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Nature’s Way Resources owner John Ferguson, “The Lazy Gardener” Brenda Beust Smith and Pablo Hernandez welcome your feedback and are so grateful to the many horticulturists who contribute their expertise
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“September tries its best to have us forget summer.”
— Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams (1929–2003) English philosopher
BY BRENDA BEUST SMITH
While others areas are starting to prepare for winter, we in Greater Houston celebrate our 2nd (and perhaps best!) growing seasons! What better way than with a TREE GIVEAWAY!
So many of us lost so many trees during Hurricane Beryl, let’s start with this great news! Trees for Houston‘s goal (plant/distribute 85,000+ trees and understory species) is taking a big step: They will supply free trees for a “tree distribution” event in YOUR neighborhood. Don’t miss out on this incredible offer! Community Tree Giveaway Request Form
If you’d like to see how a giveaway works (or need a tree!), Trees for Houston’s first event will be Sat., Sept. 14, at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, 3826 Wheeler Ave. Available will be black cherry, red maple, button bush and eastern redwood trees. You have to sign up to receive a tree.
OCTOBER IS GREAT ROSE BLOOMING TIME Not for you? I’ll share a tip—promise not to laugh? It’s from the late (great) MARGARET SHARP, guiding light of Texas Rose Rustlers, (devoted to preserving old own-root roses brought to Texas & South by early settlers and still thriving in spite of total neglect). When my Seven Sisters antique wouldn’t bloom, I turned to Margaret. Easy fix, she said, with a smile: “Tonight, go out and beat it with a broom.”
Who was I to question this beloved, renowned expert? That night I beat the rose with a broom. Not too long after, she produced buds and then bloomed! Later I asked: “Why at night?” Margaret laughed. “So neighbors wouldn’t see you!” Hey, it worked! New-to-rose-growing here? Or coping with problems? Both new and long-experienced rose experts will share advice and answer your questions at: 1819 Heights Blvd. Houston Rose Society houstonrose.org
Adding Color to Our Gardens:
Red, yellow and hot pink make us feel energetic. Reds increase appetite, makes one feel stronger. Yellows make us happy. Soft pinks, lavenders, blues and greens soothe, relax. Make your flowers work for you too!
- Red, yellow and hot pink make us feel energetic. Reds increase appetite, makes one feel stronger. Yellows make us happy. Soft pinks, lavenders, blues and greens soothe, relax.
- • Pink looks sweet and fragrant. It’s said it is difficult to argue with someone in pink! (great color to wear when asking for a raise!) Green is restful, especially on tired eyes. Blues and lavenders are cooling.
- 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). To make a too-large area look more inti- mate, do the reverse: “hot” colors in back and pastels close in.
- For eye-popping front yard displays, use yellow, hot pink, fire engine red and white. These are easier to see from a passing car than are lavender and muted red or pink.
- Use lower-growing yellow flowers around uneven pathways where folks might trip. Yellows and oranges draw the eye faster than any other color.
- When possible, coordinate garden and house colors. When gardens adjacent to the house “just don’t look right,” subtle color clashes may be to blame.
- White and/or gray flowers or foliage with colors help create harmony. White also intensifies colors of nearby flowers and plants.Use white flowers/foliage around areas used in evenings when white is all you can see.
(From The Lazy Gardener’s Guide. Free pdf version — lazygardenerbrenda@gmail.com)
THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT BROMELIADS? In our Spotlight Article below, Bromeliad Society/Houston’s DAVID WHIPKEY might have some surprises in store, as he describes unusual subtle (or not) changes in these exotic plants that actual forecast something new about to happen. bromeliadsocietyhouston.org
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS (Day of the Dead), is Nov.1. Expect marigolds to be in hot demand. They love fall weather, often rebounding after going slightly dormant in summer. Whether or not they winter over (usually go dormant) depends on various factors. The more flowers you pick, the more plant produces. Dates back to pre-Hispanic Aztec rituals. Lady of the Dead allowed spirits to reconnect with family, who were led to burial places by wild marigold’s musky fragrance. Cempasúchil is Aztec for Mexico’s native marigold (Tagetes erecta)
- WISH HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HOUSTON BOTANIC GARDEN! Sept.18, 2024, marks the fourth anniverary of this incredible public garden, a gift to Houstonians and significant support.I encourage you to become an HBG member and enjoy the many benefits. Be sure to visit HBG’s newest exhibition, “Habitat” opening Sept. 14, developed by Smithsonian Gardens and made available by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). hbg.org/event/annual-day-of-giving/.
ATTN. GARDEN/PLANT GROUPS — In wake of Hurricane Beryl, Nature’s Way Resources offers free guided tours of NWR’s extensive nursery/soil/mulch facilities for garden clubs, plant societies and other plant-oriented, organized groups. As usual, NWR’s now-expanded meeting site is free to above groups. Reservations a must for both.
“LAZY GARDENER’S GUIDE” (PDF format) is emaild free.
Request: lazygardenbrenda@gmail.com
Brenda Beust Smith’s column is based on her 40+ years as the Houston Chronicle’s “Lazy Gardener” column — lazygardenerbrenda@gmail.com Brenda’s column focuses ONLY on the Greater Houston Area
Spotlighting
BROMELIAD SOCIETY HOUSTON
Have you ever noticed how some plants change their appearance when they are getting ready to bloom? I certainly have. Sometimes the changes are subtle, and others are quite dramatic. When they start the flowering process, some plants change their shape while others change their color. Some do both.
For example, look at Neoregelia ‘Las Vegas’ at right. The two plants on left are still quite immature, the one on right has almost finished blooming. Notice the changes. The one on the right is flatter and leaves are more colorful. I don’t think flowers add much. They are small and usually blue. Not very impressive, but I like the color changes in the leaves.
On the other hand, some Orthophytums (right) lengthen rather than flatten. When the flowering process starts, the stem between the leaves elongates, and flowers appear at the apex of the stem. This is illustrated in the photo of Orthophytum glabrum at right. It is a flat plant when immature. Unfortunately, no change in foliage color occurs in most Orthophytums unless you count the green bracts of the small flowers.
Consider the bigeneric bromeliad xSincoregelia ‘Galactic Warrior’ which is a cross between Sincoraea navioides and Neoregelia ‘Meyendorffii’. Examine the shape of the two plants in the picture at right. The lower plant has just finished blooming while the upper plant is still immature. Notice the difference?
The upper foliage of a Bromelia sylvicola (right) turns red when blooming. Not much else changes, but the inflorescence is fantastic. Unfortunately Bromelia sylvicola is about 3 feet wide, almost as tall, and the leaves are covered with wicked spines. Not many people want to grow this plant, but most enjoy looking at it when it blooms.
On the other hand, the Dyckia brevifolia ‘Yellow Glow’ (pictured) does not change much when it blooms. There is no shape change or change in leaf color. It produces a bloom spike which bears the flowers. Sometimes a plant looks so great that the flowers almost appear to be an afterthought.
John’s Corner
NEWS FROM THE WONDERFUL WORLD
OF SOIL AND PLANTS # 299
Subject: Animal Manures (part 2 of 3)
PART 2:
The second most common manure is from poultry, primarily chicken manure from factory farms known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO’s). This manure is commonly dried and sold as a fertilizer due to its high nitrogen (N) content.
Another reason to avoid high nitrogen artificial fertilizers or other high nitrogen manures like poultry manure has been discovered. The Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research has discovered that in conditions of high nitrogen in the soil, plant roots do not grow deep or wide. Conversely, they discovered that in low nitrogen conditions plants expand their root zone searching for nitrogen. Journal of Nature Communications 2019.
This is another reason people have to water so much, as they regularly apply artificial fertilizers or poultry manure to green up the grass, hence between the salt build up creating hardpan, and the excess nitrogen, roots of turf grass do not grow deep.
Several new studies were published in the Journal of Environmental Quality on the usage of poultry manure as a fertilizer. The first was a six-year study that found fertilization with poultry manure greatly increased bacteria populations in the soil but not fungi. Most perennial plants require far more fungi in the soil than bacteria (Note: Weeds prefer bacterial dominated soils).
The second study found that the nutrients (especially nitrogen) in poultry manure were rapidly volatized and lost (38-50% in just 83 days). This loss of nitrogen greatly adds to global warming and pollutes our waterways from toxic algae blooms to the dead zones in the oceans.
This is another reason people have to water so much, as they regularly apply high nitrogen artificial fertilizers or poultry manures to green up the grass hence between the salt build up creating hardpan and the excess nitrogen, roots of turf grass do not grow deep.
Over the last few years, I have been doing a lot of study on how plants use nutrition (minerals and elements) to grow. A while back I read a paper published in the American-Eurasian Journal of Agronomy (2010) on the effects of chicken manure on the growth of sweet potatoes. Poultry manure has been used for generations as a fertilizer for plants and works well IF only used occasionally. Long term usage can leads to a salt buildup in the soil which is harmful, and it is not a balanced fertilizer, hence repeated usage can lead to chemical imbalances in the soil. This study found that small amounts of poultry (chicken) in this case gave satisfactory to good results. However as increasing amounts of manure were applied, yields declined.
Poultry manure is high in water soluble phosphorous (P). When there are high levels of phosphorous in the soil, the extremely beneficial mycorrhizal fungi DO NOT colonize a plant’s roots.
The picture below courtesy of Mike Amaranthus, PhD, illustrates the importance of mycorrhizal fungi. This study was done in Southern California in highly saline soils in a very dry drought prone area. The only difference between different sides of the fields is the lemon trees on the right had been inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi at planting time.
Over 80% of plants on earth require mycorrhizal fungi to be healthy, and if too much poultry manure is used then we do not get the benefit of this extremely important fungi.

Another issue using products like poultry manure that has a lot of water soluble phosphorous is that it inhibits the production of srigolactone, an important plant hormone. This hormone increases root development and growth and enhances colonization by mycorrhizal fungi. The inhibition effects due to the lack of this hormone are destabilization of soil aggregates, increased soil compaction, and mineral deficiencies in plants (e.g. selenium – needed by the body for our immune system to fight viruses).
There is another problem gardeners face in using fertilizers made with chicken manure (or feathers). A 2012 study tested US and Chinese feather meal and found antibiotic residues in both as well as acetaminophen (Tylenol, for poultry fevers), diphenhydramine (Benadryl, used for poultry anxiety), and norgestimate (a sex hormone). When we use fertilizers that contain these ingredients, they become part of the soil that grows our food. Dr, Maya Shetreat-Kline, from the “Dirt Cure”.
One of my first jobs in college was to clean out the dead chickens from the buildings that the chickens were raised in. I only lasted a couple weeks as I could not stand to see the animals suffering from being treated so cruelly.
I had to wear a mask as the air was full of ammonia that would burn my eyes and lungs, the chickens had their beaks clipped off so they would not peck each other to death, they were often bleeding wounds on the chickens, the lights were kept on 24 hours a day as chickens will eat as long as there is light (causes them to gain weight faster), manure all over the floor, etc. Each chicken house would hold over 20,000 chickens and dozens ended up dead every day due to the toxic environment and had to be removed. The chickens were highly stressed and produced stress hormones that are very unhealthy and end up in the manure.
The feed contained the heavy metal arsenic (As) which is a known carcinogen that stimulated the chickens to grow much faster. See photo below.

For years broiler litter (poultry manure) has been used as a fertilizer. A study published in The Journal of Environmental Quality (March 2018) has found the amount of arsenic (As) in run-off was 6X greater in test plots when broiler litter was used as a fertilizer. Repeated applications of broiler litter increased the amount of arsenic as expected. They also found that broiler litter was a significant source of boron, copper, iron, manganese, sodium, and zinc in addition to the arsenic, all of which can harm plants if there is too much as one would get from repeated applications. Note: The use of arsenic is being phased out but will be with us for a few more years.
Poultry manure is high in salts. To use an analogy, what happens to a pair of pliers left out in the rain and dew for a few weeks? It becomes locked up (frozen) as the salt called iron oxide or rust is formed. Similarly, the salts in chicken manure can lock up soil particles forming hardpan that prevents oxygen and water from entering the soil with repeated usage.
Researchers at Virginia Tech University did some tests on watering plants with very slight concentrations of salt and compared them to no salt. The amount of salt used was 700 times less than the number of salts found in seawater. They looked at three common salts; calcium chloride (CaCl2), sodium chloride which is common table salt (NaCl), and potassium chloride (KCl). They found that when soils were irrigated with small amounts of saltwater there was more carbon dioxide released (up to 20% more) than in soils without any salts. This implies that when even small amounts of salt are present the microbes destroy organic matter (humus) in the soil at a faster rate than normal.
This is another reason for gardeners to avoid high salt products (poultry manure products, cow manure, spent mushroom substrate, etc.).
An article in the Crop Science Society News Magazine (2020) was on ancient agricultural fields and why they eventually failed. The researchers discovered they were irrigating with water with a high salt content.
Sodium salt has a particularly strong effect on clay soils. The salt causes an effect called dispersion of the clay particles. Over time, these clay particles plug into soil pores which decreases drainage (and aeration) leading to salinization which harms plants.
The repeated drying and rewetting of clay soils contaminated by salt (sodium) can cause the clay to form a solid cement like layer, which reduces water availability to the roots.
The photo below shows how roots turn away if there is salt present in the water and do not grow deep into the soil.

This is why gardeners along the Gulf coast should avoid poultry and cow manure fertilizers, spent mushroom substrate (aka mushroom compost), and most artificial fertilizers.
The Alliance for Natural Health also found that the air pollution produced from factory farms kill 17,000 people each year who live near CAFO’s as they produce a lot of toxic greenhouse gasses. This is another reason to purchase organic grass fed (pasture raised) beef, chicken, or pork which have far less environmental impact (some studies suggest up to 90% less environmental damage) and they are far better for our health. We need to be part of the solution instead of the problem by our purchasing decisions.
For those who want to know more about the importance of soil care, the book below explains that every civilization in history failed because they did not take care of their soil.
“Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization” by David Montgomery,PhD, ISBN 978-0-520-24870-0
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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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