Mary Claire Rowe

When early morning darkens into twilight, and the sky looms grey-green, you know you are in for a storm. There will be no gardening this day, and hopefully, no big storm, just lots of threatening noise.

Which part of the garden will be left to care for after the wind and rain have passed is the concern. So many homes and lives have been destroyed by storms this spring, bringing tragedy and hardship to people.

It has become worrisome every time the thunder rolls. It is hard to tell whether there are more damaging storms these days, or if the reporting is just better, but either way, there are more events to think about.

Already, the birdbath fell over from its hastily placed position on the now water-soaked ground. I’ll have to do better after the storm. Our newly installed, giant jars successful caught their capacity in rain water within the first few minutes of the first rain shower. This leads me to thinking about an even bigger “catchment-system.” There is so much water running off our roof, we could fill a gigantic tank. Hmmm!

The Master Gardeners in Tucson have a wonderful water-saving system, which helps them to water their display gardens. When we were there for a visit one year, my husband, Gilbert, and I toured the amazing facility.

Beautiful flowering perennials were alive and well in the desert, partly watered by conservation of the little rain they receive each year. They had a simple system, with a large metal culvert standing on end as the tank. It was buried in cement, and the top was closed. The water was caught in a filtered gutter system along their roof, and sent down a pipe through a changeable filter into the bottom of the tank.

This prevented bugs and debris from entering the tank. It was inspirational and the source of our plan to catch and use our rainwater. However, it is a slow-going project for us so far. Hopefully, our little success with the large jars will be the catalyst for an even bigger and better set up.

My husband Gilbert’s aunt and uncle had a family farm in Giddings when he was a child. It was before rural electrification came to the area. The farm was associated with Texas A&M University as a “test farm.” One of the projects there was a very successful electricity producing system.

At least 30 wet-cell batteries were placed in a stadium-seating position on the back porch. A wind charger was attached to their water windmill. When the windmill turned, electricity was generated and charged the bank of batteries. Each evening, the family was able to have electricity rather than kerosene lanterns or candles that was more commonly used. What an innovation for the time.

If that technology had been expanded upon, and used in the ensuing years, just think how much better off we would be today with our high use of oil and coal to produce the electricity we need. Our dependence on foreign oil would have been a lot less through the years. Sometime the “old ways” of doing turn out to be the smarter ones. And, yes, I realize it is being done today, but it is not common, and we could have done so much better through the decades.

Smith County Master Gardeners have a display of composting in the IDEA Garden that shows how easily the garden waste — weeds, clippings, dead plants — can be turned into good mulch for the garden. It would save hundreds of thousands of square feet in our community landfills if each of us made an effort in this way.

Conservation of resources, use of materials that come to us naturally, and recycling, these are actions we gardeners can take today to start making a difference in our environment. Hopefully, this will be the day when we all take a step in that direction.

Louisiana Iris — beautiful, easy to grow, likes wet or moist soil, full sun to part shade. It is native to Louisiana and originally came in five colors. It has been successfully hybridized and now comes in a rainbow pallet.

There are five species: Iris brevicaulis, I. giganticaerulea, I. fulva, I. nelson, and I. hexagona.

They are so easy to grow, can be propagated by division of rhizomes or by seed, and are hardy in Zones 4 - 9. For fantastic pictures and more information google Louisiana Iris and go to http://www.zydecoirises.com/Inspiration/Inspiration2.html. These iris are growing in the IDEA Garden.

“What’s Blooming In Our Garden’’ is a regular feature of the Tyler Morning Telegraph Garden Page. It is written by Mary Claire Rowe, a Master Gardener with the Texas Cooperative Extension, and focuses on flowers and plant life around East Texas. To share your comments on gardening, write her in care of the Morning Telegraph.

Mary Claire Rowe
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