How to Correctly Prune Crapemyrtles

How to Correctly Prune Crapemyrtles

I know I’m beating a dead horse here as most urban crapemyrtles (especially those around commercial businesses) have now turned into grotesque gnarly bark-scale factories.  It’s sad and almost unimaginable that during my lifetime I’ve witnessed crapemyrtles go from...
Tomato Time

Tomato Time

My very first job out of Texas A&M graduate school was working for Alston Nursery on 9th Avenue in Port Arthur, Texas.  It had previously been the Eagleson Nursery, home of many camellias and the Eagleson holly (Ilex x attenuata ‘Eagleson’) which I still grow.  I...
Silver and Gold

Silver and Gold

I’ve always said, despite the calendar, when the first sweet-smelling jonquil blooms, spring is here. My jonquils say it’s here. I didn’t grow up with access to nursery-purchased bulbs but did have a chance to see many a naturalized stand of them in my rural ancestral...
From Tree to Shining Tree

From Tree to Shining Tree

He who plants trees upon his paternal estate repays a debt to his posterity which he owes to his ancestors. Newcastle Weekly Courant, England, 1837. Years ago, while teaching at SFA and helping with what is now SFA Gardens, one of our supporters was quoted as saying...
Color My World

Color My World

Folks, we’ve been through a tough stretch. It’s always “something,” but the gauntlet that included Covid, Snowmageddon, and this summer’s drought, capped off by my fall battle with both statistics and research methods classes at SFA was about more than I could handle....
No Mow Butterflies

No Mow Butterflies

Houston (and all of the rest of you as well), we have a problem…actually a number of them. As you probably know, I’ve given several thousand lectures across the state in my career. However, as a seventh-generation Texan and butterfly lover, I’m very surprised that so...