bringing nature, nurseries and gardeners together Oct.18, 2018
Nursery notes: over at Barton Springs Nursery, some cool plants
on sale this week: anise hyssop, begonias, leopard wort and pentas:
99 cents for 4" pots. 5 gal. Apache plume $20; 1 gal beauty berries
$5; bee brush $3.99 and summer snow plumbago $1.99. Over at
Miguel's Gallery & Garden, Mexican chimeneas 20% off, and 50%
discount on many decorative pots. / Further south Matt Horvath
perennials, fall herbs, cilantro and lettuce all arrived this week.
At The Natural Gardener on Saturday at 10 a.m. Heather Kendall
shares her knowledge on Butterfly Gardening. (Free) Please help
support local nurseries ; - ) ❦
TreeFolks news: Jessica Brown and Collin McMichael were gen-
erously handing out free plants at Laguna Gloria over the weekend.
This Saturday join them at 10 a.m. for 'A Beginner's Tree Identif-
ication Hike.' Meet at the Central Library (710 W. Cesar Chavez).
Free. TreeFolks ❦
'Creating your own Cosmetics, Naturally' This class with
herbalist extraordinaire Ellen Zimmerman is set for tomorrow (Fri-
day) and still has a few spots open. Enjoy an entire natural facial
process while learning to make each product. From 1 - 4:30 p.m.
EZ Herbs ❦
__________________________________________________
Sweet roasted butternut squash: with this 'autumn supper in a
bowl,' you throw together chunks of squash, roasted herbs and
greens, some half-and-half, pasta and cheese - 'and you have a
great sell to the anti-vegetable contingents,' writes Lynne Rossetto
Kasper. Splendid Table ❦
How to Make a Vertical Garden: this is a mini-succulent gar-
den inside a vintage picture frame from a flea market. For this
inexpensive project you'll need some wire mesh, plywood staples
and some good potting soil. The Crafty Gentleman ❦
____________________________________________________
The Austin Garden is sponsored by Hays Free Press
Brightening Winter with Annuals
by Chris Winslow
With the weather now starting to cool off, and with our freaky
weather patterns giving us plenty of rain along with a sort of second
spring with fall at the same time, it is time to think about planting
some colorful annuals that will give a fresh new look to our flower
beds.
Unlike spring and summer annuals that bloom when the days are
long, these fall and winter annuals bloom when the days are short
and cool. Many of them can even take a freeze in stride.
With the hot days and dry weather having taken a toll on the summ-
er flowers, this is a good time to prepare the beds for fall planting.
Mix some fresh compost into the soil to enrich and replace the nut-
rients that the summer plants used. It’s a good idea to add blood
meal, a great organic source of nitrogen.
Also add some bone meal, an organic source of phosphorous,
which plants need to produce flowers. Elemental sulfur helps to
lower the pH and make iron and other nutrients available.
There is a bagged compost on the market made from cotton bur
compost with sulfur added and it’s organically certified. This com-
post is fantastic as a soil amendment, and as mulch. Here are some
of the best of the fall and winter annuals to look for:
Snapdragons:
This is a versatile group of fall flowering plants with a wide range
of colors and heights. The flower has a dragon’s face that opens
and closes when they are squeezed – hence the name.
Snaps come in white, red, pink, yellow, bronze, and every imagin-
able color in between. They also come in different sizes.
For short snaps, under a foot in height, look for the floral carpet
varieties. For mid-sized snaps, choose the liberty series and the
sonnets, which grow 15 to 18 inches tall.
For the largest snaps, there are the rockets. Rocket snaps can grow
to 3 feet. Staggering or stair-stepping your snapdragon planting can
make a dramatic show, and you can look forward to an automatic
'Yard of the Month' sign appearing in front of your house in the
spring.
Be patient. Snaps greatest show will be late winter and early spring.
Finally… deer don’t care for their flavor.
Pansy and Violas
These are some more brilliant fall and winter flowering plants that
come in a world of colors and flower sizes.
Pansies stay short, under a foot, but their flower size can range
from ½” in the violas to 3 inches across in the majestics and the
maxims.
They can take light freezes and even a little snow at times. Garden-
ers can find pansies with solid colors, as well as varieties with
blotches and faces. They love a little blood meal and a sunny spot.
A pest to look out for is slugs. Control them easily with iron phos-
phate or Sluggo, easily found in local nurseries. (Sluggo is also
safe for pets.)
Flowering Cabbage and Kale
This is another exceptionally beautiful annual for the fall and winter
landscape. They look like cabbages as they grow but come in an
array of colors and leaf textures.
They carry their colors through the winter months and bloom yellow
in the spring when the days begin to get long. They provide a plen-
tiful nectar source for honey bees in the spring.
Aphids are the pest to watch out for here. You can control them
easily with a spray of soapy water. Happy Gardening Everyone! ❦
