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“rain gardening” and aims to create gardens that will absorb runoff from roofs and hard-scapes and thrive on rainwater alone. The idea is based on the philosophy that gardens should live within a sustainable water budg-et. This is generally defined as the amount of rain that falls on your lot over the course of a year. In a home landscape, rain gardening can begin with a shovel. By digging depressions in your garden to retain rainwater that runs off from hard surfaces such as roofs and driveways, you can create concave areas and fill them with free-draining soil mixes. The trick to designing these bowl-shaped spaces is to include a range of plants suited to the different mois-ture zones. Some plants will only tolerate the slightly drier marginal edges of a rain garden, while others that like wet feet will thrive despite occasional submersion at the bottom of the basin. As a starting point, go to http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/earthkind/EKSelector.html .
Help with designing a rain garden in
your own garden can be found at:
https://water.tamu.edu/
files/2013/02/stormwater-
management-rain-gardens.pdf.
As we are enduring a particularly hot summer with minimal rainfall, we are more conscious of our water usage in our gardens. Many garden-ers, facing rising water bills may want to rethink their landscapes. An effective strategy for saving water and giving your garden a strong sense of place is to select key drought-tolerant plant species that are native to this region; they will happily survive and thrive once established with little additional water. Just because a plant is na-tive, however, doesn’t necessarily mean it is drought-tolerant. Gar-deners can contact their local Ex-tension service for help in selecting the most appropriate water-thrifty plants for their region. If the only time you step on your grass is to mow it, get rid of it. Re-moving lawns is getting more popu-lar partly due to rising water bills. Replacing a monoculture of turf with a vibrant fabric of drought-tolerant native plants is the fast road to water savings in residential gardens. Removing a swath of wa-ter-sucking lawn also offers a huge design opportunity. The removal of lawn creates a blank canvas that allows homeowners to reinvent a space in three dimensions—complete with trees, vines, and wildlife-attracting plants—rather than a flat, green plane. A water-wise garden irrigated via drip irrigation can reduce water use by at least 75 percent when com-pared with turf grass watered by sprinkler systems. Drip technology pinpoints the delivery of water
exactly to a plant’s root zone and makes it possible to grow plants without flooding or sprinkling a large area. Because drip emitters only wet a small circumference of soil near the root zones of desirable plants, they also don’t encourage weed seeds to germi-nate elsewhere in the garden. For more water-needy plants, it’s easy to create different zones based on water requirements. Modern drip irrigation systems can be programmed to deliver water more frequently in one zone of the garden than in oth-ers, to take into account these variable planting zones. The concept of rain gardens is becoming popular across the country as well. In regions with high annual rainfall and frequent precipitation events, rain gar-dens function primarily to slow down and contain runoff from roofs and hard-scapes, reducing the flow into storm sewers and water bodies. In drier regions of the country, they also serve to channel water into garden areas that can be maintained without regular irrigation. Rainwater systems can also use tanks, or cisterns, that collect rainwater from the roof during wet spells and store it for use during dry times. A new kind of gar-dening is gaining interest across the country. This form of gardening is some-times referred to as
Water Wise Gardening: Edited by Gudrun Opperman
LAKE HOUSTON
GARDENERS
A GARDEN STUDY GROUP OF THE LAKE
HOUSTON AREA
Vol. 21 Issue 1 September, 2018
This Month at LHG:
Permaculture &
Sustainable Garden-
ing
Water Wise Garden-
ing
1
September Program 2
Monthly Gardening 2
The Veggie Patch 3
Oak Forest Roundup
Facilitator’s Notes
Through the Garden
Gate
3
4
4
Treasurer’s & 6
Hospitality Reports
LHG Notes
Lobelia cardinalis A great rain garden
native ...
6
www.lakehouston
gardeners.com
Vegetable Transplants: Get your transplants planted in
your fall vegetable garden. Early September is your last
chance to get tomatoes and peppers in the ground. Cool-
season vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels
sprouts, cabbage, kale, mustard, lettuce, and kohlrabi can
be planted September through January. Look for trans-
plants to add to your garden.
Mulch, Mulch, Mulch: Mulching keeps plant roots cooler,
weed seeds at bay and conserves water. Apply 3” deep
around trees and shrubs. Add compost around annuals,
herbs, and vegetables. Do not mound mulch against the
base of a plant, this only invites insect and fungus to come
in contact with the crown of plants
Pests: Blast off sucking insects (aphids, mealybugs, etc)
with water and/or spray with insecticidal soap. Leaf miners
are active on citrus but they will not kill your citrus. Leave
citrus alone or alternate treatments of spinosad and neem
to keep miners at bay. BT will get rid of cabbage loopers.
Insects such as chinch bugs and fungal diseases on lawns
(grey leaf spot) are two things to watch out for. Organic
treatment products can be found in most garden centers.
Denton Langridge has had success using orange oil on pests
including leaf miners.
Refresh Container Gardens: Fall may be in the air.
We can hope! If weather turns cooler, refresh contain-
er gardens with snapdragons, dianthus, mums, petunias,
lobelia, crotons & more as they become available.
Watering: Maintain watering on newly planted seeds
and transplants, use a rain wand to avoid disturbing
plants with small root systems. On St. Augustine and
other lawns, water well but less often. With shorter
days and cooler nights, again we can hope, begin to re-
duce the amount of water applied as needed. Avoid
watering in the evenings if possible to prevent fungal
diseases.
Hummingbirds: Migrating hummingbirds will be at
your feeders soon and on natural nectar sources. Keep-
ing feeders clean, filled, and in a shady area will encour-
age visitors
Recipe for Nectar: Bring 4 cups of water to a boil,
add 1 cup of granulated sugar & stir until dissolved. Al-
low to cool, fill feeders. Keep excess sealed in refrigera-
tor.(no need to add red food coloring)
Natural nectar sources for hummingbirds: Turk’s
cap, hamellia, shrimp plant, firespike, salvia, lobelia
(cardinal flower), Mexican oregano, pride of Barbados,
anisacanthus, and cigar plants are all hummer magnets.
September, 2018 Page 2
September LHG Meeting
Monday, September 10, Karen Gerlach will present a program on Sustainable Gardening and
Permaculture. Dr. Karen Gerlach is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology at MD Ander-
son Cancer Center. She specializes in Breast Imaging and is part of the MD Anderson-
Memorial Hermann Outreach Program. Her academic background includes a degree in Biol-
ogy at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame with emphasis on environmental research through
the University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center.
Outside the clinic, Dr. Gerlach volunteers with the Harris County Master Gardener Associ-
ation. Her very first lessons in sustainable gardening and the interconnectedness of nature
took place as a child in her grandmothers’ and mother’s gardens and apiary. Today she prac-
tices sustainable gardening methods at Itchy Acres Artists Community. There, she tends to
her vegetable, rose, and fern gardens, a small orchard and a honey bee apiary.
She is experienced with many of the common challenges gardeners face including two high
energy children, two large dogs, chickens, gumbo soil, and poor drainage.
Area Happenings has moved to the LHG web site www.lakehoustongrowers.org. Please check the
web site often to stay up-to-date on area garden related happenings.
Karen Gerlach, MD
Monthly Gardening Activities
It has been hard for this old gardener to do much
in the veggie patch the past few months. If the heat doesn’t
get you, the mosquitoes will. I just took a walk around the
garden, as I try to visit it each day, to pull a few weeds and
pick anything that is still ripening. I am also working to get
the beds ready for fall planting. My tomatoes have mostly given up. I have tried to
save a few plants but not sure that is going to be successful
this year. I have a few seedlings I will plant in the next
week or so. I have been growing them up in containers so
they will be ready to fruit when/if the temperature ever
goes down below 70 degrees. It will—I promise! Other holdovers from the spring are both hot and
sweet peppers. Both have hung in and are still producing.
They should continue to produce good crops right up until
frost. The same is true of eggplant. We are sort of getting
tired of eggplants, however. When it does well—it does
really well! Two crops that do very well this time of the year
but are missing in the Opperman garden are okra and
sweet potatoes. They take up lots of space! And, okra
almost requires daily attention. Since we do that at the
Oak Forest Gardens we decided not to do it at home. I mentioned getting the beds ready. Try to keep
the weeds down with mulching or old fashioned weed pull-
ing. Never, never let them go to seed or your future prob-
lems will be magnified. Leaves and pine needles have been
dropping and it is a good time to pile those onto your
planting beds. If you can stand it, dig them in or cover
them with soil or compost to hasten their decomposition.
And, as dry as it is, wetting down the soil also helps to keep
the microorganisms working. A good dose of humates is
also a good thing to add to your garden right now. If you
did not buy them during our April fundraiser, you can still
purchase them at you local garden centers. (You will just
have to pay more!) We hope to have another sale on
MicroLife products next spring. The compost bins, too, deserve a little attention
this time of the year. Ten minutes each day spent on mak-
ing compost may be the most important thing you do for
your gardening efforts. Remember you need to add green
materials to brown materials, mix to introduce air and add
water unless there is substantial rain. Adding some exist-
ing compost or even garden soil will introduce microor-
ganisms to the pile and it will heat up and decompose
much faster. If you are still sending your grass clippings off
to the landfill, consider spreading them around your garden
areas. Soon the leaves and the pine needles will be coming
down in full force. Think about a way you can stock pile
some bags of these valuable resources for later this fall and
winter. Most lawnmowers now do a great job of mulching.
If you don’t want to collect the grass and leaves simply
mulch them into your lawn. However, if you catch them,
use them as mulch around your bushes, trees, or in your
veggie garden. Don’t waste them. They are valuable! If you need to come in out of the heat to spend
some time in the air conditioning, plan the fall garden. It
will get cool again and maybe even freeze. Think of all the
wonderful things you can grow this fall. Lettuce, radishes,
cabbage, spinach, car-
rots, broccoli, and the
list goes on. Dream a
bit! Order seeds!
The Veggie Patch By: Hal Opperman
Page 3 September, 2018
Oak Forest Round-up
In spite of the past school year being a real challenge, with
flood and freeze, by the end of July, two tons of produce had
been grown! It is indeed an impressive figure considering the
scope of the fifth grade gardens. Our biggest harvests were
that of sweet potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, citrus,
and LOTS of figs!
Of course, the real ‘harvest’ is that of giving the students some
practical applications in science and math in a living laboratory.
We have turned some into home gardeners with their family’s
support. Also, we have taught them good nutrition and some
respect for our environment. No mean achievements,
those…
If you would like to join a fun group of garden volunteers run-
ning this program, get in touch with this editor to get started.
You need not be a vegetable gardener. Actually, you can keep
your hands clean by helping keep up our database which
member, Debbie White, created this year to keep records to
help in our gardening efforts. You could also be our web mas-
ter. Our website can be accessed at: www.ofegrowers.org.
Member, Denton Langridge, our interim web master, would love
some help. Are you good at photography? We can use a pho-
tographer as well. We supply the camera. You would have to
attend classes on Thursdays to catch students in action.
We are currently selling our preserves from our summer garden
produce and fruit (remember we had lots of figs). Place your
order prior to the meeting, and we will bring it to the meeting. If
you purchase 4 half-pint jars, you may have a hand-made wooden
carrying crate. This also makes a great holiday gift. Some of our
preserves are already in short supply, so order soon. Email your
orders to the editor, at [email protected]. If a product is no
longer available she will get back to you. An order blank with
products listing and prices is attached separately.
P
Facilitator’s Note
September, 2018 Page 4
Looking through the Garden Gate By: Jo Sanders
We are familiar with being impressed by “large” gardens so I was intrigued when
LHG member, Jane Marvin, proudly showed us pictures of her tiny vegetable gar-
den at our annual planning meeting. It was particularly interesting since the plot is
located in her front yard, usually a HOA no-no. If you pull up to the house, the gar-
den is not obvious from the street. The simple 4’ by 4’ plot is surrounded by white
pvc pipe and covered with bird netting. This past spring, Jane was able to plant 4 tomatoes, 3 eggplant, 3 peppers, 4
sugar snap peas and a couple of herbs. Her Valentine tomatoes produced nicely.
The amount of produce from this plot was plenty for two people. Talk about small
but mighty. They surrounded the bed with bird netting to thwart critters who want-
ed a share of the produce. Jane and her husband Gary showed us the rest of their yard. The shaded
deck and seating area, complemented by a simple waterfall, is covered by a huge oak
tree. However, Jane’s pride and joy is her experiment with square foot gardening in
one of her few sunny locations.
Jane has also converted much lawn into planting beds for shade-loving
plants. She also composts in her relatively small garden. A compost tumbler is used
to turn out the ‘black gold’ so great for any garden.
Ask Jane for a tour! She’ll proudly show it to you.
I was born and raised in a small rural town in Minnesota
located 90 miles from Duluth and ~300 miles north of
Minneapolis-St. Paul. Our family of 6 worked a large
garden that kept us in fresh vegetables all summer and,
thanks to canning, all winter also. I am an actual
"Minnesota Twin" as I have a fraternal twin sister. I
moved to Baytown, TX in 1979 with 2 small sons to gain
employment that lasted all year. My husband, Mitch, was
born, raised & worked in Baytown area. I was fortunate
to have had an exciting and challenging work experience
with ExxonMobil Chemical Research. I obtained an As-
sociate degree from Lee College in Natural Sciences. We
both retired in 2013 and moved to Huffman in 2014
where I am a gardener in training with almost 2 acres to
practice on. I now enjoy gardening all year and, even
though I get frustrated with heat and drought, I prefer
heat over below zero weather that seems to last forever
in Minnesota.
I am looking forward to the year. We have a good line-
up of speakers. I hope that you will agree, and come to
all of the meetings. We have diversified the Steering
Committee a bit in order to spread out the wealth. Join
us by helping out. It is your club!
Shaded, peaceful back deck
Sunny side yard with gravel
walkway.
Compost tumbler in side yard utility
area. It has a has a sturdy handle for
turning the tumbler to introduce air
into the compost.
One day’s harvest
Lake Houston
Gardeners Meet on the 2nd Monday of
every month except
June—August
7 p.m. Good Shepherd Episcopal
Church 2929 Woodland Hills Drive
Kingwood, TX
77339
Club Coordinator
Open Position (see LHG Roundup below)
Kathryn Hammack
Program Facilitator
713-822-0673
Sondra Alliston
& Sue Allen
Hospitality
521-496-0338
Barbara Adams Treasurer
3018 Evergreen Glade Ct.
Kingwood, TX 77339 281-359-8441
Cynthia Douglas
Membership 281-361-2871
Gudrun Opperman
Newsletter Editor 281-360-8092
Moritza Day
Social Media & Publicity 713-206-0710
Anne Mullins
Social Media & Webmaster
832-264-1433 [email protected]
_______________________
Check us out on the web!
lakehoustongardeners.org _________________________
2018-2019
LHG STEERING
COMMITTEE
September 2018 Page 5
Treasurer’s Report: Barbara Adams
Beginning Balance 04/25/18 $ 2,214.57
Deposits:
Membership Deposits $ 50.00
Total Deposits $ 50.00 Expenses: Margaret Bingham-Loyd – presentation $ 100.00 Sondra Alliston – refreshments 10.00 Costco – food for planning meeting 83.00 Specs – wine for planning meeting 29.84 Vickie Snyder – presentation 100.00 Church of Good Shepherd, room use Sept. – Dec. 200.00 Total Expenses $ 522.84 Ending Balance 08/25/18 $ 1,741.73 Membership dues are being accepted. Make checks out to Barbara Adams.
Single—$20., Couple—$25.
plant exchange table. Please label your plants.
Ask someone knowledgeable if you don’t know.
Or, use a plant identifier app or Google to find
out.
We’ve added a new feature in the newsletter
which will feature different members’ gardens
on a monthly basis.
Check out our web site regularly as Anne Mul-
lins will be posting local gardening happenings
there. Look for other new cool features coming
soon. Like us and comment on Facebook, too.
We have gone digital!
Remember to pay your dues this month. Barba-
ra Adams will accept your money or checks.
Make those checks out to her directly.
Also, support Oak Forest Elementary Fifth
Grade Gardening by purchasing some of the
preserves made from garden fruits and produce.
Anyone wishing to volunteer at the school gar-
dens, will be greatly welcomed!
Hospitality Report: Sondra Alliston & Sue Allen
We will start out the year with refreshments provided by Jo Sanders and Gudrun Opper-
man. Refreshments will highlight some of the preserves made with fruits and produce from
the Oak Forest School gardens. Interestingly, those same items will be available for sale! A sign-up sheet will be sent around at the September meeting for you to sign up to bring re-
freshments to subsequent meetings. At least two people for each month would be preferable.
Plan for at least 30 folks per meeting.
Thank you from the Hospitality team.
LHG Roundup
During the June 11 meeting of the steering
committee, some new changes were adopt-
ed. As you can see in the sidebar on this
page, we have added several new positions
to our steering committee in order to
spread out the work load. A Club Coordi-
nator is still being sought to coordinate the
various positions’ activities. If this is some-
thing that appeals to you, let Kathryn Ham-
mack talk to you.
An exciting roster of programs is in place.
Topics range from permaculture, fall garden-
ing, succulents, propagation, wildlife garden-
ing, invasive plants, and how climate change
affects our gardens.
Our Christmas social will now be held at
Good Shepherd (no worries, we can still
have wine). The gift exchange is back, head-
ed up by Jo Sanders. Jo will also oversee the
