Gardening for this Weekend

I'm being besieged with questions about whether things need to be moved forward in light of the weather. But because we really don't know for sure what the weather holds in store for us, it's usually best to stay pretty much with the long-proven schedule. I've made a list of the most critical tasks that need to be addressed in the next several days.

Neil and the Texas Weather

There's no denying that Texas has quirky weather. All you have to do is look at 2015 for the proof. Record rains in spring and fall, separated by what turned out to be four months of drought for most of us. And then those strangely balmy days when we normally would have been expecting cold winter blasts. From all of this, I have a warning that might prove to be really useful to you.

Plant of the Month

I can't imagine our landscape without nandinas. I have eight types. I've used them as shrubs and groundcovers, in sun, and in shade. Next to my 30-some types of hollies, nandinas are my second-favorite plants in our gardens.

• Many varieties in different sizes
• Many with colorful fruit
• Widely adapted
• Almost no pest problems

Question of the Week

Each week it seems that one question predominates. Everywhere I go, it's what people are asking. I will use this space each week to give you the best possible answer to the most-asked question for that week. Here it is for this week:

"How can I eliminate all the weeds I have in my lawn right now?"

To Finish With Fun…

Let's test your horticultural eye. These are all fairly common Texas landscaping trees. Actually, all of these are growing in the Sperry home landscape in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Some are native. Some I planted. How many of them can you identify from only their mid-winter bark?

Coming Up!

Next week: I'll take you into one part of my own home landscape and explain how I developed it.

We'll show other parts of our gardens in this occasional feature we'll call "From the Sperry Gardens."