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Garden Talk

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"GardenTalk", a regular feature for The Gazette, brings to you the combined experience and expertise of Holly Lake's dedicated gardeners and others. A continuing focus will be subjects of interest to anyone who has ever bought a packet of seeds or dug a hole in the ground for a plant, as well as the dedicated and sharp-eyed observers of nature. "GardenTalk" will not only inform you each issue but solicits your ideas and personal gardening experiences which you may wish to pass on to others. The hope is that "GardenTalk" will enrich us all as well as help make Holly Lake even more beautiful.

Caution: Approach "invasive" plants with care (re-print 5-23-09 issue)

Holly Gardeners had a well-attended plant sale this month in which—as happens traditionally—the plants were gone before the people. The ones who were there in time were able to walk away with some outstanding bargains which, hopefully, will flourish and produce more plants for the sale next year. Almost all of the plants offered in this annual sale have been raised by the folks in Holly Lake Ranch and are well adapted to the area—its soil and weather. Many are native or the products of local nurseries so those who buy them can be confident of success in propagating these plants.

When you make a decision to have native plants in your garden, you are likely to come up with a number of questions, not the least of which is the one about the possibility of their being invasive. The word ":invasive" gives you a picture of massive plant take-over but this is not always the case. Some spread by scattering their seeds in the vicinity of the mature plant, which of course may mean you'll have to transplant the seedlings or share them with other gardeners. Fortunately, digging up seedlings and moving them elsewhere is a pretty easy task. But other plants send out runner roots which because our soil is basically sand, permits such roots to spread without limits. You try to pull up an individual plant and the root goes on and on. Seems almost as if you can measure their traveling capability in miles instead of feet. Some of the worst of these are goldenrod, passion flower and bracken fern. You might like to have a few of each of these but you don't want to find yourself knee deep in them. Texas Parks and Wildlife has prepared lists of plants which are native and desirable. They recommend ageratum, turk's cap, cardinal flower, salvia, and autumn sage. They also recommend a variety of grasses including Mexican feather grass, buffalo grass and Indian grass and shrubs such as mountain laurel and yaupon (though this is a runner-root plant that has to be root trimmed periodically to keep it from spreading). Plants which they list as "common exotics to avoid" include familiar shrubs available at most area nurseries—nandina, red-tipped photinia, privet, Japanese boxwood and salt cedar. They also don't recommend Asian jasmine which is a good ground cover but needs to he trimmed on a regular basis. If you are considering adding a particular plant to your garden, see if any of them are established in gardens in your area and ask about their invasive potential. The person who has had a certain plant in a garden for two or more growing seasons will be well-versed in their habits. Plants that have vigorous growing and spreading habits can quickly crowd out desirable species which means more work for the gardener, so it pays to investigate the plant's capability for spreading before you add it to your collection. Remember that plants which spread by seed scattering are easier to control than those which do their work underground through root runners.

Native plants have certain advantages over introduced plants. They need less water, they may not be as attractive to deer or other browsing or grazing creatures, they withstand temperature extremes better than many plants developed for the trade. Still you don't want to rule out the many species developed in other parts of the country which offer a wider range of garden design elements and which can be planted with confidence. Ask questions before you buy or accept freebies. How tall are the plants in question, how do they propagate, do they stay green year-round, how often do they bloom and how long does each bloom cycle last? You'll want to ask those questions and more since garden design, preparation and maintenance are time-consuming activities and you don't want to waste your energy on plants that won't please you—even if they are free.

For more information on invasive plants check out www.texasinvasives.org or www.invasives.org