THIS WEEK, left to right: 'Pura Vida' - one of the passionvines that might help restore habitat highways. What are those beautiful white flowering trees? U of H sees its student gardens as one key to solving Third Ward Healthy Eating Project. Galveston beats the calendar with bluebonnets and Georgie Allen with one hardy azalea!

 

 

MEA CULPA, BUTTERFLIES! ... BEAUTIFUL "PRODUCING" 

PEARS ... U of H CALLS ON CAMPUS GARDENERS ... 

GALVESTON'S BLUEBONNETS

 

"Butterflies are self-propelled flowers."  

~ R.H. Heinlein

 

BY BRENDA BEUST SMITH

 

Some time ago, Urban Harvest Education Director Chris LaChance coined the phrase "Habitat Highways" to designate the annual north-south pathways taken by migrating wildlife . . . pathways being increasingly minimized or totally destroyed by urban sprawl, among other more-natural tragedies.

 

On the plus side, homeowners are increasingly stepping up, planting varieties that will help replace those lost. Sometimes we  stumble . . . as we are now seeing with the devastation caused by the monarch-mutilating OE parasite that is proliferating on tropical butterflyweed (red/orange/yellow flowers) that is allowed to winter over instead of dying back as native butterflyweed (milkweed) does.

 

The best thing we homeowners can do is to listen to the experts. In many ways, they are learning . . . just as we are.  But even in the worst case scenarios, they know a lot more than we do.  

A good chance to learn, and help, coming up Saturday, March 28 when one placentious plant sale will take place at the Houston Museum of Natural Science's Cockrell Butterfly Center.

 

The Cockrell's Spring Plant Sale - 9am-noon on the top floor of the HMNS Parking Garage, 5555 Hermann Circle Dr. - will include native butterflyweeds (usually called milkweeds) such as the rare Antelope Horns milkweed (Asclepias asperula) - which do not harbor the devastating OE.

 

Cockrell Horticulturist/Greenhouse Manager Soni Holladay says other beneficial native plants at the sale include:

 

* Aristolochia tomentosa/ Wooly Pipevine (host for Pipevine swallowtails),

* Chamaecrista fasciculata/Partridge Pea (host for Sulfurs),

* Passiflora foetida/passionvine (host for Gulf Fritillary),

* Eryngium yuccifolium/Button Snake Root (nectar),

* Eupatorium havanenese/White Mistflower (nectar),

* Helenium microcephalum/Smallhead Sneezeweed (nectar),

* Lonicera sempervirense/Coral Honeysuckle (nectar - good for hummingbirds!)

* Penstemon tenuis/Gulf Coast Penstemon (nectar)

* Physostegia correllii/Correll's Obedient Plant (nectar)

* Rudbeckia maxima/Giant Coneflower (nectar)

* Spigelia marilandica/Indian Pink (nectar)

* Verbena xutha/Gulf Vervain (nectar)

* Vernonia sp. / Ironweed (nectar)

In addition to the 'Pura Vida' (at top), the Cockrell will include the blue (or common) passionvine (Passiflora caerulea), left, and P. foetida Soni, center, as well as Gulf Coast penstemons (butterflies and hummingbirds) and white mistflower.

 

Do you know the story of the passionvine flower? One story says when Spanish missionaries first saw these exotic flowers (which are native to our Gulf Coast area), they immediately saw religious symbols. The pointed tips were the holy lance; tendrils, the whips. Ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful Apostles (excluding St. Peter and Judas Iscariot). In the hundreds of radial filaments, they saw a crown of thorns. The chalice-shaped ovary was the Holy Grail, three stigmas equaled three nails and the five anthers were five wounds. Who else would tell you these things?

*  *  * 

 

UH's Bonner Program's gardening projects are part of the planned Third Ward project Honors College students two national grants. Left, with "portable" garden boxes are Bonner Director Andrew Hamilton, second from left, and Dr. Peggy Lindner, right, with students, l to r, Casey Hall, Isme Correa, Sasha Ichoonsigy, and Grace Schwarz (partially hidden). Right, winning video features Bonner students, l to r, Josh Monsivais, Naina Sakruti, Dave Giang, Brinda Penmetsa, and Ton La, Jr.

GARDENS TO BE PART OF U of H'S AWARD-WINNING THIRD WARD CAMPAIGN

A tip o' the trowel to student gardeners at my alma mater, the University of Houston, for two well-deserved honors.  UH Honors College's Bonner Leaders Program recently won $5000 in the nationwide Campus Kitchens Project which will utilize community and campus resources (including student gardens) to tackle Houston's Third Ward's dearth of access to healthy food education and actual healthy food resources. ("Bring a Campus Kitchen to the University of Houston"http://www.campuskitchens.org/sodexo/.) 

These students also just became the first Texas team ever to win the Resolution Project Social Venture Challenge at the Clinton Foundation's Global Initiative University event for their work in fighting hunger. (See "Cougar Chefs," at: http://www.uh.edu/news-events/stories/2015/March/0311CampusKitchens). Bonner's "Sprouting from Cement" project will allow students to grow their own produce to augment what they recover from dining halls and restaurants. In addition to the very successful gro-PODS (pictured above / http://www.gro-pod.com/) used now, six-foot tall "food pyramids" holding ten growing shelves each, potato barrels, and table-height raised beds will soon be added, as part of U of H research into potential solutions for Houstonians who don't even have room for small garden plots. I'll keep you updated on their progress.

Left, Festival Hill's "Mary (Cloister) Garden," Bradford pears, Galveston's bluebonnets and Georgie Allen in front of one tough azalea bush!

READERS CONTRIBUTE . . . THANKS!!!

* KUDOS TO SANDRA W. , who - in response to Jean Fefer's great  Biblical Garden article last week - wrote in about Mary's Garden, also called the Cloister Garden, at the McAshan Herb Gardens at Festival Hill in Round Top.  If you've never visited this incredible creation of herbalist extraordinaire Madalenene Hill and Gwen Barclay, you've missed one of our area's most unique treasures.  

Since most Biblical Garden plants are herbs, this would be a great resource (and don't miss their Shakespeare Garden among the others). As Sandra reports: "The main garden in the McAshan Gardens is the Cloister Garden.  The background is a folly ruin built to look like an ancient church.  The focus of the garden is a statue of Mary and the plantings include many herbs, bulbs, shrubs, and spring blooming annuals such as poppies, larkspur, and petunias."  Spring's the best time to go!  Two great herb sales coming up:

* Sat.,Mar.28: Herb Festival and Coushatta Camellia Society camellia tea plant sale. Details funny-farm2@sbcglobal.net

* Sat. Apr. 25: 32^nd Annual Herb Day by The Herb Society of America, South Texas Unit. Details: www.herbsociety-stu.org  

 

* SALLY J. inquired about the gorgeous white blooming trees are all over Houston? Probably Bradford pears. Fruit's inedible. They're pretty, tho, for a short period. Would make more sense to me to plant edible pear varieties recommended for this area, including Atlas Super Orient, Hosui, Southern Bartlett, Southern Queen, Tennessee and Tennesui. But, to each his own!

* HUGE THANKS TO DAN & JILL, who called attention to the early-blooming bluebonnets decking the freeway banks along I-45 where it turns into Broadway after you cross the Causeway into Galveston. The beautiful stands at the Harborside exit were obviously seeded by Texas Department of Transportation. Decades ago, before we even thought much about our wildflowers, Lady Bird Johnson launched her own campaign to get TxDOT to do this all over the state. And now they do! No one messed with Lady Bird.

 

*  A NUMBER OF READERS MOANED & GROANED when that late Arctic freeze blew in, followed by nonstop rains. What about their plants that were already budded out? One happy homeowner was Bess Allen in Vidor who had so worried about her normally-gorgeous-beyond-words azaleas. But as this picture of her granddaughter Georgie Allen shows, these tough flowers (once well established) can take most anything our climate throws at them.

  

* DON'T MISS THE LAST DAY FOR MARCH MART! Speaking of all those heavy rains, they've left us with an extra treat for Saturday (March 21) - the landscapes are especially vibrant at Mercer Botanic Gardens, 22306 Aldine-Westfield. This, and the fact that all sales are tax-free, the Visitor's Center cafe is selling lunches and lots of tents are up (should it rain again) make this Saturday, the last day of March Mart, a must-attend event. Details:themercersociety.org/plant-sales/march-mart/

Address questions to Brenda at lazy gardener@sbcglobal.net