Herself’s Houston Garden

Today was the first chance I had to go wandering and looking for this nursery. I’d heard many good things about it.

It is about 1/3 pots, 1/3 yard art, and 1/3 plants. Though the selection was not huge, everything there was something that you wanted to bring home. There were many unusual plants you don’t see at the big box stores. I didn’t leave empty handed.

The Arbor Gate also has several classes on gardening and garden crafts.

The Arbor Gate

Today I took a class in Ikenobo down in Houston proper.

Ikenobo translates to ‘flowers kept alive’. It is the oldest of the ikebana schools which were founded by the Buddhist priest Ikenobo Senkei. It dates back to the 15th century. ( see Ikenbana )

The class we attended was at the Tachibana School It was fun and the class was only $10. You should bring a container for your arrangement and a frog. I found a frog at Garden Ridge. The school supplied the flowers and greenery.

This was my first flower arranging class, and it shows. But that’ll give me an excuse to take more classes.

Ikebana

Though it was warm and spring like this morning, the wind chime has been ringing almost non-stop since I returned home so I can hear the cold front moving in here.

How ever would we get through January with out all the garden catalogs clogging our mailboxes? More catalogs arrived today and I decided it was time to buy the fertilizer.

I love putting worm castings in the garden. I discovered them totally by accident. I had this house plant that was green and healthy but never grew much. Then all of a sudden it caught up on several years growth in just a few weeks. When I took it down to water it I discovered a caterpillar had made his home in the plant. It’s a wonder he didn’t eat the plant.

Since then I put worm castings in the garden every spring.

I used to get all my natural garden supplies from Garden’s Alive, but had problems with this last order. So I’m not recommending them any more. Here are some companies I found online that also sell worm castings at decent prices. I have not tried any of them. If you try them let me know if you liked dealing with them and I’ll make a note here.

Gardens Alive!
DirtWorks, Organic Gardening Supplies
Our Vital Earth

Richter’s Herbs is located in Canada and puts out the best herb catalog I know of. They not only have a fantastic selection of herbs both plants and seeds, but provide a detailed description of uses for the herbs and growing conditions needed.

I’ve been pretty unsuccessful with herb gardening so far down here. It ’s only been a year but my first two attempts have failed. I had some basil grow and there is rosemary I transplanted from one of those tree forms they sell at the holidays but all else croaked in the Texas sun.

I found several seeds to order from Richter’s that are zoned for this climate:
agastache
lemon basil
lime basil
bay laurel
cardamon
mauve chives
corrander
eucalyptus
lavender
sweet marjoram
nepitella
greek oregano
garden sage
wormwort
red yarrow
zaatar

I’ll put the order in the first of the month and we’ll try again when the seeds arrive.