especially landscape-friendly.
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: My column focuses on gardening advice ONLY for the Greater Houston area.
Personal reports must include your area.
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NEWS FROM THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF SOIL AND PLANTS # 234
Jeff Lowenfels now has a series of podcasts on soil biology. Jeff is the author of several books every serious gardener should read and understand. Jeff has done a great job of explaining the science in an easy-to-understand form for the average gardener.
We know today that the microbes in the soil are the most important element in having healthy flowers, fruits, and even grass. The books below explain how and why these microbes keep our plants healthy and free of disease.
Teaming with Microbes, A Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web, 2nd Edition, by Jeff Lowenfels & Wayne Lewis, Timber Press, 2006, ISBN-13:978-0- 88192-777-1
Teaming With Fungi: The Organic Growers Guide to Mycorrhizae, by Jeff Lowenfels, Timber Press, 2017, ISBN:
978-160469-729
Teaming With Bacteria: The Organic Growers Guide to Endophytic
Bacteria and the Rhizophagy Cycle, by Jeff Lowenfels, Timber Press, 2022, ISBN: 978-1-64326-139-3
I ran across a question about cyanide in leaf litter composting the other day. Many plants have cyanide in their leaves like red maples, prunus species (plums, cherries, peach, apricots, nectarines) to name a few. This is part of the plants natural defense or immune system to protect it from being eaten.
This type of organic cyanide is far less dangerous than artificial hydrogen cyanide that is a waste product of many industries. The small amount of cyanide present in the leaves rapidly decomposes in a few days when they fall off the tree and hit the ground.
In healthy soil or in a composting pile they break down even faster. The beneficial microbes love to eat (digest) the cyanide breaking the molecule apart to get to the nitrogen they need to grow. As the microbes live and die the nitrogen is released to feed our plants.
I read another article this week on peatmoss, comparing it to coir as a potting medium. Coir is fibers from the outer husk of coconuts; hence it is a renewable resource and peat is not.
Peat forms in peat bogs from the slow decomposition of wetlands plants and accumulates at less than one millimeter per year (4/1,000 inch). This is only one inch in 300-600 years.
As we discussed last week preserving our peat bogs is essential to help fight climate change. Today we have many choices for our potting medium that work better, are sustainable, and help reduce carbon in the atmosphere.
Many of these are – rotted sawdust, compost, composted mulch, or composted bark, and even wood chips. Many of these works as good or better than peatmoss, cost less to use, give better results and are renewable.
As we learn more about soil microbes and the biology of plants and soils, we now know why some of these alternatives work better than peatmoss. Peatmoss with its acidity, often kills off many of the beneficial microbes that make plants healthy and prevents disease. As a result, we often experience more disease and pest problems when we grow plants in peatmoss.
As an example of using an alternative potting media, for decades I grew ferns in hanging baskets hanging on my patio cover. I used our coarse aged native mulch as a potting medium for the ferns. I would mix in a little MicrolifeTM fertilizer with the aged native mulch at planting time. When I would water, I would use a dilute solution of Ocean Harvest mixed in.
The ferns were easily twice as large as the ones grown in peatmoss. They were not only larger, they had better color, grew faster, and zero problems with pests or disease. I never understood why until soil biology became better understood.
We now know from soil microbiology that ferns are a fungi loving species. Peat moss does not support the fungi that ferns need but the aged native mulch is full of beneficial fungi. Ocean Harvest (organic liquid fertilizer) has fish emulsion in it which is a fungal food. As a result of not using peatmoss, I had healthier and more beautiful ferns.
The above makes common sense. Think about when we take a walk in the forest, where we see ferns growing directly out of rotten logs! Rotten logs are decomposed by fungi.
As the Bible tells us, “Study nature and let it teach you.”
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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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