Winter is a barren season, frequently bereft of even a single flower. When planning a garden, many gardeners design for spring and summer. Fall, though often neglected, shines the brightest and winter is just plain ignored. It is odd that less attention is paid to how it looks in the off season, winter being the one season gardeners can enjoy the garden without being absorbed in its maintenance. A garden designed and composed of plants for winter interest will shine throughout the year.

Plant breeders, growers and nurserymen have been hard at work these past several years hoping to match environmental conditions with gardener's choices for this coming gardening season. What are the trends they've prepared for? I describe several and offer some predictions of my own for 2015, as well as possible resolutions for the new year.

Brilliant autumnal displays quickly turns smiles to frowns once they fall. But gloom not. Recycyling leaves into a valuable product for plants and soil is nearly as easy as mowing or bagging the leaves themselves. Here are a few tips in performing this sustainable function.

Scientists are discovering the complex world of plant communication, mostly centered around plant scents, volatile organic compounds. Volatiles are used to beckon pollinators, fend off herbivores and pathogens, summon helpful insect predators and alert other parts of the plants, as well as other plants to the presence of danger.

Amarillo Botanical Gardens has announced that the proposed Plant Select® Demonstration Garden has received notice of funding from the Amarillo Area Foundation, Sybil B. Harrington Living Trust. Plant Select® (Plantselect.org) is a regionally recognized program familiar to gardeners throughout the Rocky Mountain West and Southwest. Plant Select® plants are plants that are either native to the west or non-natives from similar floristic regions of the world that are superior performers in the Western half of the U.S.

When the word tulip is mentioned or thought, our natural association is with Holland, windmills and low-lying marshy land in a cool, overcast and rainy climate. Yet it’s origins are in a climate just the opposite a continent away. There are very few plants that have captured the love, passion and folly of gardeners, and held it, century to century, as tulips have. From the study of the history of the tulip, one follows the history of gardening, floriculture and horticulture science in both the eastern and western world.

Tulips enjoyed a heady life in France and England with mini-mania and obsessions. The French were quicker to move on to other extravagances. Like any love story, the English had their ups and downs with the tulip, suffering through keen competition from other flowers. The tulips prevails today as a much loved flower.

Many gardeners have given up on growing tulips, mostly because they fail to return the next year, or return without much vigor. The Texas Panhandle is ideally suited to gardening with hybrid tulips and nearly all of the wild species tulips available on the market today. With a little information, gardeners are better able to make informed choices that lead to beautiful, long lasting results.

Has the drought in California caught your attention? Near daily stories in the major national newspapers about water shortages in the Central Valley have been shouting at me. Will the cost of vegetables, fruits and nuts become prohibitive? Sure, the Central Valley is only one region, but it is a major region of food production for the United States. The cost and quantity of vegetable, fruits and nuts is bound to be impacted. What can we do?

In my last post to Garden Notes, The Gardening Year 2013, I stated I didn't know whether 2013 was a hotter, cooler or average year, heat-wise. The AHS Plant Heat Zone Map provides a great tool gardeners can use month to month to guide them in real time plant care. Compare "heat day" averages to see if it's cooler, average or warmer. I've crunched the data for the past 20 years that may offer insights.

To me, fall is such a glorious time; greens fading to yellows, golds and russets. More yellows than russets – after all this is Amarillo – accompanied with brilliant canary, ochre, sienna, both raw and burnt, oranges, burgundy, mahogany and crimson reds against the shiny blue skies. In the Texas Panhandle, leaf change of cool and warm season plants combine to extend a colorful and exuberant season.

The founders of the New American Gardening style have passed, but their legacy remains as strong, flowing and free spirited as their gardens.