Waterwise Gardening

Recently many areas of the US have experienced more severe than normal droughts. Last year’s drought in Texas even damaged some locally native plants. What can a gardener do to have a chance at pulling through their garden in a hot, dry year?

There are many resources available for tips on this subject. One of these is my article “Summertime Gardening” on pages 18-19 of last summer’s online De-Stress 4 Life magazine.

For those of you that are local to Arlington, TX a free “smart yard” symposium with some speakers addressing this issue will be held at Arlington City Hall and the Downtown Arlington Farmers Market this Saturday, March 31, 2012. Information about speakers, times, etc. for the symposium is found on the Green Source DFW website.

I will be a vendor this Saturday from 8 am - 1 pm at the Downtown Arlington Farmers Market with some of the native and adapted plants that do well in my north Texas garden. If after listening to the speakers and visiting my booth, you still need some direction to help you implement a water saving garden plan in your yard, I’d be happy to discuss my garden coaching services with you.

Butterfly Watching

Have you seen them yet? Butterflies that is, fluttering around your garden. While I haven’t seen a large number of individuals yet, I have seen a good number of types of butterflies and moths fluttering around or on my plants. The images in this post are of a salt marsh moth, Estigmene acrea, that seemed to show up from nowhere just after emerging from its cocoon. (After reading about its pupal stage, I think it most likely emerged from the leaf litter at the base of the wall and crawled up the wall a bit to a sunny spot to “stretch its wings”. It was fascinating to watch its wings expand and become ready for flight over the next couple of hours.

You may be lucky enough to see something similar at the Butterflies in the Garden exhibit at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. They usually have a butterfly hatching area. The butterflies that you will find at the exhibit are all tropical varieties. They are a lot of fun to watch flying around the conservatory. Sometimes they even land on visitors. This exhibit will be in Fort Worth through April 8, 2012 and you can find out more information on the Botanic Gardens website.

You can usually find information about out how to attract butterflies to your garden at this exhibit that comes to the Botanic Gardens every other year. One way to encourage butterflies to come to your garden for you to watch is to plant nectar plants for the adult butterflies. I will have some good butterfly nectar plants available for sale at the Downtown Arlington Farmers Market on Saturday, March 31 from 8 am to 1 pm. There will also be short gardening talks at the Market that day on a variety of topics as part of the Smart Yard Symposium. If you are in the area, come out and say hi. Contact me if you want an on site evaluation of how to attract more butterflies to your garden.

Design This – Wood Pens

All of my previous “Design This” posts have been about something that I designed for a customer or for myself. This post is about my search to have something designed for me by someone else.

Some time back I had milled a bunch of pen blanks from a sycamore tree that we had to have taken out because it had died from drought. I set aside a few that had interesting color or spalting and toyed with the idea of learning to turn pens myself. I decided that at this time this was one more project than I could handle, so I spoke with a few pen makers that I had seen at craft shows about the possibility of having them make pens for me out of my blanks. Even though they were interested and very accomplished, none were local. So since I wasn’t in a hurry, I decided to keep their contact info but keep looking to see if I could find someone in my area.

This past spring, I noticed someone selling pens at the Downtown Arlington Farmers Market (DAFM). He had a nice assortment of pens made from different woods and turned in a variety of ways. I approached him to see if he would be willing to make pens for me out of my pen blanks and if he needed any additional blanks. It was a yes on both counts if they looked properly cured and cut. I brought my blanks out to the DAFM the next weekend for him to look at. Bob liked the looks of the blanks and could see why I was interested in having pens made for myself out of the blanks I had set aside.

We discussed what style of pen, etc. each of the blanks was best suited for and settled on four thicker and two thinner pens. We worked a partial trade for my extra blanks and I placed my order. Before Bob started turning my special blanks, he worked with one of the extra ones first to make sure how the wood worked. I was able to pick up my custom order the next weekend. I am very pleased with my pens and happy to have mementos from the old sycamore tree that used to shade my tack room. If you are in need of a lovely and functional writing instrument and Bob Igel isn’t at the DAFM, you can contact him at buckeyebob1@sbcglobal.net to see what he has for sale from Igel’s Longhorn Woodshop.

I would not have thought of going to the Downtown Arlington Farmers Market to find a woodworker/ pen turner, however that is exactly where I found the craftsman to create my pens. In addition to locally grown fruits and vegetables, you will find fresh eggs, beef, poultry, arts and crafts and more according to the Downtown Arlington Farmers Market facebook page. I was there earlier today and couldn’t resist the dead ripe homegrown tomatoes. Check it out for yourself from 8 am – 1 pm Fridays and Saturdays at 215 E. Front St., Arlington, TX.