Herself’s Houston Garden

Please join the Montgomery County Master Gardener Association for their annual Fruit and Nut Tree Sale!!!

Saturday, January 23

Talk by Tom LeRoy 8:00 a.m. (limited seating)

Sale 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Bring your wagon and come buy all your fruit, nut & berry plants. Have them pruned before you leave!

Almonds, Apples, Apriums, Blackberries, Blueberries, Cherries, Citrus, Figs, Grapefruits, Grapevines, Jujubes, Kiwis, Kumquats, Lemons, Limes, Nectaplums, Nectarines, Olives, Peaches, Pears, Persimmons, Plumcots, Pluots, Plums, Pomegranates, Pecans, Strawberry plants and more!

More information

Today I went to a talk given by the owner of Pineywoods Nursery on fruit and nut trees and attracting wildlife. Perfect timing as January is when most of the local fruit and nut tree sales take place and after the great freeze of twenty-ten you’ve probably got a few bare spots to fill in the garden.

While Tree Search Farms is a wholesale only tree seller, I’m told the website is an excellent source of information about local fruit trees. Anything they sell does well here.

Useful things I learned at this talk:
If your fruit tree isn’t fruiting it is usually because winter wasn’t cold enough or you don’t have enough pollinators. To attract bees plant various cupheas (Bat faced cuphea, Cuphea ignea, Mexican Heather ) around your fruit trees.

Fruit trees should be heavily pruned, but are easily infected, use sterile tools.

Tips for proper tree planting in Houston

PineyWoods recommends these fruit trees for the Houston area:
PawPaw – fruit is similar to bananas, spoils rapidly, fruit is high theft item from local critters, you’ll need to be quick

Mexican Plum ( prunus Mexicana ) great for dry areas

Chinkapin (Castanea pumila ) Chestnut tree, grows slowly but very tall

Mayhaw (Crataegus opaca) Hawthorne, loves damp areas

Darrows Blueberry ( Baccinium darrowii) stays compact, good foundation plant, need male and female plants to get berries.

Black Cherry ( Prunus serotina) Tall tree, interesting bark

Grapes ( Ison muscadine ) build a very strong trellis first

Mexican Thornless lime- only hybridized limes grow in Houston, this plant is good for pots

Improved Meyers Lemon – best lemon for Houston area

Republic of Texas Orange – only good orange for the Houston area

Rio Red Grapefruit

Blood Oranges

Celeste fig, brown turkey is best

Beauty Plums – need multiple varieties to produce

Red Barron Peaches

Dorsett Golden Apples

Housi Pear

Fuyu persimmons – a great wildlife attractor if you don’t like persimmons

Garnet Pomegranate

Jan 16th
9 am – 2pm Sale/ 730-2pm Symposium
Fruit and Nut Sale ( pdf flyer ) 3033 Bear Creek Drive, Houston.

Jan 23
Program 8-9, Sale 9-1pm
Fruit and Nut Tree Sale Montgomery County Master Gardeners

And if you miss the sales, just drop by Pineywoods Nursery they have plenty of fruit trees for sale.

* Note: When your fruit tree comes back from the great freeze, be sure it’s your fruit tree and not a Flying Dragon which is the root stock most of our fruit trees are grafted to. Flying Dragon is curvy with large thorns, remove immediately or you’ll be sorry.

The Texas Master Gardener Certification Classes begin January 28th, at the Harris County AgriLife Extension office at 3033 Bear Creek Drive. The classes are a great way to increase your knowledge, and meet others with a shared love of gardening.

Master Gardener classes are taught by Texas AgriLife Extension Service specialists, staff and other local experts. Topics include lawn care; ornamental trees and shrubs; insect, disease and weed management; soils and plant nutrition; vegetable gardening; home fruit production; garden flowers; and water conservation.

For more information visit Harris County Master Gardeners or contact David Parish at 281-855-5600.

It’s not quite a witness protection program, it’s more of a hide from the climate program. Botanists are collecting seed from several native plants, believed to be endangered by shifting climates and relocating them to more favorable climates.

Despite the current hysteria the climate is always changing and the evidence is scant that disaster is impending. Also plants have been evolving for millions of years, if we give evolution a crutch what will the plants lose? Will they become, like corn, totally dependent on their human keepers?

That said I’m a big fan of saving seeds and plants for future generations that might not survive on their own. And plants not transported on their own to better climates are likely to move themselves there sooner or later so it’s unlikely great harm will be done. But remember, move the plants, and the insects and animals who use those plants will move with them.

If you are in any gardening organization you are aware of the Millennium Seed Bank and I hope you are contributing seeds. If you are not informed about the Millennium Seed Bank plan on attending the lecture at Houston Garden Federation Nov 13th 930 am for a talk on the Seed Bank.

More information:
Managed Relocation
A Hunt for Seeds to Save Species, Perhaps by Helping Them Move
As Climate Warms, Species May Need to Migrate or Perish
National Center for Genetic Resources Foundation
Kew Millennium Seed Bank