[gardeners] Mother Nature
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Fri, 20 Feb 1998 08:18:19
Mother Nature did it to us again. Woke up this morning to a light frost and
a chill north wind. Our Canadian brethern and sistern have been complaining
about their lack of winter but sending all this cold air down to SW
Louisiana is a shame. If it warms up today I will be back in the garden but
for right now I'm huddling over the monitor for lack of a fireplace. Sleepy
Dawg is on the couch buried under her favorite afghan (rug not dog), and
Miz Anne is off to teach math to a bunch of high school folk, a fete I
would love to watch as she has much difficulty with math. She has the cell
phone with her so I expect I will get a couple of calls today, probably
questions I can't answer. Why do they have art teachers substitute for math
teachers? Shouldn't complain I guess, it's money for plants and food.
We drove around yesterday looking at the flowering trees. The pears,
ornamental and useful, are in full bloom as are the Japanese magnolias, the
Mayhaws, and, believe it or not, a few dogwood. One home has a magnificent
pear tree in full bloom backed by two Japanese magnolias, a beautiful sight
for winter-sore eyes. A sulphur butterfly was hanging around the bolted bok
choy in the garden too. We always let a few greens go to seed just for the
butterflies and the bees. We do a few carrots that way also, lots of
beneficial insects like the blooms of carrot.
A friend from down the street stopped by to see our new Mantis tiller, left
after a few minutes and returned with a 5-hp Troybilt. Turned the soil for
my new herb bed in just a little bit. All I've got to do now is fine tune
the tilling and turn in the amendments. It's good to have neighbors who
garden, even if they live a block away.
Gave the next door neighbor, original owners of the house next door, who
have been in Houston area for sixteen years, two huge azaleas we had pulled
out of the area where the herb garden is going in. They had been buying
these little one gallon pot azaleas and placing them in a free-form
flowering shrub area. Now they have two 5-footers to back up the new bed.
They're nice folk who are both on medical disability retirement and have a
22-year old developmentally handicapped son living with them. The husband
and I have made a date to go "fossicking" around the garage sales tomorrow.
Only problem is we both are looking for gardening equipment, etc. Once they
found out Anne and I are somewhat experienced gardeners they began asking
questions about plantings. Now one of their ornamental beds is a small
veggie garden. <VBG> I expect they will further landscape their place as
time and energy permits, much as we two old fogies do.
Off to the veternarian (sp?) to get Sleepy's parvovirus booster and her
ears cleaned. If she's good I'll stop by the Dairy Queen and get her a baby
cone.
George