VOLUME 19, ISSUE 51 • December 21, 2023

Neil Sperry editor. Gretchen Drew design and circulation.

Gardening This Weekend

Even with the holidays, there are plenty of things real gardeners try to get done this time of the year. I've assembled the most critical among them, and they're in this week's column. Click through to check them.

Photo: Include a holly in your landscape to enjoy this year and for years to come. (Female yaupon holly)

Native Son: December 21, 2023

Steven Chamblee, our wandering buddy and Plant Man About Town broadened his circles this month. Walk with him through the Fuqua Conservatory of the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Photo: Bromeliads, orchids, and myriad other rare tropicals fill the conservatory.

Wacky Facts About Poinsettias

You may be a horticultural scholar, and if so, these things I'll present won't come as surprises. However, other folks may not know them. I hope you'll click through to test your knowledge about our most popular seasonal flower.

Photo: Growers love 'em. They're predictable and salable. And beautiful to boot!

Crape Myrtle Rehab

Let's say you bought a house, and out in front of that house was a crape myrtle that some other person had tortured by topping. What can you do to save it? Mark Byers of Byers Wholesale Nursery in Alabama dropped a little nugget in front of me years ago, and I'll share it with you. Click on, my friend.

Photo: See the rest of this story.

Q&A
Ask Neil

Berry bushes, hydrogen peroxide, varying fall color on red oaks and avocado failures - those were just four of your questions. See how I answered those and others this week.

And, in closing…

I prepared much of this week's e-gardens last weekend. I was scheduled to visit M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston early Monday morning, and I wasn't sure how long we'd be staying. So, this is where this week's edition would have ended.

But, behind this glass last Monday afternoon something wonderful happened.

I have shared with you that I have stage 4 melanoma. (The surgeon had removed it from the top of my head, but it had migrated to my left lung.)

I had my CT scan in the morning, and when I saw my oncologist at M.D. Anderson Monday afternoon, with a giant smile and wearing her Santa hat, she referred to it all as "a miracle." "Your tumors have shrunk by 85 percent."

I had been given an immunotherapy product in DFW that normally should not be given to people with auto-immune problems. (I have psoriatic arthritis.) It had attacked my joints and caused other serious side effects, but we have dealt with those. And the tumors have shrunk!

No immunotherapy was begun this past Monday, and none is planned until and unless it becomes necessary. I will be on M.D. Anderson’s watchful care every couple of months. I am where I need to be. As they say: "They see more melanoma patients in one day than most oncologists see in a career."

As my wife and I walked out of the then-empty waiting room, the receptionist was talking with Lynn. I recognized his voice as being the man who lined up the CT scan for me last week, and he recognized mine. He said the most beautiful words I could ever have heard: "I work in that doctor's group. I was back there an hour ago and they were all buzzing about 'a miracle.' I wondered who it was, and now I know."

God is great! He was and always will be with me.

Thank you for all your prayers. I will continue to hold all who are also hurting this season in my prayers.

With all of that said,

Merry Christmas,

And Happy Gardening!