Whenever the Square Bud Primrose blooms I get a little homesick for Texas. This extremely adaptable perennial not only grows and flowers well in South Texas with poor soils, hot dry periods and poor drainage, it will even grow in the milder climate of the Southeast. One of the easiest perennials
to grow, it tolerates a wide range of soil types and moisture levels. Its only real requirement is sun. Best of all, square but primrose produces dozens of sunny yellow cup shaped flowers throughout the spring and summer

Consider installing drippers for your irrigation system. They use a lot less water because they put the water at the base of the plant near the roots and less water is lost to evaporation in the air. The water is also applied slowly so it soaks into the ground over a period of time and less is likely to be seen running down the driveway.

Incorporating organic matter into the soil is one of the best ways to help your soil retain moisture. It also improves the soil texture and adds a bit of food to the soil. Composts are great organic matter sources. If you don't have a compost pile and don't want one there are all sorts of organic sources out there in bags. You can use composted cow manure, composted poultry manure, mushroom compost, composted pine bark and a host of other composts from individuals. It is important that your organic matter be composted. Proper heat from composting kills weed seeds and sterilized the organic matter. Don't want to start the year off with a fabulous crop of pigweed.

Tomatoes need their calcium too. To help prevent blossom-end rot, add some horticultural lime or calcium nitrate fertilizer to the soil when you plant your tomatoes and peppers. Avoid over or under watering your plants too, since that also contributes to soft mushy bottoms.

MOM'S ARE GREAT

Come shop with us Mother's Day weekend and we'll give you a free pair of Tool Grip gloves, when you spend $50.00 or more. Saturday May 10th and Sunday May 11th.
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Spring must be here, Walker's pockets are full of frogs and toads.

Soon it will be time to pick fruit in the garden! Blackberries start at the first of June, with blueberries a week or so later. Figs start getting ready the end of July, and then Muscadines and Persimmons in September. Please call for exact dates and prices. The weather affects all the harvest dates.

Time to get zinnia, cosmos, sunflower and tithonia seed scattered out in the garden. They all do best in full sun and make great cut flowers. Besides the butterflies really like them.

It depends how you look at it. Eastern Swallowtail baby butterflies* like fennel, rue, parsley and caraway. Monarch baby butterflies like milkweed. Gulf Fritilary baby butterflies like passionflower vine and snapdragons. Yellow sulphurs like broccoli, cabbage and turnips.

*also referred to as caterpillars by some gardeners.

Time to get all those sensitive plants out of he house! Yeah! You can look out the windows again without your view being blocked by one hundred and one pots of stuff you didn't want to let freeze. Remember, inside your house is much darker than it is outside, so be sure to move plants outside into the shade first and gradually acclimate them to sun.