Herself’s Houston Garden

Mercer is a place I often go visit, sometimes for classes, sometimes for plant sales, and sometimes just to wander about and take photos.

In the late 1940s, Thelma and Charles Mercer purchased a beautiful 14.5 acre tract of natural land along Cypress Creek. Thelma was an avid horticulturist, and she and Charles did much of the initial selective clearing to make space for some of her favorite native trees that included dogwoods, rusty black-haw viburnum, several species of hawthorns, plus many others. Thelma also planted large camellias that are still seen throughout the central gardens. She also introduced many other plant species, such as camphor, Ginkgo, Bauhinia, Philadelphus and tung oil that naturalized and are still growing beautifully.
When it came time for the Mercers to retire, they could not bear the thought of a developer bulldozing their paradise. So, in 1974, they convinced Harris County to purchase their original 14.5 acre tract with the stipulation that it would grow and be maintained as an educational and horticultural facility for the public.s enjoyment.

While attending the  Garden Blogger’s Spring Fling in Austin we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Gardens.

Lady Bird Johnson, our former first lady, and actress Helen Hayes founded an organization in 1982 to protect and preserve North America’s native plants and natural landscapes. First as the National Wildflower Research Center and later as the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, this special place exists to introduce people to the beauty and diversity of wildflowers and other native plants. Every day, the Wildflower Center brings life to Mrs. Johnson’s vision in its public gardens, its woodlands and sweeping meadows as well as in internationally influential research. In 2006, the Center became an Organized Research Unit of the University of Texas at Austin.

In April the garden holds a large sale of native plants.

While commonly lumped in with insects, at least in the minds of gardeners, snails and slugs are actually mollusks.  Yes, that is the family of clams, oysters and other shellfish.  This gives them their main weakness, which is they must remain damp.

During the day they hide, creeping out only at night or on cloudy days.  So your not likely to see them, just the damage they do to your plants.  Hostas, bird’s nest ferns and other plants of those types are favorite targets.  Leaves may be totally eaten.  You will find shiney silver trails left by these critters if you look closely at the remaining leaves.

Beer is your best option for control.  They love the yeast in the beer.  Put out a shallow bowl or a dinner plate and they will climb in, get drunk and not be able to escape. Another option is to put salt around the plants they are eating.  Copper is also toxic to critters in this family.