Trees for Fall Planting

                This is a great time of year for putting in trees and shrubs.  Our fall and winter seasons allow the new plants to establish themselves and concentrate on root growth before the stress of our hot, dry summer season.   To get you in the spirit of planting, I thought I’d give you some ideas for trees that do well here on the edge of the Edward’s Plateau.  Our soil is thin, very alkaline, and full of rocks.  That means that some plants will just not do well here.  Soil moisture can be a challenge – especially in the hot summer months.   If you are going to invest in a medium or large shade tree, you want it to survive.  Here are some suggestions.  Please note that I am adding the Latin names.  There is confusion and mislabeling – especially among the oaks.  So, be sure your nursery uses the Latin names so you know what you are getting. 

                There are several oak trees that are less susceptible to Oak Wilt than our red oaks and live oaks.  You probably already have red and live oaks on your property and may want to add some diversity to your landscape.  The Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa) produces large, deeply lobed leaves and huge acorns.  The Chinquapin Oak (Quercus muhlenbergii) tends to grow tall and slender with glossy, dark green leaves.  A faster growing, though smaller, native oak that is becoming quite popular is the Mexican White Oak or Monterrey Oak (Quercus polymorpha).   The Lacey Oak (Quercus laceyi) has peachy colored new growth in spring and returns to a peachy color in fall.  It, too, is a smaller tree.  All four are native to Texas, tolerate our alkaline, rocky soil, and, once established, tolerate our periodic droughts. 

                Another tough native Texas tree is the Cedar Elm (Ulmus crassifolia).  It will grow as large as live oaks and provide a nice shade tree.  It has a little golden fall color before losing its leaves. 

                There are a couple of overlooked natives that can grow to medium-sized trees.  Eve’s Necklace (Sophora affinis) grows well in shade, has lovely pink flowers in the spring followed by the beaded pod that gives the tree its common name.  Anaqua or Sandpaper tree (Ehretia anacua) is an interesting tree with leaves that feel like sandpaper (not good eating for deer).  It gets white flowers and red/orange berries.  Honey Mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) is not well liked by ranchers, but is a nice, fast growing shade tree that is very drought tolerant.  It is a great choice for an area that has lots of sun, poor soil, and no irrigation. 

Native Texas Plants by Sally and Andy Wasowski is a great book for pictures and more information about these and many other native trees and plants.

Check out these websites for more ideas and planting information:  http://www.texastreeplanting.tamu.edu/,  www.wildflower.org,  http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/growgreen/. 

Local Nurseries that carry native trees and plants include:  Hill Country Gardener in New Braunfels (hillcountrygardens.com), Madrone Nursery in San Marcos (madronenursery.com), and The Natural Gardener in Austin (naturalgardeneraustin.com).  Also, check out the Sattler Ace Hardware.  They have been working with the Native Plant Society of Texas to increase the number of native plants that they carry.

The local Native Plant Society of Texas for Comal County and for Boerne both have plant sales periodically.  Watch for these sales in the spring and fall.  Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center has plant sales in April and October up in Austin.

Summer of the Katydid

 

                One of the things about living in South Central Texas that I have come to enjoy is that there is always something extreme happening.  It’s either flooding, or we are in a drought.  Some years are spectacular for flowers (the Huisache bloom was remarkable this year).  Remember the year of the snout nose butterflies?  That must have been the summer of 2006.  There were swarms of them everywhere.  I remember walking down the street in New Braunfels with so many of them flying around me that I could reach out and touch them.   And they would swoop across the highway in front of cars. 

                This summer is the summer of the Katydids.  We had a year like this a couple of summers ago.  I had done a little research then, so I recognized them when they returned in numbers this year.  So many people have asked about them that I did a little more research this year.  Here are some facts.

·         They are members of the same insect family as grasshoppers and crickets.  They are not related to the other great summer singers – the Cicadas.  They usually have very long back legs and long antennae.

·         The species we commonly see range in size from about 1 ½ “ to 2 1/2 “ in length. 

·         There are many different kinds of Katydids. You will notice differences in size, color and even shape.   Some eat flowers, others eat leaves, and a few are carnivorous and eat frog’s eggs and other insects.

·         They have a raspy “song” which is most pronounced at night.  The sound comes from rubbing their forewings together.  While the sound is like a cyclic hum to my ears in normal summers, it can be quite irritating when we have as many as we do this year.

·         They are native to Central Texas and usually do not cause significant damage.  Our native plants have evolved alongside them and usually recover from any damage.

·         Like the grasshopper, they produce a brown/red fluid that they use as a defense. 

·         The Red Katydid prefers oak canopies.   In large numbers it can cause significant defoliation.  Large Oaks will recover.  Oaks under three years old may profit from protection. 

·         Katydids provide nutrition for our native birds.  If you have not got feeders and water out for the birds, now is the time to think about adding that to your yard.  Their song is much more attractive to me, and they help control some of the crazy swings in insect populations. 

Winter Rain = Wildflowers

 

Our drought is not over we’re told.  However, the wonderful winter rains have helped germinate a couple years worth of wildflower seeds that have been just waiting for this weather.  Let’s identify a few of the bountiful blooms that you are surely seeing in your yards here in Mystic Shores

Hill Country will be shimmering blue with a flush of blue bonnets this spring.  If you don’t have them in your yard, you can buy plants in the spring and establish a small bed of them.  The deer seem to eat them in my front yard unless I protect them with a wire fence.  In the back yard where it is fenced, I started 6 plants 5 years ago and now have hundreds.  I don’t water or fertilize them at all.  I pull the plants when the seed pods are brown (they are annuals and won’t come back).  By that time they will have thrown their seeds all over.  Late summer I will start to see the little plants starting up.  This has worked so much better than scattering seed in the fall.  If I want plants in new places, I just throw some of the seeds around as I am pulling up the spent plants.

Another early spring wildflower that you will surely see is the prairie coneflower.  It is a perennial, so it will continue to come up wherever you see it this spring.  It will also continue to multiply by seeds that germinate in the fall.  It is lovely mixed with our wild grasses or massed in a wildflower garden.  The deer don’t bother this hardy fellow, and they are extremely drought tolerant, so you can grow them anywhere in your yard that you want.  Your problem will be that they will spread and multiply rapidly.  They have a deep taproot, so they are hard to pull by hand.  This plant supplies not only nectar but small seeds that our small finches enjoy. 

If you are very lucky, you may have some Texas Paintbrush on your property.  I have only found one plant in my yard and it only blooms in years that we have rain.  This plant is semi parasitic.  Its roots will invade the roots of nearby native grasses and take nutrition from them.  If you want to introduce these lovely natives, you can buy seed or it is possible to buy plants that are already attached to a grass.  If you find some, be sure to let the seed pods form and dry before mowing since these are annuals and won’t come back from the roots. 

We have a couple of kinds of wild Verbena that will be blooming.  One form has ferny, prostrate growth and forms dense mats if it gets any water.  It will bloom for months if the rains continue.  Its sister tends to send its clusters up away from the mat of green leaves.  The Verbenas are full of nectar for the early butterflies.   You will find that the deer don’t much bother the native verbenas but will lunch on the cultivars that you buy at the nursery.   

After these natives have finished their show, look for the odd looking Antelope Horn plants.  The first time I saw the bloom of this plant, I was blown away.  It looked like a green – white wax globe with multiple little parts.  The plant grows prostrate and has long thin leaves on the trailing stems.  It is a milkweed and has a white, sticky sap if you break the plant.  After blooming it sets long brown pods that are filled with thousands of seeds on feathery little parachutes.   This plant is a great plant for caterpillars.  So, if you love the Monarchs and Queen Butterflies, leave these strange plants in place when you find them.   The flowers’ nectar is popular with our native bees and many butterflies.

 

Sources:  Wildflowers of Texas by Geyata Ajilvsgi (a Hill Country resident), and Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website ( http://www.wildflower.org )

SUZY SUCHE SEZ…the drought is not over by a long shot. The State Climatologist indicates that the drought may well last into 2013. In his report for the past year he says: “…the 12-month rainfall total for October 2010 through September 2011 was far below the previous record set in 1956 [the Drought of Record – ss]. Average temperatures for June through August were over 2 °F above the previous Texas record and were close to the warmest statewide summer temperatures ever recorded in the United States…Twelve-month rainfall was driest on record across much of western, central, and southern Texas, and many stations received less than 25% of their normal 12-month precipitation.” For the full report please go to: http://atmo.tamu.edu/osc/press_releases/2011_drought.pdf.
Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanac” advises us “a penny saved is a penny earned,” which is also good advice for water conservation. A gallon saved is a gallon earned, so we offer the following water wise tips.
Take shorter showers: save 5-10 gallons for every minute you cut back. It doesn't take that much water to get clean. Some of us even take a “navy shower,” which means turning off the water when you are soaping up or shaving in the shower and only have the water run to rinse off. You can also put a mop bucket in the shower with you to catch any extra water and use it to water house plants.
On average, 2.5 gallons/minute of water are wasted from running a faucet while brushing teeth, if that’s only 5 minutes; it’s still 12-1/2 gallons, enough to water 100ft2 of lawn on a hot sultry day or 1250ft2 on a cool cloudy day. When we lived in an area that we had to use bottled water for drinking (or else catch a horrible stomach ailment), we put water in a cup, swished the toothbrush around in it to wet the brush before using it to brush our teeth, rinsed our mouths from it and then used what was left to clean the toothbrush when we were done. It’s a good practice to save water, as well. If that’s a little too drastic for you, keep the faucet off while you brush.
Toilets use up to 25% of the water used in a home. Really. We’ve asked everyone in our house to use the old adage, “if it’s yellow, let it mellow…” you know the rest. The males in our homes are thrilled to have the level of toilet etiquette lowered!
Use a pan or one half of a double sink to wash dishes, run the rinse water into the wash pan instead of down the drain and don’t have the faucet going full blast. Empty the pan or sink only when the water is too dirty to use. If you use a dishwasher, be sure it is full before you run it and scrape dishes rather than rinse them. Most new models don’t require rinsing the dishes first.
Use cold water to wash clothes rather than hot. Be sure the washer’s level is set to the appropriate amount for the load you are running or better yet, use the newer low-water models that calculate the level for you depending on the weight of the load.
Anywhere from 60-75% of residential water use is used for landscaping and up to half of that is wasted! It is lost to evaporation and run off. Adjust your sprinkler heads regularly: watering the driveway has never grown a thing. Monitor the amount of water being used on your landscaping. The amount needed in winter is much less than in the heat of the summer. It’s easy to use a small can like a tuna can to measure the amount of water being put out by your system. Be sure to water in the summer months before 8am so evaporation will be minimized. Even better, use rainwater catchment or recycle your gray water (including the condensation from the AC units) for your landscape watering needs.
Be smart in selecting plants for your landscaping. Tall grasses, shrubs and trees act as brakes for the rainwater which falls and hold onto the rainwater until the ground is able to take it up. Flat lawn areas hold no more water than a driveway! Plants native to the area (not just to Texas in general, it’s a big state!) are used to the extremes in temperature and the lows and highs of our rainfall. And remember mulch, mulch and more mulch for the best and cheapest means of keeping the precious water where it belongs…in the ground!

Texan Native Trees in a Drought

As a gardener who grew up in the northern states, I am programmed to revel in the rebirth that occurs each spring after the long, dark winter. As a Texas gardener, I am even more surprised by the miracle of renewal that occurs here whenever the Texas native plants decide it is time!

After months of punishing drought (less than 7 inches of rain in my weather station this year through August), we have received 2 inches of rain in mid September. Of course, the Texas Sage bushes immediately – within 24 hours – started blooming and feeding the hungry bees. I walked through the yard in the areas that are wild or that are more than 50 feet from the house. These areas are not irrigated at all. My Sandpaper tree immediately caught my eye. It had lost about half of its leaves in August, though it remained green. After the rains of the last two days, it doubled the number of leaves. No tree in the North decides to put on leaves this late in the fall. My Toothache Trees and Possum Haw Holly had done the same. Why now when both will lose their leaves in just a few months? The Yaupon Holly and Goldenball Leadtree ignored the drought and have a full complement of leaves. The Yaupon even managed to flower and set a huge crop of berries.

I wandered back into the ravine and there my Kidneywood trees were again full and green. I bet they will have bee and butterfly pleasing blooms within the week! Even the more delicate Beautyberry has survived with some gemlike purple berries. It will be much prettier in a year with rain, of course.

The young Big Tooth Maple that sits on the top edge of the ravine hadn’t lost leaves at all during the drought. What a great tree! It stays green through drought, and then it will turn a lovely orange sherbet color in early November. The flame leaf sumac is much the same – fully green and bushy through the drought and heat, and then rich scarlet in the late fall. We don’t have the fall color that New England has, but with a little planning we can have some great color from resilient, beautiful natives.

The Evergreen Sumacs have kept their leaves and color all summer. They will stay green all winter making a great screen or hedge. The sumacs will send out runners and start new plants, so I do keep an eye on them for unwanted plants. The sprouts are easy to control or move.

The two Huisache trees flourished through the drought. They didn’t bloom heavily, but they didn’t drop leaves just because it was 110 degrees and dry. The mesquite has dropped some leaves, but is obviously not suffering much! My Chinquapin Oak just kept growing and making acorns despite the weather.

The native Persimmons have all survived without water. I have one in the front that loses its leaves in August pretty routinely and then leafs out in the fall. My tree man was bewildered to find it green in the middle of the winter when the other persimmons were bare. That’s what I mean about Texas natives. They seem to make their own rules. Even two trees of the same species might decide to bloom or leaf out at different times.

If you are thinking about adding some of these great natives to your yard, Fall is a great time to do that. I can tell you from experience that the Huisache, Mesquite, Sandpaper Tree, Chinquapin, and Yaupon Holly are not favored by the deer. Do protect their trunks during the fall since the male deer will rub their antlers on the trunks of any tree, it seems. The deer have never nibbled on a Texas Persimmon in my yard, either (though the fruit disappears). The Kidneywood is eaten by deer, so it does need protection. My wild Kidneywoods started showing themselves after one year behind a fence. I have a lot more wonderful natives to tell you about, but not enough space! Maybe another time.

Fall Vegetable Gardening

Well it has been a tough summer for any kind of gardening. Since I have set up a simple irrigation system with a timer, my plants didn’t suffer in the vegetable garden. I also had put down a layer of compost in the spring which the plants really loved – especially the tomatoes. However, the pesky armadillos spent their nights finding out which area of the garden had been irrigated and dug there. I lost most of my first crop of beans to them. I thwarted them when I planted my second crop of by using fabric mulch which I nailed to the sides of my raised garden! The irrigation was under the mulch, so the plant roots stayed cool and moist, but the armadillos couldn’t freely dig in those plots. I made slits in the mulch and planted the rows in those slits.
The hungry and thirsty birds were a nuisance in the tomato plot. I have a wildlife pond and two birdbaths that I keep full, but the tomatoes seemed irresistible to them. I could have draped the plants in bird netting, but felt that a few pecks in my tomatoes were tolerable. The cucumbers are still producing. The sweet potato bed is completely covered and growing out into the paths. I can’t wait to harvest them in early November. My one year old grape vine produced fruit for the first time this summer. I haven’t seen as many stink bugs and grasshoppers as usual. I think the birds and the drought have kept them at bay.
But, the planting season doesn’t end with the arrival of the fall months. Here in Hill Country, we usually don’t get our first frost until sometime after November 15. With cooler temperatures, gardening at this time of year can be very enjoyable. Many gardeners prefer the fall vegetable gardening season to the summer season. Many plants for fall vegetable gardening should go into the ground in August. The young plants (tomato, squash, and cucumbers) will appreciate a little shading with some shade cloth in their early weeks – especially if temps are still in the 100 degree range as they were this summer.
Many vegetables love some cool weather and can go in right now. Onion seed, beans, beets, collard and garlic can go in now. Peas can still be planted in October. And if you like radishes or spinach, you have time to harvest more than once. Plant a row of spinach or radishes, then plant another row in one or two weeks. These cool weather plants can be seeded as late as the first week of November.
If you prefer gardening in containers, think about putting some herbs or fall vegetables in those pots. This is a great time to add some herbs to any garden. Add some sprigs of thyme or oregano or a few chive and parsley plants combined with a row of spinach to a planter. They will stay green and pretty until November and enrich your soups and salads all fall!

Ready-Set-Prune

Yes, it is finally the pruning season here in South Central Texas. This is one of the best times to prune your Live Oaks trees since the beetles that spread Oak Wilt are not active during the coldest month of the year. Many of our trees and bushes have lost their leaves which make this the best time to shape them up, too. Remember, however, that most of our shrub and tea roses are best left until Valentine’s day when rose gardeners generally prune and fertilize their roses.

Before you start, however, keep in mind that any plant that blooms in early spring and roses that only bloom once a year, should be pruned only after they bloom. This includes Mountain Laurels, Wisteria, Azaleas and the like. Pruning these plants now will remove many of the bloom buds. Many perennials will do better if you wait until February to prune back. That dead looking old growth helps prevent frost damage to the roots.

Most mature trees need very little pruning. You can remove any dead or diseased branches on mature trees, as well as branches that have grown into structures, are blocking a view, or are impeding movement on sidewalks or driveways.

For most bushes and immature trees, there are three steps to pruning. First, remove dead branches. Then, remove branches that are growing into the center of the plant or that are rubbing on other branches. The idea is to prevent branches from damaging each other, and to let light into the center of the bush. Then, if necessary trim the plant back to the size you want it to be. Usually, you don’t want to remove more than one third of a plant at a time. Don’t remove branches coming from the trunk of an immature tree until the branch is about one inch in diameter. Research has shown that the young trees develop better with those branches in place.

Here are some examples. I have a young Big Tooth Maple. I want it to develop a strong trunk. It is about 4 feet tall. I am tempted to remove some of the branches on the lower third of the young tree so that the tree will look more – well – tree like. But, each winter, I remove only those branches that are one inch in diameter. That will insure that the tree grows straight, tall and healthy.

How about that Texas Sage that is getting too tall? Don’t just take a hedge trimmer to it and carve it into a ball. You will get heavy growth around the outside of the tree, but leggy, bare areas in the center. So, be sure to take out those crossing branches and thin out the center before the haircut. The whole bush will recover nicely and remain full throughout.

Vitex tolerates a heavy pruning. We take off as much as four feet from the Vitex in the Master Gardener garden at the Extension Center. That encourages the Vitex to send out lots of young shoots in the spring and bloom heavily. Butterfly bush will take a heavy pruning also.

If you have kept some of the Texas Persimmons in areas near the house, trim them up from the ground to expose the trunk every year as they mature. The trunks of the older Persimmons are beautiful in winter. Without any trimming, they tend to stay pretty wild looking. Agarita will stay a shapely bush with very little attention. I trim back the shoots that have gotten taller than I want. Just a little attention will leave you with a very attractive, evergreen shrub that the deer won’t touch.