“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” — Dolly Parton
THE WAY I SEE IT, DOLLY, BETTER BE PREPARED TOO! WE LEARNED HARD WAY…
BY BRENDA BEUST SMITH
LAST WEEK’S TREE WATERING
TIPS bear repeating! The news has been full of pictures of huge trees toppling over following heavy rains. Incorrect watering can contribute to this. I’m speaking from personal experience —. this picture at right was taken at our former home in Aldine. Our bedroom was that room. Bill was in bed asleep.
I heard the crash, went running to the room. He was coming out, belly-crawling on the floor. This happened decades ago after a heavy rain period as we just experienced. It was not a dead tree. It “looked” perfectly healthy before “The Fall.” But turned out it had an entirely too a shallow root system.
Roots will grow shallow or deep, depending on how deep the water settles, whether from rainfall or our watering. This is not usually a problem in areas where sandy soils prevail. Water soaks down naturally. Our soil tends to be more gumbo clay that absorbs and holds water. That’s why the advice given last week by DR. DOUGLAS F. WELSH, Texas A&M Extension Horticulturist, retired, about watering our landscapes is worth repeating:
One of the worst mistakes: ‘sprinkling’ daily using a thumb at hose end. Most gardeners just don’t have the patience to stand in one spot long enough for deep water penetration.
Water trees by taking sprinkler off hose end. Let water run slowly several hours out under the drip line (not near trunk). Be sure runoff does not occur. (Drip line: where rain water rolls off leaf canopy)
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TOO WET FOR SERIOUS GARDENING (and rain will be returning to some of us), we gardeners have plenty of time to get ready for:
INTERNATIONAL NATIONAL GARDEN GNOME DAY — JUNE 19!
This celebration is, of course, much bigger in Great Britain, where garden gnomes literally are chained down lest they be stolen. Ditto in Germany. One ancient German folktale says gnomes are offspring of a mythical dwarf and a fairy. From their fairy mother, gnomes inherited a love of flowers and plants and delight in gnome statues with rosy red cheeks and pointy hats.
Some say they worked in mines and filled hats with grass to protect heads from falling rocks. Most legends agree these little people are easy-going, fun- loving and a big help to gardeners. But they don’t have much use for those who think gnome statues are as gauche as pink flamingos in gardens. They aren’t known for being spiteful, but if you say bad things about gnome statues and then a plant dies, well . . . (From LAZY GARDENER’S GUIDE. Photo courtesy of 99 Cents Store)
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PLUMERIAS & RAIN — TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?
By LORETTA OSTEEN
Plumeria Society of America
With our recent deluge of rain, keep in mind that too much of a good thing; rain or over-watering your Plumeria can contribute to rot. Some more tips:
– Container grown Plumeria can benefit with well draining potting mix, which often includes amending with perlite.
– If you are planting Plumeria in the ground, it is a good idea to plant them in a raised bed, to help with drainage.
– Also known as ‘Flor de Mayo’, Plumeria typically will begin to bloom during the month of May.
I am anticipating beautiful blooms with their intoxicating fragrance throughout the Spring and Summer.
EDITOR’S NOTE::
These and many other plumerias can be found at the SAT., JUNE 10: PLUMERIA SOCIETY OF AMERICA SHOW AND SALE, 9am-1p. pm, Bay Area Community Center 5002 Nasa Road 1, Seabrook. Free. theplumeriasociety.org; 281-796-7185
Another good place to quiz Loretta about your plumeria will be at herSAT., JUNE 17: ”Plumeria Propagation” program, 1-3 pm, at Galveston County Master Gardener Discovery Garden in Carbide Park, 4102 Main Street (FM 519), La Marque. Must preregister: galveston.agrilife.org/horticulture/
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NEWS FROM THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF SOIL AND PLANTS # 239
Researchers at the University of British Columbia have discovered a new branch on the tree of life. They discovered a new supergroup of microbes that are a branch of the eukaryotes nicknamed “lions of the microbial world.”
This new group has two divisions based on how they eat. The first group is named “nibblerids” since they nibble their prey to death, one bite at a time with their toothlike structures. The second group is called “nebuilds” that eat their prey whole.
Even though they are few in number compared to other microbes, they are believed to be essential to a healthy microbial community. Nature (2022).
As we continue to study soil science and how it affects our plants and ultimately our health, we continue to see the importance of eating organically grown food.
Modern research has found that organic free range grass-fed cows produce butter that is very good for our health in many ways. These benefits range from having a high satiety value so we eat less high calorie junk food to protecting the nerves in our brains and helping prevent dementia.
The USDA recently released their study on butter and found that conventionally produced butter had 8 different pesticides in it in 2013, but by 2021 the number of pesticides had increased to 15 different pesticides. As the old saying goes “you are what you eat.”
By using toxic chemicals, we have taken something God gave us that was good for us, and ruined it.
The January 2023 issue of Acres USA magazine had a very nice article titled “How Do Plants Get Nutrients?”. A few takeaways from the article are:
healthy plants require all the elements on the periodic table whether we understand the element’s role in plant health or not. Elements are what compose minerals and this is why re-mineralization is so important. No minerals mean no elements for the plants.
diversity of microbial communities within a natural system must be extremely high to work efficiently and provide maximum benefit. mycorrhizal fungi are nature’s most important tool in extracting elements from the minerals in the soil.
mycorrhizal fungi are also the internet of the soil connecting the roots of different plants allowing them to send messages to each other.
the hyphae of mycorrhizal fungi also serve as a conduit that allow plants to share nutrients (elements) with each other. For example – one plant might be growing in soil with lots of zinc but little cobalt and another plant is growing in an area with little zinc but plenty of cobalt, hence they trade nutrients and the fungi is the pipeline that connects them. The plants pay the fungi by supplying them with root exudates (microbe food).
the fungal hyphae also share information about an insect or disease attacking one plant with other plants on the network. This allows the other plants to rev up their immune systems to resist the pest or disease. the host plant will signal the fungi that they need a certain element for growth and the fungi will communicate this need throughout the network. Once the element is found, helper bacteria would help solubilize the nutrient (element) and then the fungi will transport the element back to the plant in need.
fungi hyphae also produce oxalic acid (one of the strongest organic acids) that allows fungi to drill their way through solid granite capturing the elements released along the way.
as the hyphae grow, they produce an extremely concentrated organic carbon source that we call Glomalin which is a very stable glycoprotein. Glomalin is a soil glue that glues soil particle together creating soil structure as shown in the image below.
This structure allows better soil aeration and water infiltration and increases water holding capacity through the aggregation of the soil particles.
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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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