If you’re tired of the sight of your neighbor’s old car on blocks, or if you prefer the idea of your morning swim being a more private affair, then it might be time to turn your thoughts to creating screens and barriers with plants.

A few years ago Paul Kaskie (Southern Wood subdivision) wanted to screen out road noise, and wanted it fast.

He planted primrose jasmine (Jasminum mesnyi)… a sensible choice. This shrub is a fast grower, and has deep green leaves with lemon-yellow, unscented flowers in late winter and early spring.

It normally grows six feet high, but can grow like a vine up to 10 feet high if it has some support.  And if you give it adequate space, it can become two to three times as wide as tall.

Primrose jasmine can tolerate shade but does its best in partial to full sun. It can tolerate drought once established. However, it will grow faster and fill in better if it gets adequate water.

Paul showed me an effective and simple way to incorporate a drip irrigation system so that the newly planted plants could automatically get the water they needed to grow fast and thrive.

To provide regular water, Paul ran flexible ¾ inch drip pipe along the length of the planting row and pinned it to the ground. Later he hid the pipe under a cover of mulch.

At the base of each plant he inserted two to five gallon per hour emitters. At the water faucet end, he installed a battery timer that could be programmed for multiple start times and durations. This allowed him to water his screen without being there.

This was planted a few years ago, and the outcome is substantial and beautiful. Paul now has an effective sight and sound barrier.

On the other side of town, Paisley Robertson had a different dilemma: how to block the view of the two-story balcony porches that stared down upon her backyard.

Paisley’s solution: build a tall trellis and plant an evergreen flowering vine. By doing this she has flowers and an effective living barrier all year.

We live in an area where the climate allows us to choose from a variety of screening and barrier plants. Paul and Paisley both made good choices.

Here are some others:
On the evergreen vine side, my favorites are tangerine beauty crossvine, Texas coral honeysuckle, carolinae jasmine and confederate jasmine.

On the evergreen shrub side, there is yaupon holly, bay laurel (also a culinary herb), xylosma, eleagnus, compact cherry laurel, southern wax myrtle, the viburnums (at least five varieties to choose from), loquat, clumping bamboo and primrose jasmine.

If the irrigation part that I wrote about sounds a little difficult, give me a call, and I will be happy to give a hands-on demonstration.

Happy gardening everyone!

If you have a question for Chris, send it via email to iathyme@yahoo.com.  Or mail a postcard to It’s About Thyme: 11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, TX 78748  www.itsaboutthyme.com

With the summer heat squarely upon us, this is the time to give a tall glass of iced tea to gardeners … and compost tea to plants.

This tea contains millions of beneficial organisms, and plants love it. All you have to do is fill an old pillowcase with some compost and a few other ingredients, use some simple aquarium pumps to keep everything moving… and let it steep overnight.

Compost tea is truly amazing. It’s highly nutritious, adding beneficial bacteria and micorrhizal fungi to the soil. It has fungicidal properties as well. These beneficial bacteria and micorrhizal fungi increase the surface absorbing area of roots. This, in turn, increases a plant’s ability to absorb nutrients.

The recipe we use at the nursery (see below) is on a fairly large scale. It yields 55 gallons of tea, which has to be used almost immediately.  If this seems like it’s too much, you can halve the ingredients, or get your neighbors and community garden friends involved.

Ingredients:
1.  A barrel to hold water. We use a 55-gallon rain barrel.

2.  Water. Rainwater would be the best. If you have chlorinated water, let it sit a day or two before starting your project.

3.  A giant tea bag, such as an old pillowcase, a tea towel, or a stocking.

4.  Two small pumps, available in aquarium shops. One will re-circulate the water, the other will run an air stone.

5. Compost: we use 2 or 3 pounds of store-bought earthworm castings.

6. A cup of Bio-Start by Espoma (beneficial bacteria and micorrhizal fungus).

7.  Half a cup of either dry or liquid molasses to feed the beneficial bacteria.

Place the earthworm castings, molasses, Bio-Start and the air stone into the tea bag and secure open end with string or rubber bands.

Place the tea bag into the barrel with water and plug in the re-circulating pump and air stone.

Allow the system to run overnight.  By the next morning it will be ready to use. Compost tea should be used within a day. Its shelf life can be extended for a day or two with the addition of more molasses and continued aeration.

You now have 55 gallons of compost tea that can be sprayed on plant foliage and drenched at the root zone and added to the garden soil. I can’t think of anything better for the enrichment of your garden and stress relief during the hot summer days.

Now where’s my glass of iced tea?

Happy gardening everyone!

If you have a question for Chris, send it via email to iathyme@yahoo.com.  Or mail a postcard to It’s About Thyme: 11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, TX 78748
www.itsaboutthyme.com

For the past week or two, hoards of gardeners have been coming into the nursery, phoning me up or e-mailing me to ask what’s gone wrong with their tomato patch.

The most common problem is blossom set… or the lack thereof. Gardeners have beautiful plants but the flowers form and then just fall onto the ground.

The issue here is that it’s just too hot. When day temperatures rise above the mid- nineties and the night times are in the mid-seventies, large tomato varieties simply can’t set fruit.

For this reason, savvy tomato growers try to get their tomato starts out as early in the spring (or even late winter) as they can.

One gardener wrote that her tomatoes weren’t flowering at all, even though the bushes were healthy and the leaves were a deep shade of green. It seems likely here that the soil is overly rich in nitrogen, and poor in phosphorous. All the growth is going into foliage, and none into the flowers.

I advised her to give them a generous feeding of water-soluble super phosphate. Hastagro has a liquid organic formulation (6-12-4) that seems to work wonders in producing flowers on vegetables as well as ornamentals. My gardening friend Barbara Savens says she likes to mix Hastagro with rain water, and the results are incredible.

One easy way to be successful is to focus on cherry tomatoes. They seem to break all the rules by consistently producing fruit through the heat of the summer months.

(Throw some of them into a salad bowl with a handful of fresh basil, mozzarella cheese and a dash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and you will have effortlessly created a healthy and delicious summer lunch.)

On Saturday mornings Keith Reeh (Hill Country Canning) has been driving in from Fredericksburg to Barton Creek Farmer’s Market in a truck laden with boxes of beautiful Juliet tomatoes. These are elongated cherries, and are very tasty.

For those of you whose tomato gardens have finished or wilted in the heat… do not despair!  Fall tomato gardening is just around the corner.

Planting time for new tomato transplants extends from mid-July to the end of August. Young seedlings will be reaching their bloom time as the temperatures begin to drop at the end of September.

Many seasoned tomato growers actually feel that the fall is better than the spring. Hey! How cool is that? We get two shots at tomato growing each year.

For fall planting, look for varieties that are determinate. These produce lots of blooms and fruit in a short period of time.

My favorites: Celebrity, BHN 444, Phoenix, Surefire, Sun Pride, Solar Flare and Cherokee Purple.

Happy gardening everyone!

If you have a question for Chris, send it via email to iathyme@yahoo.com.  Or mail a postcard to It’s About Thyme: 11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, TX 78748. Visit us online at www.itsaboutthyme.com

1. Vegetable Garden
The timing always feels a bit strange, but this is actually the month to renew your vegetable garden for the fall harvest season. From seed, plant snap and lima beans, sweet corn, Swiss chard, cucumbers, summer and winter squash (my favorite), black-eyed peas, okra, cantaloupe, pumpkin and watermelon. For transplants, it’s the right time for tomatoes and peppers.

2. Tomatoes
Be sure to plant determinate varieties with reputations for heat survival. (Spot the clues in their names.) My favorites are surefire, solar fire, solar flare, celebrity, heatwave, sunmaster, and BHN444 (healthy surprise).

3. Water
Your plants will need this to survive. Not just a splash on the surface… but rather a profound watering. This will give them a more established root system and a better reservoir to draw from. Try to water on a four to five day schedule. Don’t run automatic sprinkler systems during the day. (Loss to evaporation is too great.)

4. Mulch
Keep all flowerbeds, vegetable gardens and trees mulched. This will conserve water, cool the root zone and generally relieve heat stress.

5. Mow High
Choose the highest setting for your mower. Longer grass blades will help shade the roots and conserve water.

6. Survive!
Want to avoid heatstroke? Three rules for central Texas gardeners:
a.Wear effective sunscreen and a large brimmed hat.
b. Garden early in the morning.
c. Drink gallons upon gallons of water!

Marigold Notes…
When gardeners think of marigolds, they think of annual color that lasts from the spring to the fall. This versatile family of plants also has two notable species that are wonderful perennials in our Central Texas gardens: Mexican mint marigold (Tagetes lucida), and Copper Canyon daisy (Tagetes lemonii).

Mexican mint marigold, known also as yerba anise in Spanish, has an enchanting anise fragrance to its leaves, and pretty button-size yellow flowers in the fall. It emerges in the spring and makes a deeply green plant which grows to a height and width of three feet by the end of summer. And it makes a beautiful flower display in the fall.

In the kitchen, you can use its leaves as a substitute for French tarragon in culinary recipes. Some gardeners call it ‘Texas tarragon.’ This marigold is also good for cut flowers and is not invasive.

Copper Canyon Daisy is the other perennial flowering marigold. It grows to a height of three feet and spreads out to a width of four feet. The foliage has a strong scent and you can expect a show of yellow flowers in the spring and fall.

Both of these marigolds are easy to grow and deer resistant. Give them at least a half-day of sun, and once established, they will need very little watering.

Happy gardening everyone!

If you have a question for Chris, send it via email iathyme@yahoo.com.  Or mail a postcard to It’s About Thyme: 11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, TX 78748. www.itsaboutthyme.com

As we enter the parched summer months, a gardener’s thoughts often turn to plants that can make it through a drought, and many folks who come to visit my nursery are often seeking some guidance on this matter.

The booklet Native and Adapted Landscape Plants is a good place to start.  This is a free City of Austin guide that you can pick up at any nursery. It covers trees, shrubs, perennials and turf grasses.

It’s important to remember that while xeriscape plants are indeed tough … they still need a helping hand to get their root systems established. So water for a few weeks after planting, and also give them water during very dry conditions.

Here is a selection of some of the yuccas, agaves  and other plants that I consider my bullet-proof xeriscape favorites:

Red yucca: Low-growing, reaches two feet in height, four-to-six feet in width, making it an excellent groundcover. It is evergreen and blooms from spring to summer with tall coral red spikes. Hummingbirds love them!

Softleaf yucca: Grows to six feet with soft foliage and beautiful spikes of white to pale green flowers.

Blue yucca or Palmilla: This can reach over ten feet and its blue tinged foliage makes it a striking addition to any xeriscape garden. It blooms in late spring to summer with showy white flowers born on spikes.

Beaked yucca: Tall, with beautiful white flower spikes. Their trunks make for a very attractive landscape addition.

Texas Sotol: Has light green leaves with sharp edges, short trunks, and fabulous white flower stalks that can reach fifteen feet. There is also a silver leaf option called Wheeler’s Sotol.

Century Plant: This great desert plant can attain massive size and comes in an array of colors from green to silver, and blue. Known also as maguey, it has a spreading rosette of leaves and can attain a width of eight feet. Its flower spike can reach over fifteen feet. After flowering, the plant dies. The average life expectancy is fifteen to twenty years, and during this time the century plant will produce a number of offspring. Tequila is produced from a similar plant called the blue agave or Agave tequilana. There are a number of cultivars of this plant which have striking variegated foliage (white striping along the centers or margins of the leaves).

Queen Victoria Agave: A great choice for someone who doesn’t have the room to plant the larger agaves. Queen Victoria only gets to one foot by one foot. The foliage has beautiful white markings on the leaves.

Artichoke Agave: Grows to three feet and has the appearance of an artichoke. They make gorgeous specimens in the landscape and are extremely heat tolerant.

A great idea for a drought and heat tolerant landscape design is to use some of these yuccas and agaves in sparse plantings with gravel or decomposed granite as mulch.

Most of these plants stand perfectly on their own:  the beauty of the plant’s own architecture can make a strong statement on any landscape. Adding a drought tolerant, fast-growing tree such as paloverde in the background and some zexmania or blackfoot daisies in the foreground can all add up to a simple yet beautiful xeriscape garden.

Happy gardening everyone!

If you have a gardening question, send it to me via iathyme@yahoo.com. (Please put ‘Ask Chris Winslow’ in the subject line.) Or mail your letter or postcard to: Ask Chris Winslow. It’s About Thyme: 11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, TX 78748

It’s simple to create the perfect salsa garden. All you need is to grow some peppers, tomatoes, onions, cilantro and lime… and mix them together in a way that suits your taste buds. Luckily, most of them grow fairly easily in our Hays County gardens.

Peppers: Plant your favorite type of pepper in a sunny spot in the spring after the last freeze. The plants will keep producing peppers all the way through the summer until the first frost of winter.

A clear favorite for salsa is the jalapeno. They come in a number of heat and size options. If you don’t like your salsa too caliente, choose the TAM mild jalapeno. For those who like giant jalapenos, I suggest ‘jumbo Hidalgo.’

Other peppers work well too: chilipetins, serranos, habaneros, and New Mexico Hatch chilies (Anaheim or Sandias).

Tomatoes: Plant these at the same time as peppers, after winter’s last frost. The most popular for salsa is the Roma tomato. These are dense and meaty, with low moisture and few seeds. They’re considered one of the easiest tomatoes to grow and the plants are big and prolific.

Onion: Usually started in the fall, onions will produce till the end of May. After harvest, store them in an airy, dry and cool location through the summer months.

Cilantro: This would normally be grown in the cooler time of the year, and presents a challenge in the summer months. As the heat index rises cilantro bolts, then blooms and turns to seed. It’s almost impossible to grow when it’s hot.

Option one for cilantro is to shop for it in the local grocery store.

Option two: grow a little ‘summer cilantro’ (Polygonum odoratum). This Vietnamese coriander flourishes in our summer heat and tastes like cilantro with a lemony flavor. Locally it is called Rau Ram.

Lime: The final addition to our salsa garden. You can grow a Mexican lime tree in a container or plant one in a protected location. They need to be shielded from winter temperature below the mid-twenties.

Put the ingredients all together, and you should have a salsa muy especial, that’s at least ten times more fresh and flavorful than anything you can buy in a store.

Congratulations,… and Happy Salsa Gardening Everyone!

If you have a question for Chris, send it via email to iathyme@yahoo.com. Or mail a postcard to It’s About Thyme: 11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, TX 78748 www.itsaboutthyme.com.

1. Water
Early morning is the best time… otherwise most of the irrigation water evaporates. Deep soaking is best because it gives the plant a greater reservoir to draw from.

2. Native Tree Care
This month is turning out to be pretty hot and dry. Remember your trees are going to be thirsty too. A small amount of rain does little to carry moisture deep into the soil.

3. Mulch
This will cool the roots and slow the water loss from evaporation. Mixing your mulch 50:50 (bag-for-bag) with compost will add nutrients and relieve stress.

4. Slow release fertilizers
When feeding flowerbeds and turf, be sure to use an organic-based, slow-release fertilizer. You will avoid burning plant roots in the summer heat and will have little impact on our watershed. Foliar sprays with seaweed will also help reduce heat stress.

5. Care for your roses
The first flush of your spring roses has finished. The flowering ends of the rose stems have probably formed hips (seed pods). Cut them off and there will be a new round of flowering. Also, give them some rose food. Examine them for any sign of insects, especially spidermites, and treat with horticultural oil (Sunspray or All Seasons) or Spinosad.

6. Mow high
Cut you grass as high as you can stand. Longer grass blades will help shade the turf and conserve water. Leave clippings on the lawn.

7. Add summer color
This is the right time to plant heat loving summer color in those empty spaces. Planting in the morning and evening is best. For summer color, zinnias, purslane, moss rose and vinca seem to be the hardiest. Make sure they get enough water when they are establishing themselves.

Happy gardening everyone!

If you have a question for Chris, send it via email to iathyme@yahoo.com. Or mail a postcard to It’s About Thyme: 11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, TX 78748 www.itsaboutthyme.com.

As the mercury rises and the gardeners of Hays County prepare for the upcoming mini-drought, I think the time is right for me, in my unofficial capacity as nurseryman/columnist, to nominate the amazing crape myrtle as the official 2010  Plant of the Summer.

They bloom for months, and they come in any size you could imagine. Once established they can hold up with our native tree species during the most prolonged droughts. Great color and water conservation rolled together into one great tree!
But let’s be more specific, and choose some monarchs:

I hereby nominate, as ‘King of the Crapes’… Muskogee. This stately specimen grows to a height of 25 to 30 feet, and blooms for 120 days. This is a record-setting bloom time!

Muskogee is a light-lavender with strong resistance to powdery mildew. Its fall leaf color is red and yellow and in winter its bark is grey and pinkish-brown.

As ‘Queen of the Crapes,’ I nominate Natchez. This white flowering beauty grows from 25 to 30 feet and has the second longest bloom period of 110 days.

Her fall leaf color is red-orange and her winter bark color is cream-cinnamon brown. Natchez is resistant to diseases and is considered the benchmark that all other varieties are compared to.

Besides this king and queen, there are dozens of other top performers to choose from.

For a dwarf tree, one of the best is Victor. This dark red variety grows to four to five feet and blooms for 85 days.

For mid-size trees, those growing from eigth to 12 feet there is Siren Red, Pink Velour, Catawba (purple), and Acoma (weeping white).

For trees between 15 and 20 feet there is Dynamite ( deep red), Red Rocket ( red), and Tuscarora ( coral red to dark pink).

And for truly shade size trees, 25 feet and up, along with Muskogee and Natchez – there’s Basham’s Party Pink.

The crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) has been in the south since they were first introduced from Asia in 1747. Since that time, hundreds of colors and heights have been bred.

In the mid 50s, the Japanese crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia faueri) arrived over here and an extensive breeding program began. Horticulturalists began to mix the color variations of the Asian crape myrtle with the disease resistance of the Japanese varieties.

The Japanese crapes also had trunk color attributes and greater cold tolerance. They could now be planted farther north.

As the official ‘2010  Plants of the Summer’ begin their amazing bloom cycle, we should all give thanks for the bright colors they bring to our landscapes during the harsh summer months.

Happy gardening everyone!

If you have a question for Chris, send it via email to iathyme@yahoo.com.  Or mail a postcard to It’s About Thyme: 11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, TX 78748 www.itsaboutthyme.com.

“$1 into the soil;
10 cents into the plant”

Success in the garden begins with careful soil preparation. A simple rule to follow: Put your money and efforts into the soil, and the plants will follow.

Another way to look at it: Put a dollar into the soil and 10 cents into the plant. Most put 10 cents into the soil and a dollar into the plant. Which do you expect to have the best results?

Central Texas’s soils provide a great challenge. They range from black clay to limestone, rock and caliches. One extreme holds water forever, while the other dries out in less than a minute. One thing they all have in common: they lack organic matter.

The solution is simple: compost. Mixed liberally with the native soil, this is a reliable source of nutrients and humates which help to condition the soil. When you add it to clay, compost increases aeration and drainage. Add it to limestone, and it helps to retain moisture.

Compost can be made in the backyard or purchased ready to use. When getting started with a new vegetable garden or flower bed project it’s best to go with the ready-to-use.

(Backyard composting takes time to produce a useable product. The best time to start a backyard compost project is yesterday or even better – last month!)

When you buy ready-to-use compost, you’ll encounter a world of choices. Some are made from manure – mostly turkey or chicken –  and other compost comes from decayed vegetative matter.

One of the best vegetative composts comes from the organic cotton fields near Lubbock. Cotton gin trash, the composted refuse from cotton processing, is a fine soil amendment.
You can even find this product with the addition of elemental sulfur to help neutralize the effects of our soil alkalinity.

Another highly effective compost comes from alfalfa. This composted legume is rich in humates and is one of the best soil additives available.

Mulching is another important soil enrichment process. Mulch is the blanket that goes over the surface of the planting bed. It helps to conserve soil moisture by slowing down evaporation and helps to moderate soil temperatures.

It keeps the soil warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. Many a plant has been saved by a good layer of mulch.

Mulches break down over time and add to soil quality. Soft wood mulches such as pine decompose faster than hard wood mulches. Soft wood mulches need to be replaced more frequently, but help to build soil faster.

Mulches can be mixed with compost to make a “living” mulch with a dual purpose. This combination mulches and conditions the soil for your plants at the same time.

Soil in Central Texas is a big challenge. Lucky for us, there is a ton of options that can help us grow a successful garden.

Happy gardening everyone!

If you have a question for Chris, send it via email to iathyme@yahoo.com.  Or mail a postcard to It’s About Thyme: 11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, TX 78748 www.itsaboutthyme.com

Today let’s celebrate this amazing grass. A few facts: over a billion people around the world live in bamboo houses; there are 1,500 species; and it can grow 4 feet in a day.

Also people are getting more creative in their uses of it. You can now buy a bicycle with a bamboo frame, flooring, sheets for your bed, and most recently, bamboo frames for your eye glasses.

As wonderful as all this is, of all the great screening plants available for our central Texas area, bamboo is the most misunderstood. Bamboo is on the ‘bad boy’ list of the City of Austin and the Grow Green Guide, where it is listed as an invasive species.

If you plant a ‘running’ bamboo as a fast growing screen, expect a chill in relations with your neighbors. They are going to be kept busy year after year combating your invasive running shoots.

The solution is simple enough. Plant ‘clumping’ bamboo rather than running bamboo. The clumping ones look beautiful in our landscapes, and you will still have cordial relations with neighbors.

Clumping varieties grow slowly in circles, and send out new shoots from their base rather than going madly across the yard. My favorite?

Alphonse Karr. It’s 15 to 20 feet tall, and is one of the most cold-hardy of the clumpers. The shoots often appear pink to red in color, while stalks or culms are orange-yellow with a vertical green stripe. Planted on 2- to 4- foot centers, this bamboo will make a satisfyingly dense privacy screen.

Plant them individually, and you will find Alphonse Karr makes an attractive specimen plant. When looking for suitable clumping forms of bamboo, pick one that has sufficient tolerance to cold. Many are damaged when temperatures fall below 20 degrees. (This was the lesson the recent severe frost reminded us of.)

Other good ones to look for are golden goddess, Buddha’s belly and giant timber.

Golden goddess is a dwarf form, rarely growing taller than 8 feet. Its density makes it an effective screening plant.

Buddha’s Belly is a tall clumper with zig-zag culms.

Giant timber bamboo can grow over 30 feet tall and produces giant green culms. To see a healthy specimen, check out the giant timber bamboo at the Four Hands Furniture Warehouse on St. Elmo east of I.H. 35 in south Austin.

Giant Timber should be placed in a somewhat protected location as its winter hardiness is placed at 18 degrees.

Care and location for growing of bamboo is important if you want a fast growing screen. Most bamboos thrive in a sunny to partly sun location with plenty of moisture.

Our native soils should be enriched with compost at the time of planting. Continued moisture and feeding is essential if you want them to grow at high speed.

You can also grow them in containers. Choose one with good drainage and select a premium potting soil mix. I once planted two large golden goddesses in a four foot tall, oblong cattle trough to provide screening and privacy on a back porch. It worked great!

You can see plenty of bamboo at Casa de Luz in Austin (1701 Toomey Road), and at Zilker Park’s Taniguchi Japanese Garden.

Happy gardening everyone!

If you have a question for Chris, send it via email to iathyme@yahoo.com. Or mail a postcard to It’s About Thyme11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, TX 78748 www.itsaboutthyme.com