From the Magazine: April 2015

Personal steps to success

I rejoice when I see gardeners buying plants that are likely to succeed. Conversely, it makes me sad to see people with plants that have, for one reason or another, little chance of thriving. In my perfect world, all plants would prosper, and all gardeners would be exceedingly happy with their results.

A lot of what we learn comes via trial and error. If you look closely, you’ll see my footprints in the garden path ahead of you. I’ve already made most of the mistakes for you, and here are the five most critical lessons I have learned.

• Adapted is a lot more important to me than whether or not a plant is native to Texas. Plants native to West or East, South or North Texas may not even be suited to the soils and climate in your part of Texas. Give me a plant that is eager to please me. I really don’t care where it came from originally.

• “Bargain” plants are rarely a bargain. I’ve tried to save a few bucks by buying discounted nursery stock. What I’ve found most commonly is that those plants that are misshapen, undernourished or stunted often carry their scars years into the future. I look only for plants that are healthy and attractive the day that I buy them, and then I tend to them carefully.

• I never start planting without a plan. My landscape plans are always drawn to scale, and I mark in my plants at their full mature sizes. To use the catchy slogan of Oncor electric service delivery, my longtime advertiser, you have to “know before you grow.”

• I have my list of “go-to” landscape plants. My choices in trees are live oaks, Shumard red oaks, chinquapin oaks and bur oaks, also cedar elms. I use many different types of hollies, nandinas and junipers as shrubs. In shade, in addition to the hollies, I plant oakleaf hydrangeas, leatherleaf mahonias, aucubas and Japanese maples. Groundcovers of choice: Asian jasmine and purple wintercreeper euonymus for sun or shade and regular mondograss, liriope and wintercreeper for shade.

• I invest in good soil preparation. Those few times that I’ve just stuck plants into the ground, they soon failed due to my laziness. I call it “heroic” soil preparation, and that’s what I do for all of my annuals, perennials, vegetables, groundcovers and small woody shrubs. Larger plants will outgrow my bed prep anyway, so they’re left on their own.

I’m out of space, and I just realized that I’m far from being out of ideas. There are hundreds of mistakes as yet still unreported. Plan carefully. Choose wisely. Plant perfectly. Succeed.