Don't burn those leaves! Compost 'em! A compost pile is easy to build and maintain. There are several different ways to turn all the plant debris that fall gives us into the most useful soil amendment around. You can either build a compost pile that will heat and compost your yard wastes or you can just build a static pile and occasionally use the decayed stuff at the bottom of the pile.

• The Static Pile: Simply find you some wire fencing and make yourself a big hoop basket. A good choice in wire fencing would be the 2x4 inch welded wire that is four feet tall. You can make it any size, but one that is 5-6 feet across works well. Once you have cut and wired the two ends together, stand it up so it is sitting on the ground with the top open. Toss your leaves and other yard wastes into the container. This type of compost pile stays 'cold', never heating up. But from time to time you can lift up one side and harvest that good stuff on the bottom of the pile.
• Thermal Composting: This involves building a proper compost pile that you will have to turn. It heats up, breaking down the ingredients. It would take a book to cover the whole topic. So instead of that,,,,here are some good sites on the subject. http://www.a-horizon.com/compost/how_to_compost.html http://www.oldgrowth.org/compost/

You can still plant annual color at this time of year. Even though it is cold to us, the cool season annuals like it! By planting now, you will still have time to enjoy their flowers over the winter, with them being mature, larger, and beautiful plants come spring. And, as always, use dilute liquid seaweed as a soil drench when planting. One of the time-honored techniques to get them off to a good start and to keep them blooming was to put a pinch of bonemeal directly underneath the little transplants when they go in the ground. That would still be fine to do, but you might try using Garden-Ville's Rocket Fuel instead. It, too, it a phosphorus rich fertilizer with some bat guano and brewers yeast in it. It sure makes those plants jump out of the ground! You can still plant the following annuals right now.

Cool season annuals are:
Snapdragons
Dianthus
Pansies
Johnny Jump Up's
Dusty Miller
Calendula
Stock

You can still plant dormant and evergreen trees and shrubs, even in the middle of winter in this part of Texas. Growers in Texas leave their containerized trees out in the weather. They would be much happier in some good, warm soil! Just like fall planting, getting them in the ground just as soon as you can will allow them to become somewhat established by the heat of the coming summer.Two products that will help your newly planted trees establish quicker and easier are liquid seaweed and mycorrhizae fungus inoculant.

• Liquid Seaweed: This product is a natural source of Vitamin B1, a natural rooting stimulator that will help your plants establish quicker. It also contains over sixty trace minerals. It comes as a concentrate that you mix with water and then use a soil drench after planting. For a five-gallon tree or shrub, pour three or four gallons of this solution around the root ball when planting.
• Mycorrhizal Fungus: This is a new product on the market. This beneficial fungus is found in all healthy soils. It has a symbiotic relationship with plants. The roots of your plants release a gas from their roots that this fungus uses as its sustenance. In exchange for this, the fungus protects the plants roots from disease and insect attacks and also reaches out and brings water and nutrients back to the plant. You can now purchase this product to use when you plant most anything. It has to be applied in the root zone, so you mix it with the soil backfill when you plant. Even though it is found in healthy soils, by applying when you plant you will give your new plantings the immediate benefits of this wonderful soil amendment.

• Red Oak: A fine native Texas tree. There are two Red Oaks that you will find here. One is the Shumard Red Oak that will tolerate many soils, but is found most often west of I-35. It has red to brown fall color and will hang on to those leaves over the wintertime. The other Red Oak is the Nuttal Red Oak, found in east Texas. There is some dispute about the genus of this tree. Some want to change the name from Quercus nuttallii to Quercus texana. It sometimes goes by the name Pin Oak. It prefers acid soils and tends to have better fall color than the Shumard. It will tolerate poorly drained soils. Both are fast growing, deciduous trees that has a rounded canopy to 30-50 feet tall.
• Chinese Pistache: Native to China. Moderate growth to 40-60 feet tall and wide. Great fall tree with spectacular red to orange leaf colors. It is a gawky, ill-formed tree in youth, growing dense and shapely with age. Tolerates a wide range of soils. Very drought tolerant. Deciduous.
• Bald Cypress: This is the tree that you see along the San Marcos River, but it will adapt nicely to a dry land setting. In fall, the feathery leaves turn a very pretty coppery bronze color. This tree grows in a pyramidal shape to 50-70 feet tall in the landscape, but can hit 100 feet in the wilds. It has a nice winter silhouette.
• Swamp Chestnut Oak: Native to east Texas, this tree cannot tolerate standing water all the time, but does like wet conditions in the winter, with intermittent wet/dry in the growing season. It definitely needs to be planted in our sandy acidic soils and will grow to over 100 feet tall. The best thing about this tree? It turns the most beautiful bright red in the fall.
• Red Maple: Native to low, wet areas of North America. Fast grower to 40-60 feet. Its new growth in spring is red and it has great scarlet-red fall color. Tends to grow up tall before it starts to spread out. Tolerates many soils. Deciduous.
• Sweet Gum: This tree grows natively in sandy, acidic soils in low-lying areas in the Piney Woods. It can reach over 100 feet and has fall colors that can include yellow, scarlet, crimson, purple, and mahogany. A truly colorful tree in the fall! You see them in great numbers in both Bastrop and Smithville. The only drawback is that the little balls that can hurt bare feet when stepped upon.

• Never use Weed and Feed on your lawn! It will kill your trees!
• The winter is a great time to design and prepare new planting beds for the coming spring season. We are here to help you design your planting beds and landscape if you will bring in photos and sketches of the area you are designing. While we can't come to your home for this, we offer this service in the nursery for free.
• For those plants that you have to bring in the home for the winter, watering can be tricky. A good way to know when to water a containerized plant is to lift the pot and feel the weight. A heavy pot indicates it is still wet and a light pot says that it is time to water again.
• Have a soil test done by the folks at Texas Plant and Soil Lab. They do a very complete test and recommend how to amend the soil organically with their analysis and interpretations. You can pick up a test sheet at the nursery or go to their website and download the form. If you need help with interpreting the test, bring it by the nursery and Steve will help you make sense of it.