Live, oaks!

This sounds like cautious good news for Galveston, our sister* city down on the coast. After Hurricane Ike, the old live oak allees along Broadway are not looking so live.

Galveston would be a different city without their year-round deep green intermingled canopies. They tie together the city’s signature mix of the god-awful tawdry with the timelessly elegant.

But it sounds like most of the live oaks will recover, with care. The browning was mostly due to windburn, not salt water poisoning, and some new growth is emerging.

Scorched live oaks visible beyond the palms. This is not autumnal color! Photo thanks to Mr Nelson.

*My friend Ms Alex says Galveston is more like an old auntie to Houston. Galveston is gracious, slightly stinky and half-mad, born into class but with shocking bad taste. Gotta love her.

Pokeweed Story

Pokeweed in Robeline, Louisiana

[I’m still thinking about hurricanes, naturally. Have you seen the photos of Galveston? Oh, what a disaster.] The spring after Hurricane Katrina went by New Orleans, I visited the city with some folks from my congregation. The People’s Institute had invited us and they graciously hosted us. We were taken on tours of the devastated city from their point of view.

We drove through the wards with Dr. Richards. At one point, she suddenly broke off midsentence, saying, Stop a minute! She sprang out of the car and over to where she had seen a large, hearty-looking pokeweed plant growing in front of an empty house. She snapped off a stalk and came back with it, full of enthusiastic energy. As we drove on, Dr. Richards told us the traditional way of preparing pokeweed by boiling it till the toxins were cooked out, and then it was safe to eat. Ruefully she shook the stalk. I don’t think this one would ever be safe to eat, growing out of that toxic soil, she said.

All the time we drove through the wards she held the pokeweed. Watching the leaves wilt over the vivid red stem seemed like an analogy to the city that I couldn’t quite articulate. When we said our goodbyes, the pokeweed was left on the seat of the car, a strange souvenir of New Orleans.

Theory of Place-Holder Plants

...shown in a very roundabout way by hurricane debris. Everyone here has a hedge-sort-of-thing between the street and sidewalk, courtesy of Hurricane Ike.

My own Ike hedge is modest, since much debris is now in the compost.

In the middle of the mess, schoolhouse lilies (Rhodophiala bifida) are looking weary but present.


I had schemes for robust, useful, and fabulous plantings of the "hell strip". They were further incited by a look at this Seattle blog, Greenwalks. Up till now, my strip was practically a monoculture of liriope spiked with some bulbs, a parsley hawthorne youngster, and some oaks. When we moved in here, the front "garden" was a mud flat migrating to the curb. I took emergency measures to stabilize it: I dug enough clumps of liriope from our old home to make hundreds of transplants for the hell strip. Then on Thanksgiving Day I enlisted all family members to plant them. That day, my Theory of Place-Holder Plants was born.

Say you have some place to plant, but what you want to plant there is out of season/stock/budget. I say go ahead and put in free, tough, boring plants to hold the place. They help keep the soil in the beds loose and inhabited. They are a little like cover crops. When the plants you really want arrive, out go the place-holder plants.

Who knows when the city will collect all this biomass thrown down by the hurricane. I am now quite pleased that there is not much but liriope growing under the pile. Liriope will survive. Some day, I will make a more creative planting of the hell strip, but I will always keep a place for another hurricane hedge.

The Ike Update

It's not that bad for us. I wasn't even around for the storm; I was in dry New Mexico. When I got back to Houston, the neighbors were having a little party by candle light and an acoustic jam in the frontyard. Shattered trees were all around, and the power was off, but it was strangely cool, mosquito-free, and good.

Now the sweetness of that first evening home is gone. The mosquito population is mighty, the mercury is rising, and the electricity is still off. Gas and ice are luxuries we try to do without. Communications are conducted by cell phones that are always nearly discharged.

All these annoyances are so minor compared to life on the coastline right now. My garden was roughed up, but not drowned in saltwater. We have fallen trees, but not fallen buildings, in our landscape. We have friends with electricity who have brought cold drinks, offered laundry and beds in air conditioned guest rooms. This is no Katrina for us and I am so thankful!

Here Comes Hurricane Edouard

Okay! All the contents of my rickety potting shed, the plants in dangly baskets, construction site junk, and other light garden accoutrement are now stacked in the brand new garage. Cars will still be outside, due to shortage of a driveway.

One more thing remains. The portable toilet brought in for the construction workers is still here. The contractor tells me that maybe it will get picked up today, maybe not. Let’s assume not, so we can find the funny side to an impending storm. Want to guess which way the toilet will fall when the winds get up to 50 miles an hour? Will it fall over on Celeste the fig tree? Will it crash into the gate or on the car parked beside it? Will the Mister and I lash the outhouse to the fence, as an unplanned way to celebrate togetherness on our anniversary?

Check back for the results, which I will post when the power is restored! Not to spoil the anticipation, but I don’t think there is anything inside for the outhouse to spew when it blows over.