One of the many pleasures of gardening I believe is watching the life cycle of the plants in my garden. Spring seems to bring the greatest rewards. Maybe it is because there is the sense that the garden is just awakening from its winter sleep. Moreover, each species has its own personality.

Watching the yellow, pink, white and crimson blooms unfurl from the fuzzy buds of the Iceland poppies is a delight. Each morning for the last two weeks or so, I have the watched the buds of the hardy amaryllis get larger and larger. I keep thinking every morning I will see a bloom, but they keep me hanging in suspense as it takes longer that I had thought. These are the slow-bloomers.

Others bloom without much warning, but are such treasures. The hardy orchids (Bletilla striata) given to me by a dear friend very suddenly started blooming last week. So did the Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum), one of my favorite plants. They may not bloom for long; I could not imagine my garden without them.

Spring is definitely here!

A basic tenet of organic gardening is to plant only native and well-adapted plants. These plants thrive in our local soil and climate and tend not to have disease and pest problems. They look like they belong. Large stands of pine trees flourish in east Texas and Houston, but not in north Texas. The maple trees of Ontario will not make it in north Texas and they would look out of place. Over the years, I have grown to love the trees of north Texas. The mighty oaks and pecans provide us with much-needed shade. Eastern Red Cedars are such a great windbreak.

Spring is a special treat as the redbuds dot neighborhoods and the countryside with their pink to magenta blooms. The clusters of flowers along the branches of the tree appear before the leaves. The large bluish-green leaves are heart shaped with round tips. Reddish-purple seedpods last through the winter. This small, drought-tolerant tree will grow in full sun as well as serve as an understory tree, getting only 15 to 20 feet tall.

Butterflies and bees are attracted to the flowers. We should be too – they are edible, with a slight peppery, nutty flavor, perfect in salads. Many birds eat the seedpods, so you are likely to see volunteers pop up here and there. Before that happens, take some of the seedpods when they are young and tender and cook them like peas. Just one more reason to grow your tree organically.

My interest in vegetable gardening mostly stems from my childhood. My English mum and Italian father always had a large vegetable garden. Only in the past month have I discovered that other cousins in England and Australia share this love of gardening. One of my cousins has just moved to the Shetland Islands, after 35 years of living just north of London. I always impress upon my customers the importance of building up the soil here in north Texas, as our soils are very poor. Healthy soil is the basis of organic gardening. Let me share with you my Cousin David’s adventure in his new garden…

“I have grown veggies for the best part of 35 years and was virtually self-sufficient in them. On the two allotments (small plots of land one can rent from the local council to grow veggies), I rented before we moved last April, we also grew lots of soft fruit from which Fiona made lovely wines. Where we live now, we are up on a hill and it is very windswept and it rains a lot. My veggie plots are in a patch where nobody has ever grown anything and the soil is absolutely rubbish. I dug it over just after we moved here last April but the wind killed off virtually everything and blackened the leaves etc. Even the root crops produced nothing. This season, I am having a good fence built to keep out the winds and have spread out loads of seaweed I got from the beach, peat that I dug from the hills, cow manure I got from a local crofter and chicken manure pellets. I also have some horse manure ready for the potatoes (or tatties as they are called locally). I may have gone over the top with the nutrients but too much is better than none at this stage. I can always be more selective next season.”

I will keep you posted on his progress.

For those of you in north Texas…

There are parts of Texas that are now considered to be in a severe drought situation.  You may not realize that Texas is the number two agricultural state. We may have had soaking rains from hurricanes in 2008, but now there are large parts of the state that are experiencing severe drought. The situation is particularly bad in central Texas and the Hill Country. There are many implications from this. One of them is the fact that the dry conditions have severely curtailed the growth of the milkweed plant – the primary source of food for migrating monarch butterflies from Mexico to Canada. The monarchs not only feed on the nectar of the Asclepias, they lay their eggs on milkweed and the larvae vigorously feed on them.

There are many varieties of milkweed, but the one that is most available to us to grow here is Asclepias currasavica, commonly known as Mexican milkweed. As a favor to the monarchs, please take the time to plant one or two in your garden. Once established it is quite drought tolerant, though does need moisture for best performance.  It reseeds readily in a garden that is not heavily mulched.   

Plant some now – the monarch butterflies are on their way!

March has just begun and spring is definitely in the air. Mexican Plum and redbud trees are in full bloom, as are flowering quince, forsythia and one of our very favorites for the shade garden, Japanese rose (Kerria japonica). One of my indulgences, a camellia, is sporting beautiful, big red blooms. The hellebores have been blooming for the last two or three weeks, and just yesterday the Iceland poppies started unfurling their buds in shades of yellow, white and red.

On warm days (two days ago it was 86 degrees), bees are out in abundance on the rosemary, also in full bloom. I have already been cutting spears of asparagus and lo and behold, the rhubarb plant has stalks the size of pencils. Maybe one day I will actually have enough to make a pie.

Our grass has been showing signs of green. We have applied an organic fertilizer on the little bit of turf we have and on all of our beds.

Another sign of spring here – wind! It is so windy that even the birds have trouble flying straight.