M y favorite shade trees of all time are the oaks. Planted and watered properly, young trees will grow fast and can dramatically enhance our landscapes. Apart from their beauty, there is a practical consideration too. If you plant them in the right place, shade trees will cool off the air around you...

Y es, it’s still hot. . . but now is the time, fellow Hays Co. gardeners, to start planning (and planting) your fall garden.   By planting our cool-season crops now while it is still summer, it gives them a better chance of growing and producing before the coldest of our winter slows them down.   A ...

W ith tomorrow’s arrival of the new month, we enter a period of transition, as we move from the doldrums of summer into what can be one of the busiest of seasons for central Texas gardeners. Some jobs for this month.  1. Cut back annual summer flowers, mulch, and feed. We have approximately 75 to 90...

By Chris Winslow With over 850 species of plants throughout the tropical and sub-tropical world, the family of plants known as ‘figs’ forms one of the most useful groups of plants in the world. Chances are when you hear the word fig, you think of the edible fruit varieties that are planted outside. ...

By Chris Winslow One of my favorite house or container plants is the desert rose. This little succulent is part of the dogbane family of flowering plants which includes oleander, mandevilla, vinca and plumeria. The desert rose (Adenium obesum) is a native of Mauritania, Senegal, Sudan, south through...

For Gardeners in the Heat of Summer  1. Mulch and water: Your vegetable garden, landscape, flowerbeds and trees need some help to make it through this torrid month. Mulch generously, and water deeply.  2. Lawn care: Your grass also needs deep, infrequent watering (5 day schedule) and keep the cuttin...

By Chris Winslow If I could only add one plant to the landscape a year, my choice at the moment would be Pride of Barbados.  This member of the pea family (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) is one of the showiest of the landscape perennials in central Texas.  Native to the West Indies, it is also known as dw...

I t’s always fantastic when you have plants that look beautiful in the garden, and work really well in the kitchen. For readers who enjoy Mexican cooking, the good news is that three of the top four Mexican culinary herbs fall in this culinary/horticultural category: Mexican oregano, hoya santa, and...

By Chris Winslow E arly July gets me in the mood to plant fall tomatoes. Texas A&M’s Vegetable Garden Planting Guide advises gardeners to get their fall tomato transplants in the ground between July 7 and August 7. (Larger transplants in 1 gal. pots or larger can be planted as late as Sept.1.) I pre...

W hile May brought with it 15.8 inches of rainfall and a host of black spot, powdery mildew, and sooty mold problems, June has seen a return to more expected levels of sunshine and rainfall, and this looks set to continue in July with temps levelling out at around 95 degrees after a surge in heat du...