High Plains Gardening
The gardening website of the Texas High Plains Region
Garden Notes
A Visit to the Desert
One of the things I enjoy the most during the spring time is visiting our nation's desert parks or wilderness areas. Temperatures are moderate and enjoyable, winds usually low with sunny skies, and many species are in bloom. Our desert areas are a treasure trove of plants, often with high densities of different species within a relatively short distance from each other. The desert pavement between plants, absence of tree canopies and xeric plants' limited foliage allows for better viewing of individual plants and plant groupings.
The Desert Community
One such desert is...
Garden of Ten Thousand Bricks
This summer I visited a familiar garden I watched grow and change over my adult life. Like my brother-in-law, Gene Dees, who creates and tends it, the garden has grown and matured over the decades. This year I realized a new appreciation for his decades of imagination, creativity and skill. What was once a typical northern garden, Gene's landscape has been transformed into an eclectic garden of depth and whimsy with the power to draw one in and sustain one's curiosity and interest.
My sister Jean and her husband Gene moved into their home in Rothschild,...
Quietly nestled among the narrow, winding streets of East Alameda and Canyon Road not far from the Santa Fe River, a four acre garden displays some of the best features drawn together from English and xeriscape garden styles. The Spanish word for homeland best sums up the conjunction of the two diverse gardening cultures, English and water-thrifty Southwestern, into a welcome respite from the labors of the day and the New Mexican sun. La Querencia--The Beloved Place, thrives amid drought and regulated water allotments hidden from view of the unassuming Santa Fe tourist, unknowing that a...
Some time in early March, millions of monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus, overwintering in dense cascades high up in the the Transvolcanic Mountains of central Mexico, sense it is time to begin mating in preparation for the year's migration north. This is the time they emerge from their state of reproductive diapause, that is a non-reproductive state. Scientists suspect the lengthening daylight and warmer temperatures signal the time to begin mating. These are the same monarchs that emerged from the pupae nearly 9 months previously somewhere in northern United States or southern Canada....
“And after summer evermore succeeds Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold. . . .”
Wm. Shakespeare
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.
Although the elements that make up a well designed winter garden are not different...
“Amarillo's proximity to the paths of strong weather systems tend to cause high winds, with March and April having the strongest winds. As a result, Amarillo averages the highest annual wind speed in Texas at 14.3 mph, which makes the city one of the top 10 windiest cities in the U.S. . . . Light winter precipitation makes the spring season favorable for dust storms that occasionally reduce the visibility to less than 1 mile.” (From a recent description of Amarillo's climate.)
Amarillo Windiness
Wind is an ever present condition gardeners know they have to live with. Amarillo had been name...
Plant breeders, growers and nurserymen have been hard at work these past several years hoping to match changing environmental conditions with gardener's choices for this coming gardening season. Seed racks have full displays of 2015 seed packets, new gardening paraphernalia have been ordered and are probably winging their way to shelves near you. It'll be a few months before the plants arrive, so we still have time to reflect on some new trends they'll be stocking for in anticipation of a profitable year.
A quick perusal of Internet sites informs me there is really no new trend coming along...
The new year has rolled around so it's time to sort out and file the detritus of facts, feelings and convictions associated with 2014's weather and effect on our gardens. My immediate recollection of the gardening year 2014, as a whole, was that the year was not too bad, not exactly average year, but closer than what we've experienced lately. Not overly hot, nor bracingly cold. A windy year, yet not the windiest. A year absent extremes.
Most of the days fell within the average ranges for a typical year in the Texas Panhandle. The highest temperature recorded was 104º on August 31st and the...
When Every Leaf's a Flower
On a walk the other day I noticed a leaf fallen to the ground. Looking up and all around, leaves where turning, falling down. The fall has come.
In much of North America, autumn is a beautiful time of the year. For me, it is the most beautiful and pleasurable. After the oppressive heat of summer, temperatures moderate, bringing out the best in both people and plants. A few weeks into cooling temperatures, winds die back and seasonal rains return. We can almost hear the collect sigh of relief the landscape utters. As the weather cools, the roses bloom.
The final...
Last year I wrote about the Denver Botanic Gardens after visiting in July, 2013. I've seen the gardens in various years in May, June, July, August and September. Each visit is special and different from each other. Every year Denver Botanic Gardens features a display of art throughout the gardens. This summer, DBG is featuring the art glass creations of Dale Chihuly.
I've seen Chihuly in the Gardens now in the desert spring during daylight and night at the Desert Botanic Gardens in Phoenix, during the heat of the southern summer at the Dallas Arboretum, and now in the fall at the Denver...
A Volatile Environment – Plant communication that makes scents
Gardens are considered quiet spaces where we can retire to for relaxation and rejuvenation. As a gardener, I don't often actually take the time to sit and meditate in the garden, but I try to enjoy the serenity plants project. One aspect of plants I particularly delight in are plants scents, or fragrances (Russian sage excepted), whether I'm just among them or working around the plants.
However, recent studies have called into question whether nature operates under sylvan harmony or whether plants are on guard, at alert to attack...
Missouri Botanical Garden
The Missouri Botanical Gardens – Shaw's Garden, as it's informally known – represents and exceeds the vision and mission started by Henry Shaw, a center for science and conservation, education and horticultural display. As all gardens, the Missouri Botanical Gardens evolved since Henry Shaw opened the gardens to the public in 1859, yet it has remained true to the purpose and style envisioned by Shaw 155 years ago.
Considered to be one of the top three botanical gardens in the world, the Missouri Botanical Gardens flourishes on 79 acres within the city of St. Louis....
New Plant Select® Demonstration Garden and PlantsAmarillo 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. The Plant Select® Demonstration Garden (official name TBD) will be in the space formerly known as the Meadow Garden (an undeveloped area). This area is located on the left immediately adjacent to the Franklin Butterfly Garden, across from the Wagner Japanese Garden and near the entrance to the Bivins Conservatory.The Plant Select® Demonstration Garden...
Local Plant Provided Expands Hours, Selection in New Location
It is mid-May and my garden is approaching the height of its spring peak. Spring blooming plants are in full bloom, joined by early heat loving perennials. The shoots of mid-summer bloomers are growing strong and leaves are emerging, stems elongating on perennials that adorn the garden in late summer and early autumn. This is the time of the year when the gardener sees his hard work and planning pay off for another year.
Not so in your garden? Three or four seasons of bloom are yet to be planned and implemented? Not to worry –...
Origins of the Tulips
“I hold that there is an ascending scale in the enjoyment, and may I not say, the intellectual profit, thatcan be got out of a flower. At the lowest point there is the delight of the eye which is provided by theready made’ bloom; then there is this and also that added something which comes when we ourselveshave done our little best to forward its development; but there is a higher plane still when, to the delightand the satisfaction of accomplishment, there is the unknown beyond to lure us on in a quest full ofdifficulty and interest. In few flowers is this potentially...
The Tulip in Europe
“In 1123, the tulips are already mentioned in Russian literature under their Russian name “Lola” although this word is not of Russian but of Turkish origin {lale}, its use here indicates that also in Russia tulips had become known much earlier than in western Europe.” (Botschantzeva, Tulips, p.2. from “In Gardens and Gardening' (1951), article by Rollo Meyer). Except for this reference quoted in Botschantzeva's Tulips, there is no recording in medieval manuscripts of tulips growing in Europe, and no mention of a tulipomania in Russia, however, tulips grew wild in Asian...
Tulips in France
French florists began in earnest to uncover the secrets of the tulip during the 1500’s, as tulips found their way into France at about the same time at Germany, Vienna and the Low Countries. As early at 1606, tulips were illustrated in Pierre Vallet's Florilegium. And in 1623, Vallet's book Le Jardin du Roy Très Chrestien, Loys XIII, Roy de France et de Navare, a pattern book for painters, embroiderers and tapestry weavers, included several illustrations of tulips (photo at left of Tulipa varie and Tulipa persica to the right). Tulips first flowered in France in the Provence...
Tulips Across the Ocean
The first reports of tulips in America were brought by Dutch emigrants, settling in New Amsterdam in the early seventeenth century. No doubt subsequent emigrants from Leiden and other Dutch cities also brought tulips along with them. In 1698, William Penn received a report of John Tatem's "great and stately palace" with a garden full of tulips in Pennsylvania. (Pavord, Tulips, p 264.)
From the 1730's, John Bartram, a Pennsylvania botanist, scoured the countryside shipping plants back to England. He collected seeds and plant specimens, establishing a trans-Atlantic hub...
When I first started gardening in the Texas Panhandle, I purchased two packages of tulips from Noel's Nursery (where SteinMart is now), 'Apeldoorn' (red) and 'Golden Apeldoorn' (bright golden yellow), 10 to a package, two standard Darwin Hybrid varieties. There wasn't a large selection available at the time. I planted them along an east facing fence, where they reliably bloomed every year for 30 years, eventually diminishing. I'm sure my constant digging around them and making a general nuisance of myself contributed to their decline; I speared not a few bulbs. I didn't know the significance...
Gardening with Hybrid Tulips
Most of the tulips we're familiar with are the hybrid tulips developed in England, France and the Netherlands, mostly in the Netherlands. They are tall stemmed with single cup, chalice or lily shaped flowers available in every true color but blue and black. Work is still being done on those colors. For many, tulips are no longer a national craze, but a rite of spring or a private passion.
The biggest complaint people have about the hybrid tulips is that that often don't come back the following year, or if they do, they come back fewer in number and weaker in...
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. Photos of dry fields empty of vegetables are starting to scare me. Just last year I was worried about neonicitinoids killing off the bees and other pollinators needed to pollinate the almond groves in California, now it seems there won't even be any flowers for the reduced populations of bees to visit. No water, no crops.
Will the cost of vegetables, fruits and nuts become prohibitive? Sure, the Central Valley is only...
The subject of winter interest seems to mystify gardeners when it comes to design. Just what makes a garden interesting in winter? It is a common misconception that color alone from the ephemeral flower defines the garden. Design and style is based upon our choice of plant, hardscape and materials, their placement in the landscape in relation to each other.
The garden in winter can be an alluring and peaceful place. Our winter enjoyment may encompass briefer moments of contemplation and inspection than in the spring, summer and fall. But that's only because the cold weather shortens our...
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. I stated that the weather reporting station at Amarillo International Airport recorded 10 days with temperatures at or exceeding 100° and 12, 13 and 9 days under 90° in June, July and August respectively. The National Weather Service tracts a good deal of weather data, but neither of those two categories are tracked in that manner.
The weather service keeps tracks of the average days above 90°, and the averages are 14, 21 and 17 for June, July and...
The gardening year in 2013 went the way most years go, two new highs and extreme weather events and series of dry, hot and or cold events. These combined to make the gardening year both challenging and typical, as it usually is. It wasn't the worst year in recent memory, nor was it the best, just different from most that came before it. For this reason, the word of the year is “resilient”.
Instead of heat waves and wild fires, this year's conversation about extremes was moisture based, both frozen moisture, but in quite different forms. Much talked about personally and in the press was the...
Leaves cover my lawn. Most have fallen, leaving bare stems and branches.
The first leaves filter down the dense canopy as the stems let go their grip in early October. The vivid green expanses below become dotted here and there with color and shapes that just days before cast shadows on them. By early November, the wind has swirled piles into the corners, catching in shrubs and woody perennials in beds and borders. Maybe this is what comes to mind when one thinks of fall – the fall and swirl of leaves and the need to do something about it.
To me, fall is such a glorious time; greens fading...