By: Todd Wheatley
(c) IQ-2k   01-03-21

It's been a fairly typical winter in North Texas with temperatures in the mid-50s during the day and mid-30s at night. The atypical weather pulled in five days ago and dumped about 5 inches of COLD rain over a two day peroid. The most obvious problems can be seen by "standing water" in poorly drained areas and they will need attending. It's the not so obvious that should be considered:

SUNLIGHT, SOIL PH, SOIL ATTRIBUTES, AERATION, and TEMPERATURE.

Any healthly landscape must provided these main components in the proper balance even before attending to fertilizer and pest control. Having the proper GROWING CONDITIONS for every tree, shrub, flower, and so on reduces the need for fertilizer and pest control since healthy plants have their own defense mechanisms. Unfortunately "simple instructions" can be misleading and lead to bad outcomes. Consider the FULL SUN tags often used at various retail outlets. Or perhaps tags that say 6 to 8 hours of SUN. That 6 hours of sun will have completely different outcomes if the start time arrives at first light, morning, or midday. Next there's the seasonal shift of sunlight as the days grow shorter in the winter and the sun moves lower in the sky.

SOIL PH involves an understanding of chemisty and the more you understand chemistry the more likely you will have a healthy landscape. For now time constraints will reduce this area to a general note .... COFFEE GROUNDS for acid loving plants and BAKING SODA for alkaline soil. Some problems with SOIL PH can arise due to SOIL ATTRIBUTES or CONSTITUENTS. Consider pine bark or pine needles for example. Over time such organic matter will decompose and make the soil more acidic. Where areas with limestone may bring about alkaline soils. Finally there's difference between RAINWATER and TAP WATER. Most municipal water treatment regulations strive for a NUETRAL PH of 7. Nevertheless areas with HARD WATER or SOFT WATER contain minerals that raise of lower the Ph.

The periodic nature of RAIN requires a great deal of forethought and planning. Areas with heavy rainfall must consider drainage while areas with less rain must consider water retention. Either way both features tie into soil AERATION (allowing oxygen to roots). Which ties into soil attributes. Which ties into sunlight and temperature. In short, NATIVE PLANTS have adapted over time to respond favorably to all the "native" conditions and require little of NO CARE to survive and thrive. Modern landscapes, on the other hand, regularly feature "imports" and therefore require some care.

Therefore the DR-KNOW WEBSITE will make some endeavour its KNOWLEDGE-BASED in this area. The following list is a start from the landscape of dr-know's Richardson, Texas home: PLANT CARE LIST


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