Herself’s Houston Garden

Yesterday the rest of the worm castings, 75 lbs total, arrived. So did the herb seed order I put in at Richters.

I spent the morning putting out the worm castings. Use 1 cup per shrub and a 1/2 cup for smaller plants. I also planted and labeled all dozen or so of the herbs I ordered.

Now I’m sitting out on the deck enjoying the sun. The sprinklers are running and the yard smells of earth worm castings. My coffee tastes like soil and things just couldn’t be better.

There is far more frost damage than I realized. I am going to follow the advice and hold off on pruning all of the frost damaged plants with the exception of the heather. I cut that back to the ground each year at this time anyhow. It too was frost damaged. The leaves were falling off like they do off a Christmas tree in January. The waterings this week and fertilizer should help the frost damaged plants to recover.

During last week’s cold spell I found myself repeatedly checking forecasts hoping for a better answer. After all with weather forecasts, if you don’t like the forecast check back and it’ll change. They never did get to a pleasing state. Here are some useful weather sites for the Woodlands and Houston areas.

National Weather Forecast Office for Houston & Galvestion has ten years of daily climate information. This includes high and low temperatures, rain and wind information.

Climate Information, Houston has monthly averages, with days below freezing, about 90′, heating and cooling degree day information.

Harris County Homeland Security has rain fall maps for Harris county and some surrounding areas.

National Hurricane Center tracks hurricanes, maps, wind speed, landfall probabilities for all storms.

AccuWeather 15 day forecast for 77381

Intellicast 10 day forecast for 77381

I planted these Mother-inlaw’s-tongues out into the yard late last summer. They show some minor damage from last weeks chill ( 28′ ) but survived. I did cover them during the cold spell.

Flowers are tiny, white and grow in bunches on long stems. The plants will grow 4′-5′ tall.

They prefer light shade. And you should go easy on the water, especially during the winter they are prone to rotting.

Occasionally you may find a leaf that is damaged. I just cut off the damaged part of the leaf and leave the rest. The rest of the leaf often will do quite well after trimming.

Propagate by division. Once these plants get too big, you can dig them up or take them out of the pot and divide them. Use a very sharp knife to slice the plant into sections giving each section a clump or more of leaves and as much roots as possible. Or you can just remove a leaf, cut it into 3″ sections and plant each section in soil - being sure to keep the top up and the bottom down same as it was growing. Keep the soil moist but not wet until you see new growth, then slowly taper back the watering until you are watering them only when dry. Replant them then.

These will fill in and form a thick, dense border in time. So if you are planting them, leave at least a foot between them for future growth.

These plants were once used for the purpose of making bow strings.

Does seem like we are getting more than our fair share of frosts this year. Where is that global warming? Houston typically gets 18 nights with below freezing temperatures on average, but I don’t recall more than one night below freezing night last winter.

The ContraCosta Times, a California newspaper has a nice article Rx for plants hurt by frost this week.

The article recommends you do not rush out to fix the damage, but rather wait and see what happens when spring arrives. Be patient, you are likely to do more harm trimming the plants back now.

In the spring trim the parts where the plant does not come back to life. But be patient some plants may surprise you.

Keep an eye on the rainfall, too little water can do more harm. But it’s not spring yet so don’t be watering all the time either.

If you must ….

Check to be sure stems are not green before you cut. On many plants it’ll only be the leaves you lost.

Some plants can be cut back to the ground and will re-appear once the weather breaks. Check your garden books for information on individual plants if you are not sure.

Anything that turned to mush is a loss. ( The article says this, I disagree. My hostas turn to mush first frost every year and come back just fine. )

Trees should have damaged fruits and leaves removed, don’t trim branches until summer. By June anything still alive will have put out leaves.

Cutting encourages new growth, hold off as long as you can.

1989 the San Francisco Botanical Garden suffered a hard freeze. It was estimated 80% of the plants were lost. But time healed most plants and the actual loss was only about 20%. So take your time and have hope.

See also: Protecting your plants from frost damage
Hosta