HERB - question-looking ahead to spring(long)

[nweders@mail.utexas.edu]

       If lilies and irises grow at all in your area, they like moist soil
w/ a hi clay
>content.  
	This somewhat depends on the type  of plant and what you'd like to go.
Bearded or German irises are easier to maintaing that Louisiana and Dutch
Irises.  Several cemetaries in Texas merit a look.  The "white cemetary"
Irises that do so well here in Texas almost alwys need thinning. The
hybrids are a little more difficult and need to be thinned quite a bit.
Orris, which is another type of beared iris does quite well.  I have a
patch that needs thinning evey other year.  The down side to irises is they
only bloom once a year...  as for lilies, I would probably pick some other
flower.. like echincea or some of the sunflowers.  They are capable of
going quickly and well and proding mounds of color in the summer.  Echincea
is a medicinal while sunflowers make good dye plants (depends on what kind
you plant)  animal food and some medicinal....

	      I would also plant fruit and nut trees.  Pecans grow very well in hi
clay hi
>water.  I imagine lots of others do too.  Ask at your local nursery.
Fruit and
>nut trees are pretty in bloom, and the deadwood is nice to carve or burn.  
	I don't quite agree about nut trees...  Pecans unless they are the wild
variety are demanding in that they require copius amounts of water...That's
one reason why pecans do very well in river bottoms here.  Stick with the
non-hybrid they are stronger and easier to take care of.  The only two nut
trees that have nice flowers are the almonds (rose related) and hazel and
maybe chestnuts... which don't do well out here.  Almonds both bitter and
sweet do well out in California.  Pecan have little strings of flowers that
don't do much for me.  i hate raking them....  
      Do you like fresh asparagus?  I love it.  It's an invasive plant that
grows wild all over the US.  It likes colder climates than down in Zone
8... although it will grow here.  It needs a dormant period to do well.  It
also perfers rich soil.
 >Sage isn't invasive, but it grows wild quite well.<
 Depending on whether this is culinary sage which is not invasive.  Some of
the other types are quite invasive.  It took three years of pulling up
mounds of cedar sage to get it into control... If you want invasive try
wild onion.  I will mail you little bulbs from my yard...
     My guess would be that both garlic and ginger (which have pretty
flowers) would grow well and spread.  Garlic would but ginger doesn't do
well in climates that have seasons.  It's normally treated as an annual.
every year they plant masses of it at Zilker Park and rip it ou after
blooming.  A frost can kill it.  According to Gwen Barclay and Madeleine
Hill, ginger will survive mild winters in some parts of the South.

Clare


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