Herself’s Houston Garden

While scale has always been a problem with the indoor orchids I grow it has only recently become an outdoor problem for me. Last Jan Tea scale made an appearance. I never liked those shrubs anyhow.

This winter I’ve been battling it on both of my magnolias. I am testing a systematic pesticide which goes strongly against my use of nonharmful pesticides, but I really don’t want to lose these trees and nothing else has worked so far.

While researching scale treatments I ran across Scale insects which is a site from the Systematic Entomology Lab, USDA which helps you to identify which type of scale you have by photo. Once you’ve identified your enemy, you can learn all about them. ( Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer as it were ).

The proper way to keep scale off your magnolias is to spray your magnolias, especially new leaves, in the spring with insecticidial oils. This is a much more environmentally friendly preventative treatment and one I have done most years. It’ll be done again this spring.

If you are wondering about the soil around your home the best thing you can do is a Soil test. Send it to your local extension office or use a do it yourself kit.

Another great source of soil information is the USDA Web Soil Survey You can zoom in on the map to your location and get all sorts of information about your soil.

Wander about the site, you’ll find enough data to spend an afternoon wandering.

Like most government sites the use is not intuitive or clearly explained.

Click the ‘Web Soil Survey’ link ( top right section of website )Web Soil Survey

Select ‘Navigate by Address’ and put in your address and click ‘View’

Now you must select an area of interest using the ‘aoi’ buttons on the top of the map. Click one of them and use it to select the area of the map you are interested in.

Once you have an area selected you can choose the ‘Soil Map’ and ‘Soil Data Explorer’ tabs to obtain information.

Classifying plants into

Families->Genus->Species->Subspecies/Varieties->Cultivar->Hybrid

makes it much easier to figure out what each plant wants and needs. If you can’t find information on the exact plant you have you can look for other closely related plants.

Family names end in -aceae and plants share many botanical features ( Wiki Plant Families )

Genus share structural characteristics names usually come from literature

Species is the place a plant is from originally, discoverer or plants appearance

Varieties are naturally occurring changes in species

Cultivars are naturally occurring varieties that need human intervention to reproduce such as cloning

Hybrids are human created varieties.

Plants are classified into three main groupings: nonvascular, vascular seedless, and vascular with seeds.

Non-vascular plants are the first ones to have left the oceans about 450 million years ago. They are the division of Bryophyta which includes the three classes: Musci, Hepaticae, and Anthocerotae. These plants can not stray far from water because they have no vascular system to carry the water to far reaches of the plant.

Bryophyta Musci has over 6000 species of mosses in it, mostly tropical.
Bryophyta Hepaticae are your liverworts which has about 8500 species.
Bryophyta Anthocerotae contains about 400 hornworts.

Vascular seedless plants began to appear about 430 million years ago. They include the divisions of Polypodiophyta, Psilophyta, Sphenophyta, and Lycophyta.

Polypodiophyta contains about 12000 species of ferns.
Psilophyta contains just a few species of whisk (rootless/leafless) ferns.
Spehophyta contains your horsetail type plants, only about 40 species remain.
Lychphyta are your club mosses of which we have about 1000 species.

Vascular seed plants were the last to evolve. They include the divisions of Pinophyta, Cycadophyta, Ginkgophyta, Gnetophyta, and Magnoliophyta.

Pineophyta are your conifers or cone bearing plants, 550 species remain.
Cycadophyta are your cycads only 100 species exist, mostly tropical.
Ginkgophyta has only one surviving plant, Ginkgo biloba.
Gnetophyta has 100 species of mostly desert plants.
Magnoliophyta contains all the flowering plants, it contains the most species at about 400,000.

Magnoliophyta contains two classes: Magnoliopsida [dicots]( seedlings sprout with two leaves and complex vein patterns) and Liliopsida [monocots] ( seedlings sprout with one leaf which has parallel veins ).

There are over 170,000 species in the magnoliopsida class.
The liliopsida contains about 60,000 species of plants.

Magnoliopsida contains six subclasses: Asteridae, Caryophyllidae, Dilleniidae, Hamamelididae, Magnoliidae, Rosidae.

Liliopsida contains five subclasses: Alismatidae, Arecidae, Commelinidae, Lilidae and Zingiberidae.

The USE Natural Resources Website has a nice tree of all the plant kingdom on down to species. If you are having trouble finding care information for a plant, try searching down that tree and see if you can find a closely related plant.

You’ll also want to check out their Searchable image gallery if you are having trouble figuring out what a plant might be.

Other taxonomy sources:
Integrated Taxonomic Information System
USDA Plants
The International Plant Names Index
Kew: Data and publications

I attended a talk given by Greg Grant of the Piney Woods Nursery. This is a summery of what I heard. If it catches your imagination you should let him know and find out more about what he is hoping to do.

Texas is a unique state in that its size gives it a multitude of micro climates. Rainfall across the state ranges from 6″/year to 60″/year. We have desert, tropical, forests and bayous that all come together to form a unique patchwork not found anywhere else.

Over time we have paved and polluted this unique area driving many of the local critters and plants to extinction. Much of the extinction is due to lost habitats like those of the once common bald cypress swamps.

As gardeners we listen to the news about flora and fauna losses and wonder if we, as individuals, can do much of anything that will make a difference. Gardeners in particular are accustomed to shaping our yard to the garden of our choice. But when we choose plants and the design of our gardens we need to consider the larger picture.

Most of the plants of choice now are plants from Asia, not Texas, or they are the weeds ( annuals ) our ancestors brought over from Europe. Our gardens have become a hodge podge of plant materials from around the world and not part of a larger plan.

If we, as gardeners were to all choose plants native to our areas ( pre colonialist ) then we could create a patchwork of native plant habitats that would grow over time. These habitats would provide food and shelter for native species to grow and thrive.

Unfortunately some have taken gardening with native plants as an excuse to let the yard grow wild with weeds. This have given native plants a bad name and created the stereotype of native plant people to be a bit daffy. Native plant gardens need to follow the same basic design principles that our more common gardens follow. They can and should be just as pretty to look at as what we now plant.

Get familiar with invasive species. Remove them from your gardens, enlighten your neighbors and any stores you find selling invasives to an unwitting public. Limit the amount of lawn. Ditch those plastic and silk flowers made from petrochemicals. They are an abomination.

Remember that when you spray an insecticide something, perhaps a young bird, will come and eat those insects you poisoned.

Do the research. Find out what plants are native to your area. Plant them and the native species will grow. Use local materials for your hardscape. The place will look more natural. Anything that comes local takes a lot less gasoline to get to you.

Put up bird boxes. Put out water for the birds.

Use rain water collection systems and don’t let our water go to waste.

Grow more of your own food.

Recycle.

Most importantly relax and enjoy your garden. Leave some dead trees for the woodpeckers. We have lost most of our cavity dwelling birds because the woodpeckers who create the homes for them have no material to work with.

Send your children outside to play. The world is a wonderful place.

Remember that most butterflies, moths and insects have a specific host plant. Lose the plant and you lose the butterfly.

And that is how you, as a local small gardener can make a difference.

While his philosophy is not my own, it was an inspiring talk. I left fully intending to rip out my gardens and plant all natives. Then I realized my garden is more than half natives so I didn’t feel so bad.

If you are even a little bit inspired or interested be sure to check out The Stephen F Austin State University SFA Mast Arboretum and the Piney Woods Native Plant Center. They would love to hear from you and tell you more about what they are doing.

If you build it they will come.

See also:
Texas Invasives