March Garden Guild focus on shade gardening

Wells Branch is an aging neighborhood and with that comes a wonderful cover of shade from mature trees. Or maybe not so wonderful if you're trying to figure out which plants to grow in the lower level of sunshine. Many people also are trying to find perennial or drought tolerant plants to add to their landscaping. 

The March meeting for the Wells branch Garden Guild will help you with all these questions. We are lucky to be having Michelle Pfluger from Green and Growing in Pflugerville to talk to us about shade plantings. In the brief discussion I had with her recently, she reeled off all kinds of ideas to address this "growing problem." Join us March 16th at 11 at 3000 Shoreline  for the presentation and at 10:30 for chat and seed/plant exchanging.

Adding compost for mulch makes garden look spiffy

 We are so lucky in my neighborhood to have access to free compost to use from our yard waste. I am also very lucky to have a husband that does not mind helping shovel and haul it home in buckets. This morning we brought home 15 buckets to increase the layer of mulch from scant to 2-3" in the mostly flowering part of the garden. It will be better than the mulch in that it has nutrients too.
The native hardwood bark mulch is also $2.35 per bag instead of the free compost so it gets spread a bit thinner. I have been using shredded leaves, chipped small branches, and the neighbor's lawn clippings along with the mulch.
We probably need another 10-15 buckets of it to finish the front and some for the back too. Good workout too. Sure made things look nice this morning as I gave every plant a good drink to settle it in before our temperature hit 96 this afternoon. This week is the first time I have had to use city water to water the garden. I still have a bit of rain water in 5 gallon buckets that I am saving for the few potted tomatoes.