The list of plants that we could plant for fall, winter, and spring in Dallas was a pretty long list. Being in the nursery business all my life , we did capitalize on it too. I miss the snapdragons mostly but they’re in a different season like violas here.
I do need milkweed sources. Every nursery that I went to in Lubbock to Clovis NM never had them. Course we can grow as a perennial, many types of penstemons. Rudbeckias , leucanthemums, even lilacs here. Just nothing close to blooming when monarchs arrive. My greenhouse is full of succulents and also this year’s perennial starters and no room to finish out something that would freeze anyway if I brought it out. I guess I’m just not a accustomed to monarchs arriving before nectar sources or larval resources are available.
I don't have brahma so far. They are on my list. I do have a couple of langshans. They do fine in the summer.
One of the hatcheries that I was studying recently put an advisory out for their customers in Alabama about Cochins. They had received feedback from several of their customers especially in lower Alabama that their Cochins had not fared very well. No further details just a FYI to those in that area considering purchasing Cochin chicks. I do wish that someone would respond to your plea about Cochins and hot humid parts of Texas. The fact that I have Brahmas up here is most likely useless to you because of how dry and cooler we are in the summer. I actually have started paying attention to statements about cold hardiness and of course egg laying potential. Valley Farms is importing from France and Czechoslovakia so hybrids with incredible laying capacities.
Lay eggs not lost of course.
All right then, we do have some green thumbs in the family. The cyclamens that we would sale were quite expensive for bedding but sure would class up a flower bed. They too were good indoors in front of a window and would bloom a long time.
I miss 'snap dragons' in Baba's (my Gramma who passed last fall @103) garden up in Michigan growing up.......
I have rose bushes that I rooted just out of college that came from my grandmother’s polyantha rose bush from her garden in Lunbock . I had never known conscious life without that rose bush being a part of my life. Even as a child unaware of the connection of seasons to plants and their blooming, I would run out to the backyard to see that bush before saying hello to everyone. My grandmother’s oldest sister worked at a Florist’s shop in Amarillo and so when mother was born in 1931 she came to Lubbock to help grandmother and brought her a rose from the shop. Yes it was planted and grew and bloomed and became part of my family history that I kept with me to this day. Yep it (they) made it to Bailey county on the New Mexico border. I had rooted several to move with me amongst others. I also from that nostalgia and passion developed a seminar that I taught through out Dallas called Antique Roses for the Dallas Area. I am a tree planting fanatic too. Roses and English Gardening Texas Style were my claim to a short period of fame in the metroplex.
I would tell people I’m my classes that they may not be aware but something in your garden may click with someone you love. And in some moment that loved one will experience a site or smell or yes even a taste and all your love and joy will come right back to them in that moment and you will be there bonded with them in memory and spirit. The smell of daffodils and irises are two scents that bring my grandmother back every time for me. She belonged to. Garden Club in Lubbock and flowers were one of those things we shared as a passion from early on. No Thank you, Monk. I was having a really hard time with my grief, missing my departed spouse, this morning. Having this group to just visit with and share pieces of life with means a lot.
I think you said a greenhouse was on your bucket list a while back. Here’s mine completed in February just in time for the move.
