Native Son: May 15, 2025

Dear Readers,
If you are reading this, consider it proof that Neil Sperry is a tolerant man.

Here’s the Deal — I wrote the following article; fine. After a short break, I went back to read it in its entirety for the first time. Physically, I was alone, in Texas, no internet. But for whatever reason, I began to have a playful imaginary conversation about the article with my friend of 40 years, Richard Hartman, who is somewhere in Maine at the moment … and, I assume, finding out about all of this … well, right now. So the article stands as originally written, left justified, and the conversation between Richard and I will hug the right side of the page.

Heaven help us…

S (Steven) – Think I explained that well enough?
R (Richard) – I don’t have any idea what we are doing right now.

People often tell me their favorite aspect of my column is that they never know what to expect. This is either because I am a brilliant literary spirit who lives in a constant state of creative ecstasy, or I don’t really know what’s comin’ either. I’ll let you struggle with that internally while I move on.

R- Now, wait … how is this about me?
S- It’s not, really…just…just read it.
R- Isn’t ecstasy a bad word?
R- You know, people might read this.

The Cactus Log Report; Part 1 —-RECAP
50-year-old cactus in a live oak planter that my dad and I chainsaw-carved in early 1978. The sole survivor of the original planting was disease-ridden and declining fast, but I thought I might be able to collect and propagate a clean tip-cutting from it. Will the survivor cutting make it?

R – “Disease-ridden?” “Declining fast?”
Sounds like substandard horticultural care to me.
I mean, what kind of person,
a pro, lets it get to this?
Seriously…people might read this.

The Cactus Log Report; Part 2
The tip cutting from the original cactus did not make it. Fifty years … fifty years … how will I ever recover from this loss? Woe is me … forever? Will this drama, this heartache, this tragedy … ever end?
Yep. Turns out dropping 38 bucks on some rad new cacti was ‘bout all the therapy I needed.

R- Good! Get some fresh stuff!
I hope you threw out that ugly old log, too.
S- Keep reading…
R- (sings) Let it go…

So I cleaned up what was left of the original log, which turned out to be less than I thought. About 35% of it was just gone. No prob. Cut a board for a new bottom and ended up using a wooden paint stir stick to plug the side. Used a little piece of fiber doormat in there, too, for good measure.

R- Was it that holiday …”welcome carpet” …that I gave you?

I had to do a rootball reduction on all 3 new cacti to get them to fit into the log, using a pencil to tease some of the soil out of the cactus rootballs without damaging the roots.

R- You wouldn’t have to do that if you’d just use
a nice, new, clean…attractive container…

Anyhoo, I wanted a wee bit of sand to work into the new soil of cactus log, but, alas, all I could find was some white beach sand from Cancun. Perfect! But how does one remove salt from beach sand that’s too fine for any strainer?

Mr. Coffee to the rescue! Yes, I brewed me up some Café de la Cancun. It was perfectly clear, didn’t taste or smell like anything except regular ol’ salt water. Got the sand mixed in and the gravel on top, so I’m good for another 50 years.

R- Well … that was clever … with the coffee maker.
S- Glad you liked it.
R- Photo might be helpful.

The Cactus Log: Once upon a time and today.

R- Lovely. What’s next?
S- Compost report

Compost Pile Report Part 2
Still composting.

R- Are you stup…
S- Next up!

A Few Things I Learned the Hard Way

Design gardens that become simpler as they mature – your future self will thank your younger self for this.

R- That’s the only thing you’ve written
so far that makes any sense.

Not every tree on the planet needs to be limbed-up, thinned-out, crown-lifted, crown-reduced, drop-crotched, lion-tailed, pollarded, espaliered, coppiced, lopped, chopped, and/or topped!

R- Good … good.

Create something epic. Got a homestead/family-home kind of place? Plant an allee of oaks. You will be remembered and cherished by your future family for giving them a beautiful and loving gift … before they even existed! How cool is that?

R- Can you imagine if families
all across Texas did this?
In 100 years, it’d be like a Texas version
of a New England covered bridge tour!

Go berserk every once in a while!

R- Are you sure about this one?
S- Stifle yourself, Edith.

Buy a cactus collection…and I mean like 101 of them. Plant 20 varieties of sunflowers at the same time. Get some chickens… waaaaaay too many chickens. Go online to a reputable seed purveyor and drop $500 on a series of botanical adventures you’ll be talkin’ about for the rest of your life. Till up half the back yard and plant a Victory Garden. Take a 16’ overgrown potted-in-a-whisky-barrel rubber tree and plant it dead center in your Fort Worth front yard and watch cars stop and people gather in your driveway. And then there was that Aggie garden club that drove 260 miles to see the naked ladies…

R- Might want to wrap it up…

I have personally done all of these things… and I can tell you hands down the naked lady incident was the absolute best….

R- Good time to wrap it up!

Naked lady, of course, being one of the premier perennial bulbs for Texas gardens, Lycoris squamigera.

R- Thank you.

Stop being so afraid of failure. Every good horticulturist has killed LOTS of plants. It’s called learning. And let me remind you, friend, this is Texas; home of droughts, floods, hail, tornadoes, 6 months of stupid hot, blue northers, dust storms, fire ants, scorpions, locusts, wild hogs, fifteen kinds of venomous snakes, purple hornytoads, and HOAs. It’s kind of weird if you don’t fail. So cut yourself some slack, accept the lessons, and launch headlong into your next ridiculous project!!!

R- Don’t even get me started
on the whole HOA thing…

When a houseplant becomes more of a pain than a pleasure: give it away or compost it. Same goes for garden plants. Life’s too short to go around with your shorts all bunched-up because you hate your barberries.

R- You might encourage them to read the next one
before they proceed too far on this one.
S- How would you even know about the next one?
R- Shut up and write.

Come to humbly realize how truly uneducated we all are … and that certainly includes me! After 47 years in Texas horticulture, I have only begun to realize how truly ignorant I am. Nobody knows everything. My mantra is “All of us are smarter than any of us.” Clearing some land? Have an arborist walk it first so you don’t wipe out something special. Want to go native? Chat up some NPSOT folks. Revamping your quarter-acre lot? Talk it over with a good landscape designer for an hour.

R- What if they can’t afford it?
S- Well, then I would invite some Master Gardeners
for lunch … a good lunch … don’t get cheap on me now.

Best lesson I ever learned in college: “What’s the best way to positively identify a tree species? Ask someone who knows.” (It’s the best way to learn anything!) We can all save ourselves a lot of time, money, and heartache by learning from others’ experience.

S- Thank you, Larry Schaapveld!
R- Yeah, Larry’s cool!

Come to humbly realize that 95% of those “secret gardening tips” you find on social media are total malarky. If rooting rose cuttings in a potato was a good idea, the rose industry would do it.

S- Let’s move on … this could get emotional.

Root-ripper gardeners simply cannot be convinced not to root-rip herbaceous rootballs. It defies all logic. (It’s true!) A few simple side-by-side plantings of “root ripped” roots vs “not root-ripped” roots will quickly and easily demonstrate that root-ripping is not good for your plants. Right now, I can literally feel the roar of riled root-rippers rioting in the roads … right through my computer screen … they’re chanting, “Root-ripping’s right! Root-ripping’s right! Rip every single root if it takes all night!”

R- Who’s emotional now?

If you are planning to garden regularly, insist your irrigation system be constructed using Schedule 40 PVC pipe. It’ll cost you a little more (like 5%), and your irrigation guy will probably tell you it’s completely unnecessary …insist anyway. The following is true from the day you sign the check to the day you die. There you are, just gardening along and you nick a thin pipe with your shovel … now you’ve got an hour-long, $30, mudhole DYI project … OR … you call your irrigator buddy back for a $150 professional repair, whenever he can schedule it. However, if you hit a Schedule 40 PVC pipe with a shovel … it’s like “Oh gee, there’s a pipe. I’ll just move over 6 inches and keep gardening.” For the rest of your life…

R- You went kinda went out there buddy,
R- but, I agree… the drama was necessary.
S- Thanks, man.

Quit saying “Someday…” Grab some friends and put it on the calendar! Go see great gardens together – Longwood, MOBOT, Butchart, FWBG, NYBG, whatever. Make it the vacation. Rent a house for a week and day-trip your brains out with people you love – best investment ever!

R- We’d better be thanking Lee Ann, Sunshine, Taresa,
Liz, Patti, and Ben for teaching us this.
S- Right on.
R- So…what else you got?
S- I dunno.
R- I got it! Go out with Shakespeare!
S- Brilliant! He’s got pith!

“One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.”
— Shakespeare

S- Hope you liked it…we’re done.
R-Pith? Really? Pith?