LAKE HOUSTON GARDENERS

A GARDEN STUDY GROUP OF THE LAKE HOUSTON AREA

Volume 20 Issue 4 Merry ! December, 2017 Traditional Christmas Plants This Month at LHG: Christmas Party Time As I write this article we are rapidly entering the The tradition of kissing under the has holiday season with its wonderful array of colors Scandinavian origins. Any two people caught to- and hues. During this time we begin to see the gether under the mistletoe were obligated to kiss Traditional Christmas 1 appearance of the traditional plants such as , one another. Plants , , red amaryllis, Christmas cactus, poinset- Mistletoe is used in medicine for circulatory and tias and mistletoe. I have often wondered how Christmas Gathering 2 respiratory problems and is being studied in can- some plants became associated with the holidays. Area Happenings 2 cer research, particularly by German researchers. Mistletoe has a long history of Christmas tradi- The Veggie Patch 3 on the other hand are indigenous to tion. The origin of the word is unclear, however Mexico and native to the pacific coast of the Unit- Traditional Plants, 4 some people think it came from Anglo Saxon ed States. Euphorbia pulcherrima is a small shrub contd. word mist, meaning bird dung, and tan, tang or ta, From the School Gar- 4 or tree reaching 2 to 16 feet in height. The top meaning twig. So, loosely translated the word den leaves are bracts of flaming red, pink or white. means bird dung tree. The English used mistletoe The actual flower is found in the center of each in their cooking very similarly as we use the basil. Treasurer’s & 5 leaf branch, which is called a cyathia. Hospitality Reports The European mistletoe is in the genus Viscum, whereas the found in this country are The Aztec Indians of Mexico used the plant to This & That 5 exclusively of the genus Phoradendron, meaning make red dyes. In Chile and Peru they are called

tree robber. the Crown of the Andes.

It is a hemi-parasitic (meaning semi parasite) plant The became associated with the th that uses a wide variety of trees as a host. How- Christmas tradition in 16 century Mexico. Ac-

cording to the legend a young girl who was too ever, it is considered a keystone species as it has a very pervasive influence in its area. Many ani- poor to give a gift was inspired by an angel to mals depend on the berries. Birds usually spread gather some weeds by the side of the road and the berry seeds around the area in their drop- place them before the church altar. When she did pings after they have digested the berries. The this the weeds blossomed into beautiful poinsetti- berries are usually ripe around the winter sol- as. From the 17th century on the Franciscan stice. Many types of mistletoe berries are poison- monks used them in their Christmas celebrations. ous and should be handled with care around The poinsettias were named for Joel Robert Poin- young children. sett who was the first United States ambassador to Mexico who introduced them in this country The old Christian tradition maintained the mistle- in 1825 toe was once a tree that furnished the wood for the crucifixion of Christ. After the crucifixion the The poinsettia is usually an indoor plant for most mistletoe tree shriveled and became a dwarf and of us. It enjoys good morning sun with shade

a parasite. Continued on Page 4 Page 2 Lake Houston Gardener

December LHG Christmas Party

Please join fellow members for the annual Christmas Social on Monday, December 4, from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. It will be held at the South Woodland Hills Community room located at 2030 Shadow Rock Drive, Kingwood, TX 77339. Take Woodland Hills Drive to Good Shepherd Episcopal Church and turn onto Lake Hills Drive. Follow Lake Hills Dr. to Shadow Rock Dr. and turn left. Follow Shadow Rock to 2030 on the left. Consider bringing a hearty appetizer or dessert to the party. We will have drinks, including wines, as well as a honey baked ham for the gathering. There will be no charge for members and one guest to attend. There will not be a gift exchange this year. A few volunteers will be needed to decorate the room ahead of the gathering, and to clean-up afterward. Please contact Anne Mullins if you can help.

See you there!

Cross Pollinating: Citrus Tasting with John Panzarella Each year for over 20 years, John Panzarella has had a free citrus tasting and open house in his backyard at 404 Forest Dr. in Lake Jackson, TX about 50 miles south of Houston, TX. The next open house will be Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017, from 2 P.M. to 4 P.M. Everyone is invited to come taste citrus and see fruit trees. He has approximately 200 different varieties of citrus, 50% to 70% fruiting, plus several varieties of persimmon, sapote, guava, loquat, pomegranate, avocado, fig, peach, passion fruit, jaboticaba, miracle fruit, mango, and pecan trees growing in his backyard. There will be approximately 40 to 50 varieties of citrus to taste. Over 30 citrus tree varieties (see the variety list on his web page) will be for sale; some are rare and hard to find, plus a few other types of fruit trees. Use Google maps to get to his home or email him at [email protected] , Come taste the citrus, and see the 3rd largest citrus collection in the state of Texas, and the largest private collection in Texas (free). Come see and taste the giant Panzarella cluster lemon. See grapefruit, tangerines and oranges all growing on the same tree. Go to his facebook page for any last minute updates at www.facebook.com/panzarellacitrus.If you are planning to purchase fruit boxes or fruit trees, please bring cash or check. He is not set up for credit cards.

Area Happenings WED., NOV. 29: SOIL FOOD WEB - HOW AND WHY TUE., DEC 5: CITRUS SEMINAR & TASTING by MONTE NES- ORGANIC METHODS WORK TO SAVE TIME & MONEY by BITT, 6:30pm; AgriLife Extension Bldg, Carbide Park, 4102 Main JOHN FERGUSON. 6pm, McGovern Centennial Gardens, (Hwy 519), La Marque. Galveston County Master Gardener event. Hermann Park Conservancy, 1700 Hermann Drive. Call Dan- Free. Register: [email protected], 281-309-5065; aggie- iel Millikin at 713-360-1469 for more information. horticulture.tamu.edu/galveston/index.html

SAT.-SUN., DEC. 2-4: TEXAS CAMELLIA SHOW & SALE, 1- 4pm, First Christian Church Gym, 3500 N. Loop 336 W., FRI., DEC. 8: 'HOLLY JOLLY' LUNCHEON GALA. SPEAKER: Conroe. Free. coushattacamelliasociety.com BILL MCKINLEY. 9 am, White Oak Convention Center, 7603 Antoine. Tickets $30. Houston Federation of Garden clubs event. SAT. DEC 2: TURNING DIRT INTO SOIL by JIM GILLIAM, 1 houstonfederationgardenclubs.org. -3pm; AgriLife Extension Bldg, Carbide Park, 4102 Main (Hwy 519), La Marque. Galveston County Master Gardener event. SAT., DEC 9: GROWING TOMATOES FROM SEED by IRA Free. Register: [email protected], 281-309-5065; GERVAIS, 9-11am; JOURNEY OF TWO FRUGAL MASTER GAR- aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/galveston/index.html DENERS: IN THE BEGINNING - PROPAGATION by NANCY LANGSTO & BRENDA SLOUGH, 1-3pm; AgriLife Extension Bldg, Carbide Park, 4102 Main (Hwy 519), La Marque. Galveston SAT. DEC. 2: ELECTONIC RECYCLIING, Kingwood Park & County Master Gardener event. Free. Register: gal- Ride, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Clean out your closets and attics [email protected], 281-309-5065; aggie- and bring those electronics to be responsibly recycled. See: horticulture.tamu.edu/galveston/index.html Keepkingwoodgreen.org for further details on recycling op- portunities. Volume 20 Issue 4 Page 3

The Veggie Patch By: Hal Opperman to get at the local garden centers now is the time to order them. Tomato seeds should be started indoors around New Years Day and your chances of finding seeds in a garden center before the Who has time for gardening in December? end of January is slim. While I haven’t been looking, I did notice a

Picking up a tree, decorating inside and out, shopping, lot of seed packets on the wall at Kingwood Garden Center. making a list and checking it twice, wrapping, partying, visiting, Perhaps the other places have them, too. Your selection will be traveling. Those are just a few of the additional things that pop up limited though and if you really want something special you may in December. What is a poor gardener to do? No time left for have to go to Tomato Growers Supply or a similar online site. http://www.tomatogrowers.com/ They claim to have six hundred the garden! Unfortunately the garden sometimes gets forgotten this varieties of tomato seeds. Of course you can always wait until the month. If you planted your greens, radishes, cole crops on time, transplants come out in February or March. you can sort of let it go and just enjoy the “fruits of your labor” in While you are planning, do consider doing some crop December. If not, you might want to do some planning and gar- rotation. Sometimes in our smaller gardens it is not easy to leave den clean up to get things ready for spring. (I know winter hasn’t a whole family of plants out of a particular area for a few years. officially started yet.) However, once it does, spring can not be far At the school gardens we at least try not to plant again in the same location the following year. Even there, with a lot of space, behind here in Houston. I always like to cover my garden area with a layer of we have a few things, like sweet potatoes, that we have to plant in mulched leaves late in the year. They are available all up and the same spots over and over. If you find yourself having to do down the street on trash day. I am always amazed at the silly that, do make a concerted effort to clean up all the old plants people that mulch their leaves and then set them out on the including roots, if possible. We mulch everything heavily and hope street to be hauled off. I have found a few places where I can pick that keeps some of the soil borne diseases from splashing up onto up mulched bags every weekend and almost never have to do any the leaves of new plants. myself. Gudrun and a few other people call it a disease that I Most of you know that Gudrun and I became bee keep- have, but hey it works and adds lots of organic content to my ers two years ago. Last year we harvested about 12 pounds from garden. Dirt that used to be brown sand is now black organic our first hive. That hive thrived and this year we harvested 34 garden soil. Mulch also just about eliminates the cool season pounds from it. In May we decided to purchase another colony weeds which seem to grow very well this time of year. The win- and start a second hive. While they have done OK, they are not ter cole crops can be planted right in these mulched areas and yet as strong as the first hive. We decided not to harvest any things that need to be seeded can be, by simply moving the mulch from them this year as we felt they may need all they have to make it through the winter. While we harvested the 34 pounds a aside. In December or early January I also prepare my beds for couple months ago, we froze the frames and just got around to potatoes and onion sets which I plant shortly after the first of the processing them this past week. What a sticky process that is! year. I find that if the beds are prepared, it is a snap, even if the The amazing thing is there is little clean up after you are done. weather is not very nice, to get the potatoes and onions in the You simply put the frames outside along with some of the equip- ground at the proper time. I will also fertilize these planting areas ment and here come the bees. They must be the world’s original with MicroLife products. So, even though there are lots of other recyclers. Nothing is wasted. Any drop of honey is reclaimed by things to do, I find that if I do a bit every day, it never becomes them and then they start on the wax. After a couple of days the equipment is clean and the frames are pretty much ready to go work. It is just good exercise in the out-of-doors. December is not the ideal planting time for most garden back into the hive for use next year. What an experience it is! vegetables; however, lettuce and radishes will sometimes germi- If you decide you want to give this a try, do it as a hobby nate and give you an early crop in the new year. Hopefully you though, as the honey is at least twice as expensive as if you bought planted earlier in the fall and are already harvesting most of the it at the farmers market. Just think of it as having 50,000 new dependents who may or may not appreciate their new home. You fall and early winter crops. December is a great time for planting trees! The roots need to supply their housing, supply their medical needs, give will have time to get established before the hot summer hits them them supplemental food when the pollen and nectar are in short next year. It is also much more pleasant digging a hole now then supply, and hope they don’t pick up in a swarm and go someplace when it is 95 degrees. If you have one in a pot that you have been else. We are enjoying it though and it is a neat experience to holding, now is the time to get it in the ground. Be careful with stand near the hive and watch the activity. We, too, will enjoy citrus and some other sensitive plants. There will no doubt be a that honey and hope for a good harvest again next year. few nights of freezing temperatures when a prudent gardener will One of my motivations for keeping bees was thinking they would help in the pollination process in my veggie garden. I cover or arrange a heat source for newly planted trees. December and January are also ideal times for rearrang- can’t really say that has happened. While they are only about 20 ing beds, rocks, concrete blocks, and fixing or adding sprinkler feet away from it, they take off out of the hive at about a 45 de- systems. Again, temperature is good, mosquitos are at a mini- gree angle and disappear into the sky. I understand now that is mum, and most of your real estate is not being used. One of my their discharge zone, you know, bodily fluids and waste. No self compost heaps is falling apart, so it too should get some attention respecting bee is going to pick up pollen in that type of a place. We think the bees that pollinate our yard and garden come from a this month. Planning for next year should also take a bit of time this neighbor’s hives. month. If you want some special seeds that you may not be able Merry Christmas, and may the New Year find you gardening happily! Page 4 Lake Houston Gardener

Traditional Christmas Plants, continued from Page 1 for the hotter afternoons. It will perish if the temperature goes below 50 F. It does not like wet feet, so make sure there is no standing water in the pot. A fresh poinsettia is one on which little or no yellow pollen is showing on the flower clus- ters in the center of the bracts. Plants that have shed their pollen will soon drop their colorful bracts. The plant has received a bad reputation for being poisonous. This reputation is largely unfounded. A study at Ohio State University showed that a 50-pound child who ate 500 bracts might have a slight tummy ache. Poinsettias have a milky sap that can irritate the skin of certain sensitive individuals. Christmas cacti are available in a kaleidoscope of colors including red, white, pink, cream, and fuchsia. Long-lived, they may produce bountiful blooms for 20 to 30 to come. You can force a Christmas cactus into bloom in much the same way as a poinsettia, by providing long nights starting around October 1. You can also persuade it to flower by subjecting it to cool night temperatures of 50° to 55°F starting in early November. That said, my Christmas cactus lives outside in a pot most of the year in a partly shaded area that does not get extra water. By early December it is setting buds and will bloom around Christmas.

Although an amaryllis can be purchased at any stage of development, for many the real fun is growing their own plant from a bulb. Most amaryllis bulbs are sold already potted and with complete growing instructions. Typically this means the “soil” provided is dry peat. This should be discarded and some decent potting soil should be substituted for it. Once watering is started, you can expect magnificent lily-like blooms of red, pink, white, or orange in four to six weeks. After flowering, grow the amaryllis as a foliage plant until the leaves turn yellow. Then store the potted bulb on its side in a shady spot. Let it rest for eight to ten weeks without watering it. When new growth appears, repot the bulb and return it to the light to start the cycle again. Once your holiday plants are back on track, display them away from drafts in a bright room, but not in direct sun- light; they all prefer 60° to 70°F temperatures and like moist but not soggy soil. As with many of us, these colorful plants are already looking forward to next year’s holiday season. They can of course be planted outdoors in a partly shaded bed that receives good drainage. They require little attention during the year, but will flower later in the season.

From the School Garden: On a class gardening day in November, Mrs. Krenek’s fifth graders helped dedicate the Jo and Ken Sanders Outdoor Classroom at Oak Forest Elementary. The outdoor classroom had been located in the back of the nature area of the school for years. The benches and teacher’s podium were built by Jo’s husband, Ken, and several other volunteers. The classroom, being located near to the FM 1960 edge of the school, proved to be too noisy for classroom use. With the recent passing of Ken Sanders, the Growers decided to move the benches and podium closer to the school building. They were relocated to the enclosed Annex area of the garden under a large live oak tree. They were power washed, sanded and refin- ished by the volunteers. A bronze plaque was ordered and affixed to the brick wall surrounding the classroom. In light of the many hours that Jo Sanders has given to the gardening program, and the dedication of Ken in building the many struc- tures around the garden, including the red shed, it was decided to dedicate this space in their honor. The plaque reads: ‘The Jo and Ken Sanders Outdoor Class- room. “Planting seeds for a fruitful future.”. The OFE Growers’. It is now being used by many classroom teachers to take their classes outdoors for various instructional periods. We think that Ken Sanders is smiling down at the sight. We know that Jo certainly is smiling! Volume 20 Issue 4 Page 5

Lake Houston Treasurer’s Report: Barbara Adams Gardeners Meet on the 2nd Monday of Beginning Balance 10/25/17 $ 2,043.87 every month except Deposits: June—August Memberships $ 105.00 7 p.m. Good Shepherd Episcopal Terrarium proceeds 110.00 Total Deposits $ 215.00 Church 2929 Woodland Hills Drive Expenses: Kingwood, TX Randalls – water for meeting $ 6.00 77339 Total Expenses $ 6.00

Like us on Face Book! @lakehoustongardeners Ending Balance 11/25/17 $ 2,252.87

If you have not paid your dues yet, please do so before the end of the year. Make your check out to Barbara Adams. Dues are $20.00/person and $25.00/couple. 2017—2018 LHG STEERING COMMITTEE Hospitality Report: Anne Mullins Moritza Day Facilitator Thank you to Sally Koelzer, via husband, Mark, Teresa Metelits, and Louise Spindler for the deli- 713-206-0710 cious desserts at the November meeting. We hope to see all of you at the LHG Christmas gath- [email protected] ering. We know that gardeners are also good cooks, so we are all looking forward to some yum- my dishes and desserts. If you are willing to help decorate the party room, and clean-up after the Barbara Adams, Treasurer party, please let me know. I’ll be in touch with you. Thank you in advance. 3018 Evergreen Glade Ct. Kingwood, TX 77339 281-359-8441 This and That [email protected] Things to do this Month: and fresh water in bird baths. Put out suet Gudrun Opperman, Planting - Deadhead and feed cool season col- cakes — the extra protein helps keep our Newsletter Editor 281-360-8092 or and vegetables with an organic slow-release feathered friends warm in the winter months. [email protected] fertilizer such as Microlife Flower and Vegetable or Ladybug Flower Power. Continue to plant Anne Mullins cool weather color: pansies, snapdragons, Ger- Hospitality & Webmaster 832-264-1433 man primulas, and cyclamen. Lettuces, arugula, [email protected] mustard greens, and radishes can also still be started from seed. Cynthia Douglas Water- Maintain watering on newly planted Publicity 281-361-2871 seeds and transplants. Continue to deep water [email protected] trees and shrubs. A well hydrated plant holds up to frosts and freezes better than a drought Check us out on the web! lakehoustongardeners.org stressed plant. ______Pests- Bring in containerized tropical plants. This includes, plumerias, crotons, dracaenas, Freezes- Keep frost cloth on hand to cover etc. Check undersides of leaves and new tender plants in case of freezing weather. growth for insects and treat accordingly. Wrap plants completely down to ground lev- Lawns- Mow fallen leaves with a mulching el. The less drafts that move under the frost mower. When the lawn can’t take more leaves, cloth, the better for plants. add to flower beds. When beds are full of Soil- Work compost into the top couple mulched leaves, add them to the compost bin. inches of your garden beds. If you have vege- Poinsettias- Water well until soil is saturated. table beds that are bare in the winter, use Allow the soil to dry between watering. Apply cover crops such as peas, oats, or rye to water to soil and not the foliage or blooms. keep the soil active. These cover crops can Keep away from drafts. Birds- Don’t forget to keep seed feeders full be cut and worked into the soil before spring planting.