the Austin Garden | micro-climates | caprese salads

Step by step the nurseries are opening their doors - but with sensible restrictions in place. We all miss the bustle of a nursery on a Saturday morning, the plants and the plant people, and getting gentle advice and coaching from the horticultural savants who work there. But maybe we'll all be returning to the old normal later this year? Let's keep fingers crossed. ❦

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Barton Spring Nursery has reopened with Covid-19 guide-lines: mask, 6 ft distancing, 2 people per party etc. Check website before visiting: Barton Springs

Far South Nursery: in the neighborhood of It's About Thyme, this vast operation is now open to the public; masks, distancing etc. (closed weekends.) www.farsouthnursery.com

The Natural Gardener: open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tues - Sat.

Social distancing, masks, no children/pets: check out website before going: TNG

The Great Outdoors: still on-line orders and curbside pick-up only. The Great Outdoors

Bee balm: this is just an all-round great plant that everyone should have in their garden. Known also as horsemint or bergamot, you can make tea from the leaves ( Earl Grey), eat the flowers, or watch as the flowers are visited by hosts of butterflies, bees and hummingbirds. They flourish in full to partial sun. (Illustration for the Austin Garden by Linda Anderson.) Texas A&M ❦

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Mino The Gardener

design, installation, seasonal maintenance

grounded in plants, ecology + permaculture

call today: 512-739-1932 minothegardener.com

Six approaches to garden design: the Landscaping Network offers this helpful guide for gardeners seeking a structure or form for their landscape. Choose from designs that are curvilinear, radial, rectilinear, rectilinear 45, arc-and-tangent (very tricky!), and irregular. Landscaping Network ❦

Caprese salad: all it takes is some cherry tomatoes, basil, mozarella cheese, garlic and olive oil and you'll have created a wonderful late spring salad that's nutricious and delicious. Like the Margharita pizza, it features the colors of the Italian flag, its country of origin. The Gardeners Network ❦

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Thursday Morning Landscape

design + installation

free consultation call Dwight: 512 913 2189

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Central Texas Gardener: lepidopterists from Mission's National Butterfly Center will be in the studio to share knowledge about butterfly and bee friendly plants. In Leander, gardeners convert a lawn into a water-conserving wildlife habitat. Sat. 4 p.m. and Sun. 9 a.m. KLRU ❦

Since the 17th century in Montreuil, France peaches were trellised on walls to create a microclimate to boost production. They were called 'les murs à pêches.'

The Magic of Micro-climates

by Amanda Moon

According to the Garden Helper's Dictionary, a micro-climate can be thought of as 'variations of the climate within a given area, usually influenced by hills, hollows, structures or proximity to bodies of water.'

So what does this mean, and how can it affect gardening and landscape projects around your home?

It could mean that it's a lot colder (or warmer) where you live, compared with the next town, or the next street . . . or even just 10 feet away from your chosen planting spot.

Gardeners should greet this as wonderful news. Once you begin to understand some of the intricacies of micro-climates, it will allow you to get away with 'daring' experiments with plants that normally would not survive in our climate.

For example, there are several citrus trees around town that survive into the teens during chilly January and February cold snaps with little damage. Some are planted facing south, up against a tall building which protected them from the north wind, allowing them to benefit from the heat retained in the building's exterior walls.

To help readers understand this fascinating subject, here are six micro-climate concepts.

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1. Urban Heat Islands: Buildings, roads and other concrete structures within cities absorb heat all day; they then release this warmth slowly at night, and raise the average night temperatures compared to the surrounding outer edges of the city. Notice how Camp Mabry’s low temps are always several degrees warmer than readings from the airport. Since I live in the city of Round Rock 'proper,' I can get away with more tropical plants at my house than my mom who lives south in Buda.

2. The Effect of Large Bodies of Water: If you live near a lake, pond, ocean, you'll notice a high moisture level and humidity in the air. On the plus side, this moderates temperatures of the surrounding area, but it also makes everything seem a little 'sticky.' The effects of this extra moisture are most pronounced in coastal areas and large lakes and can create its own weather, i.e. The Great Lakes region 'lake-effect' snow storms.

3. Cold air sinks: The higher you live on a hill, the warmer in general you will be relative to the valley beneath you. Even small hills can make a difference. One killing frost into the low 20’s saw agaves frozen solid at the bottom of my street; those of us at the top of the hill had little damage.

4. Compass Points: Different sides of your home (or even a privacy fence) can have very different temperatures in both the summer and winter. Place plants that need cooler temps year round on the east or north side of the house. Put plants in need of extra winter protection on the west or south side. This way they'll get as much heat in the winter as possible and protection from the drying north winds.

5. Exposure: Plants installed out in an exposed area will feel fluctuations in temperature more intensely than those set closer to a structure. For example, it's better to plant something with larger leaves that may suffer sunscald when facing west or south or damage from north winds along an opposite facing wall. It is also easier to offer plants some protection from afternoon summer heat by keeping them closer to a north or east facing wall, fence or even a taller plant.

6. Reflective surfaces: Lighter colors, including concrete, painted surfaces and limestone, reflect more heat than darker ones. In the summer this heat bouncing back on to a plant could cook sensitive leaves on a 100 degree day leaving them brown on the edges with pale, washed out spots in the inner areas. Alternatively, these same places can be a life-saver for tropical heat loving plants that need extra winter warmth and protection.

Armed with this knowledge, you should hopefully be able to add greater diversity to the collection of plants in your landscape as you explore the peaks, valleys and protected areas around your home. ❦