I replaced nearly all the turf grass with drought-tolerant plants suitable for North Texas. If you want to the most environmentally friendly thing which also happens to be the cheapest and best for your soil, you can simply smother your lawn by putting covering it with newspapers and then mulch. To get going quicker we paid some landscapers to come and trim the grass down to … [Read more...] about Replacing a Turf Lawn, Part II: Converting to Drip
Gardening
Mystery Plant #2 REVEALED!
To refresh your memory, here was your clue to Mystery Plant #2: Did you guess it? Ok, I didn't give you much to go on here. Similar to Mystery Plant #1, This plant does not tolerate cold very well. Let's cut to the chase: Lime Sizzler Firebush This is a Lime Sizzler Firebush (Hamelia patens 'Grelmsiz') , which is a patented variety sold by Garden Debut. Apparently … [Read more...] about Mystery Plant #2 REVEALED!
Mystery Plant #1 REVEALED!
To refresh your memory, here was your Mystery Plant #1 challenge: Can you identify this Mystery Plant? This was taken on New Year's Day 2020. Little did I know that nearly ten months later the world would still be in the grip of COVID. Also, a couple months after this was taken Fort Worth was hit with the worst freeze since the '80s. Those sticks had to be cut to the … [Read more...] about Mystery Plant #1 REVEALED!
Mystery Plant #2
Happy New Year everyone! It's the dead of winter and I'm wondering which of my plants are going to survive our winter. Fort Worth has pretty mild winters but it does freeze here several times and even a lot of native plants "die back" meaning you have to cut them way back - maybe almost to the ground - and then they grow like crazy come Spring. Here's another one that I'm not … [Read more...] about Mystery Plant #2
Mystery Plant #1
Can you identify this plant? This was taken on New Year's Eve 2020. It looks like a bunch of sticks but we've had some fairly warm, sunny weather over the past several days and you can see some light green shoots budding out near the tips. I'm not quite done cutting this back for the winter but getting close. This is my first year with this plant and I don't know … [Read more...] about Mystery Plant #1