February
2002
"Come, gentle Spring! ethereal Mildness! come".
— James Thomson (1834 - 1882) Scottish poet, essayist
"Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their
fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants."
— Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967) US author, poet, journalist, humorist
"China tea, the scent of hyacinths, wood fires and bowls of violets
- that is my mental picture of an agreeable February afternoon."
— Constance Spry (1886 - 1960) English gardener, florist, cook,
and author
There is a different scent to each season. I must confess that one of
the signs of winter for me is the smell of the central heat coming on
in the house for the first time, and Christmas is heralded in by the scent
of Scotch tape. (I am as much of a homebody as I am a green thumb). However,
I know I will be missing the cold, crisp, dry scent of the winter air
soon, because the lively, flowery, energetic scent of spring is in the
air. The changing of the seasons is like a new friend coming to visit
from out of town, displacing the old one who was here for a while. This
new friend is someone different, yet very familiar. Our memory of this
friend, Spring, has been only two-dimensional, but when she finally arrives,
we remember her personality full-force, her energy infusing our lungs
and our personality with new energy. Letís hope she stays for a very long
while, as she did last year, before Summer bullies her out of town again.
There are even different scents to different areas of the country. Texas
does not smell much of ìhyacinths ... and bowls of violetsî as Constance
Spry, the British predecessor to Martha Stewart, describes above. When
moving back to my homeland of Texas, after almost five years in Yankee
country, I couldnít get enough of the smell of Texas. Texas, at least
Central Texas, smells of the kind of greenery that has to protect itself,
blended with the earthy scent of our rivers. The Northeast has plenty
of rain, and the height of the trees and the lush, delicious, emerald
greenness of everything speak volumes of this one fact. Central Texas,
while not a desert, speaks of drought, and adaptation to the sun. Survival
here is all about water conservation. Plants here are shorter, more olive
green, more dusty white and hairy, or waxy. Contrary to what seemed logical
to me at first, fuzziness is not meant to keep leaves warm. The hairs
on the leaves shade the leaf surface, dispersing more heat before it can
reach the leaf surface. This reduces the impact of the hot summer sun
and thus reduces water loss through evaporation and transpiration. Leaves
are smaller for the same reason: the smaller the leaf surface area, the
less water is lost. And, you guessed it, a waxy coating on the leaves
helps prevent water loss, too.
As if drought and intense sun werenít enough of a challenge, plants here
have had to adapt ingeniously to the threat of predation, too. Plants
may be the only water source an insect, a deer, or other critter may encounter
for a long while. Therefore, what doesnít have thorns, or a distasteful
fuzziness, has an acrid scent ‚ and taste ‚ to any passersby who might
want to nibble. Consider the Lantana horrida. Whoever gave this native
its Latin name was obviously not impressed by its scent, but I think it
smells fine. I would not want to eat it though, and deer and other varmints
donít either. It is not even pleasant to touch for very long without getting
a skin reaction - it has a strong scent AND prickly, hairy leaves. Wax
myrtle smells like bay leaves. Agarita has thorny leaves. Datura is poisonous,
as are many of the Nightshade family plants. Texas Betony really stinks,
and Salvias have their strong scent, too, including the Cedar Sage and
Salvia greggii. There are so many ways that plants protect themselves
beyond the well-known cacti adaptations.
Well, all the more reason to plant natives. These guys can take the heat!
It saddens me when I hear of innocent homeowners who are the sometimes
unsuspecting victims of both downright sinful homebuilding practices and
uncreative - at best - landscape design. For example, I received a call
at our nursery the other day from a homeowner whose landscape designer
literally chose nothing but boxwood, red-tip photinia, Indian hawthorne,
and nandina. This is the classic lineup of cookie-cutter landscape plants:
none of them native, all poorly adapted and susceptible to one insect
or disease problem or another. Forgive me if I offend anyone who has these
in their yard, but ... there are so many other choices out there, and
it can be such a joy to learn about them. Jill Nokes, author of How to
Grow Native Plants of Texas and the Southwest, points out that one reason
why people move here is because they love the natural beauty of the area.
The Texas Hill Country provides us with some incredible views of our rough,
craggy hills and green valleys full of native Ashe juniper, cedar elm,
flowering buckeyes, and the rare and majestic Texas madrone. Whatís left
of the endangered ecosystem of the Blackland Prairie shows us how beautiful
a wide expanse of flatland can be with its tall grasses and wildflowers
waving like an ocean, in between trails of riverside bald cypress, pecan
and Bur oaks.
Yet if people are fortunate enough to be able to buy a home in this area,
they are practically forced into buying a lot that has been scraped of
most if not all of its native vegetation and levelled with a ìsoilî the
builders misleadingly call ìsandy loam.î Then the lot is planted with
the boxwood, photinia, hawthorne, and nandina, all from China and Japan,
and nothing bears any resemblance to our native habitat. If we were blindfolded
and then placed in front of such a landscape, we wouldnít know if we were
standing in suburban California, Nebraska, Iowa, or New Jersey - what
folk singer Chris Chandler calls the United States of Generica. (I am
the one who has drawn the analogy to our landscapes; Chris is actually
singing about the monoculture of our highways. He describes how no matter
where you are driving in our country, you will see a McDonaldís, a Stop
& Go, and a Wal-Mart where there used to be ìmom and popî stores and restaurants
as unique as the people of that region). There are too many cases where
even well-informed landowners who are having a home built on their lot
cannot seem to get the builders to respect their wishes to preserve the
native vegetation, even after communicating this directly to the builder,
the foreman, and the bulldozer driver.
This may all be information that is ìtoo little, too lateî for new homeowners
who are already settled in, grateful to have their own chunk of land with
a roof over their heads. I do not want to spoil anyoneís gratitude for
what blessings they have. I hope that readers understand that I believe
that ìknowledge is power.î Therefore, the more citizens who are empowered
with the knowledge that homebuilding (and business construction) need
not entail the ìscrape and alienateî method, the less likely that that
unwholesome practice will continue.
That is why Lady Bird Johnson began the Wildflower Center in 1982. It
is not just for wildflowers. It is not just for Texans, either, although
to visit the site is to learn firsthand how beautiful a native Texas Hill
Country landscape can be. It is in fact an incredible resource for the
whole country. First, I recommend visiting the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower
Center in southwest Austin, especially during wildflower season. Second,
I recommend purchasing a Clearinghouse pack - a publication packet which
includes their ìRecommended Native Plant Species Listî for our area. Gather
up an information packet for friends and family across Texas and especially
in other states, and mail it to them. Information can be downloaded from
their website too, although I found it difficult in some cases to navigate
there. Go to www.wildflower.org
or call (512) 292-4200 to get started. They have great tours and information
for teachers and their students, events and facilities for parents and
children, an irresistable gift and book shop, and the grounds and architecture
are simply gorgeous. Especially if you are a newcomer to Texas or just
Central Texas, the Wildflower Center is a prerequisite to spring landscaping.
It bears repeating that there are more reasons to plant natives than
just preserving the cultural integrity of our indigenous landscape. To
some that may be just an esoteric arguement. The most concrete arguement
for planting natives is that they prosper here. They give us a solid return
on our investment. Having evolved all these years under the Texas sun,
in the Texas soil, with those few drops of Texas rain per year, natives
can thrive. The biggest threat to a native landscape is a sprinkler system
that comes on every five days. Virtually the only time I see insect or
disease problem on a native plant is when it is overwatered. The other
most common times are when we are getting an unusually enormous amount
of rainfall, or weíre in a severe drought and the plants are getting no
supplemental water.
Now lest any reader gets the wrong idea (stranger things have happened),
I am talking about native versus non-native plants, here, not people.
Whether you want to describe us as a melting pot or as a patchwork quilt,
our diversity of people is what defines and enriches our country. I donít
even have a problem with some non-native plants that can thrive here.
Some hardcore native plant enthusiasts do, and that is fine with me too.
However, I happen to like the Japanese Yew (Podocarpus macrophyllus),
for example, simply because as a child I had a secret hiding place behind
a couple of Yews in our front yard in Houston. They donít look like they
belong here; they donít smell like theyíre from around here, but I have
a fondness for them, anyway.
Before you choose that landscape designer or plan out your own landscape
design, get to know the natives. The natives are friendly! Visit them
in their own habitat - take a walk on a path through one of the many greenbelts
in our area. Find out how Mother and Father Nature design their landscape
without any input from us. Armed with enough information from a book,
a site, or a professional specializing in native plants, you can be proud
of your investment in the biggest room of your house - your own yard.
|
8648
Old Bee Cave Road
Stacey
(Rosina) Newton is a graduate of the Texas A&M University (Aggieland)
Horticulture Department, class of 1984, and has been in the environmental/horticulture
field ever since. She learned everything she knows about organic gardening
while working at The Natural Gardener, starting in 1997.