“The most interesting plants grow in shade” — Wednesday Adams in “Wednesday” — Addams Family Netflix spinoff
UNDER-TREE PLANTING READERS SHARE SUCCESSES
By BRENDA BEUST SMITH
Great suggestions have come in for plantings to try under trees (see last week’s column for tree-protecting CYLINDERS suggestions).
A huge sweet gum tree and several oaks filled SHANNON MORRISON’S Heights area backyard with shade. What worked? These six file photos illustrate the beginning of Shannon’s list. In order of favorites . . .
How did she discover so many great shade lovers? Shannon credits Native Plant Society of Texas/Houston Chapter, Houston AudubonSociety Texas, Master Naturalists/Gulf Coast Chapter and the Nature Discovery Center in Bellaire for introducing her to such great native plants.
Left, my late close friend SHARON ENNIS’s Easter Lilies, left, lived for decades under a tree at her SW Houston home. Center & right, Houston’s Clivia Lady, PATTY ALLEN‘s favorite clivia bulbs also LOVE growing under trees. At far right, MICHAEL RIEKE’s at least 10-year-old clivia`s’ greenery provides nice greenery all winter under his trees. Look for buds to appear any day now. (More on growing clivias).
NEWS FROM THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF SOIL AND PLANTS # 273
Subject: Bees & GMO’s, Monarch Butterflies, Earthworms
We all know about an issue with our honeybee populations called colony collapse disorder, where we lose 50% of our beehives each year. Less bees means less pollination then less yields of crops, which then raises the price of our food.
I was reading the other day about systemic Neonicotinoids also known as neonic pesticides used on genetically modified crops (GMO’s). One corn seed treated with this pesticide can has enough toxicity to kill 250,000 bees! This does not include other insects.
As we lose insect populations, we lose our bird populations as they require lots of insects when they have eggs and babies in the nest.
A report in the Organic Consumers Association newsletter states that today’s agricultural environment is 48 times more toxic to bees than it was just 25 years ago.
These chemicals are not only killing birds they are hurting many animal species, contributing to their decline.
Most gardeners love our butterflies, especially our Monarchs. A report by the World Wildlife Fund found that Monarch populations wintering in Mexico this recent season was the second lowest in history.
We can plant all the Milkweeds we can and it will help, but to rescue the Monarchs we must quit exposing them to these toxic chemicals.
IF consumers would not purchase GMO crops, then prices would drop and farmers would quit planting them. By only buying organic foods instead of GMO’s one can be part of the solution.
In addition to killing bees and insects, GMOs are loaded with the carcinogen called glyphosate found in Round Up and other herbicides. The American Academy of Pediatrics now advises that we avoid GMO foods do to the contamination.
Note: Ultra processed foods and animal feed have the highest levels of these toxic chemicals. Fast foods are also very high in these chemicals.
Another report by the American Chemical Society and published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters (2024) has found that earthworms are also affected by the small amounts of pesticides that leach out of pesticide treated seeds like those mentioned above.
Exposure to non-lethal amounts of pesticides and fungicides resulted in poor growth and caused mitochondrial DNA damage in the worms. Earthworms aerate our soil, eat weed seeds, produce plant growth hormones, and provide food for birds and other animals.
Note: Neonicotinoids poisons have been banned in Europe due to their extreme toxicity.
The reasons to use modern organic methods in our gardens, in the vegetables and fruits we grow and eat, in our landscapes, and the food we buy, increase every day.
The modern organic methods work much better, at lower cost, and do not destroy God’s creation.
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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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