Benefits of Being a Lazy Gardener

I've be feeling a bit guilty about letting our edible garden go to seed and weed.   About 10 days ago, I noticed that anywhere from 25 - 50 Great Southern White butterflies have taken up residence in the garden.   The only flowers out there are artichoke (yep, I never bothered to harvest the chokes) and rosemary, so I don't have any idea what they are feeding (nectaring) on . . . .      Every night, most of them, including the one pictured on the right,  bed down in a large planting of canna lilies.  

I did  read that cruciferous vegetables are host plants for this butterfly.   But most cruciferous vegetables are a winter crop in my Southern garden.   The pretty little butterflies seem pretty indiscriminate about which plants they hang out near and light on -  the artichoke, asparagus, bolting kale, fennel, along with grass weeds that have gone to seed  . . .   My fear of removing what has attracted them led me to not pull or trim one single horrible looking plant.   This afternoon, when I went out to cut a kale leaf for a smoothie, the kale was covered in caterpillars!  

A quick google search verified that these are indeed Southern Great White butterfly larvae!    If you want to see the entire life cycle, visit this post by the Dauphins, a couple of butterfly experts in south Texas.   They captured every detail in some fabulous photos!   The chrysalis isn't as pretty as some, but I will be on the search for them in a day or two.  

If your schedule - or the Texas heat - keeps you from keeping your garden as tidy as you'd like, don't despair.   You may get to play host to some lovely little creatures, too!  

Identifying Texas Sabal and Washingtonia Palms

Living in the Rio Grande Valley, it's easy to take for granted the beauty of our native and naturalized palms.  There are many thousand varieties of palms and 15-20 of them are a common sight in this area.   I think we should all be able to identify the plants and trees growing in our landscapes - along with the birds and butterflies that frequent them.   One of the advantages to learning to identify different palm trees is that it makes you take a closer look at the plant, which leads to a greater appreciation of each palms unique characteristics.

Let's just talk about two of the most common palms down here - our native Texas sabal and the

Mexican Fan Palm

Mexican fan or washingtonia palm.   The untrained (or unobservant) eye would say they look the same.  They are both tall with large fan leaves.

The Mexican fan palm grows 36 inches a year, maturing at 80-100 feet.   Although it's not native, it has naturalized here.  Birds have spread the seeds through our brushlines and native habitat.   A few people even consider it invasive.  But it is a wonderful food source for many birds.  We have been lucky enough to observe a flock of small parrots feeding on the ripe fruit.  We kept hearing something hit the ground - it was the seed they spit out after consuming the fruit!   Mexican fan palms line the highways and many boulevards throughout south Texas.   It does well in parking lots, grouped in large open areas, and in the landscape of a tall building.   In a typical residential landscape, it may look more like a telephone pole than a palm.

Texas Sabal

Texas sabal palms are the only palm native to south Texas.   They grow from deep south Texas south to Central America.   Sabals are slower growers, adding 1 or 2 sets of fronds each growing season, which amounts to about a foot a year.   Mature height is 40 or 50 feet but I rarely see any taller than 20 - 25 feet.   It used to be rare to see one growing in the wild, but birds have done a great job of spreading seed.   Texans use sabal fronds when building palapas.    Sabals retain their 'boots' (leaf ends) for a very long time, giving the trunk a heavy cross-hatched look like the palm below.    It is both drought tolerant and salt-tolerant, making it a great choice for coastal plantings.









Similar but not the same.  Here are the differences to look for:

• Texas sabal has a smooth frond stem with no spines; Mexican fan has short, dark thorns along the base of the leaf stem.
• Texas sabal has larger fronds (5-8 feet wide) than the Mexican fan (3-5 feet wide)
• Texas sabal has a larger, fuller canopy.  
• Texas sabal trunk is thicker than a Mexican fan's - about 30" in diameter - and it is more likely to have its boots. 

Take my challenge to learn to identify different palm trees growing in south Texas!