by: Jenni Vinson
May 4, 2001
How does my garden grow? With shovels and pales and spades and rakes, fertilizers, weedings, bug killers and Tylenol for the backache--all in a row.
I grew up watching a garden grow, but I never knew how much work actually went into it�s cultivation. My Huela made it all look so easy. She stuck a plant in the dirt and it grew. She would ask for a small cutting of a plant, take it home, stick it in the dirt and in no time at all, she�d have her own huge and healthy plant. It all looked that way to me.
Now that I have my own garden and I assure you, nothing is that easy. You practically need a degree in Botany to grow anything in this area. Each plant has a character and personality of its own and they each have their own needs for the degree of shade and light and for fertilizing and watering.
My first garden, may it rest in peace, was a disaster. I did not know that some plants could not exist near others. I had designed a very artistic layout. It looked magazine perfect, but most if it died within a few months of natural causes. Over watering, I learned is just as bad as not watering. Most of my plants drowned. And some plants really do need to be fed a steady diet of fertilizer while other plants get their roots burned off by the same fertilizer.
If a seed package says it is not meant to be grown in this area -they mean it. I got a few such experiments off the ground. I grew the seedling and then the plants looked like they might make it and then ONE day of over 100 degree weather and they all wilted and died. I came home and found these plants looking they had been steamed.
If a seed package or the plant tag indicates that a seed or plant must be planted within a certain season, it is not a suggestion it is a rule. A plant that says it needs to be planted in early Spring will not survive being planted in early summer. It needs a running head start to be stabilized and adjusted to the new environment to get ready for the hotter days.
Roses are by far the neediest, the most care-intenstive plants on the planet. I was happy to find rose bushes that actually had a full year warranty on them. If the bush dies within the year I can take the dearly departed back with the original receipt for a refund. I�m sure it will not be that easy. Surely an autopsy will be called for to determine the cause of the bush�s death before a refund is issued.
Rose bushes, I have found, do not like to have their leaves wet when being watered. They need to be properly pruned on a regular basis and they need to have their soil balanced and regularly fertilized and thier blooms plucked off after the bloom has wilted off. I have done everything but serenade my rose bushes and they were doing great until an army of cutter ants came along one evening. By morning, the battalion of ants had stripped my rose bushes bare. These bushes are still alive, but they are struggling to grow leaves so that flowers are out of the question this season. All that work and I will likely see very few roses this year.
I have taken to growing things in pots. The rationale there is that if the weather gets too hot- I will be able to move the pots to shadier areas to keep those plants alive. Pots are pain. They require more water as the pot design loses water easily- it just drains out. They require a special mix of soil- with a high content of moses and even styrofoam bits which allow the roots to receive oxygen in these enclosed containers. Potted plants also require more frequent fertilization because the soil loses nutrition as the water washes it all out. As I said, pots are a pain.
Then there is my tree. I found a pecan in my Hulea�s yard six years ago. She planted the nut in a coffee can and it germinated. When the tree was about six inched tall, I dug a two foot hole in the front yard- for another tree I was supposed to plant. That tree befell an accident. The root got snapped off during the transport, so the little pecan sapling inherited the hole. The first year, it lost all it�s leaves and it looks like a small stick coming out of the ground. I even had a neighbor ask me why I persisted in watering this dead stick. It remained in that state for months until late Spring when it finally grew some leaves. I stand vigil over that tree year in and year out.
I thought it would bear pecans in the third year, but that came and went and it did not happen. This will be the trees sixth birthday and I still do not know when and if it will ever bear. I have even been told that I was supposed to plant two trees for pollination or this single tree will never bear fruit. There is another pecan tree down the street. I keep hoping the bees and butterfiles will eventually know that. I�m going to wait another year before I plant another pecan tree to keep this one company.
I even tried the latest in South Texas Horticulture- utilizing the natural flora to keep from having to use too much water. That all means you let the weeds grow good an tall. Weeds know how to grow in this area. Giving them a little water just makes them grow faster and in no time at all, they take over an area. It�s wonderful! Finally, something that grows so effortlessly. They are so kind and they require so little. The drawback is that they look like tall grasses and they look like- weeds. And weeds are so prolific. They spread their own seeds and getting rid of them will require years of weeding as the seed are now in the soil in these beds.