By Norman Winter | Horticulturist, Author, Speaker

The National Garden Bureau has designated 2024 as the ‘Year of the Angelonia’ and I am in full celebration mode. As I was preparing for my contribution to the celebration, I was, however, sent into taxonomic trauma.

For the last 26 years of deep love for the Angelonia, or summer snapdragon, I have told everyone via newspaper, radio and television that they were in the Scrophulariaceae family. Since most gardeners don’t like those words, I modified or simplified the snapdragon family, but somebody has tinkered with green industry happiness and moved Angelonia to the Plantaginaceae or plantain family. I immediately reached out to my friend Dr. Allen Ownings, Horticulture Professor Emeritus with the Louisiana State University AgCenter. I said, “Did you know this, or better yet, did you do it?” He said, as I expected, that the Taxonomist group had done it. This reminded me that someone once said taxonomists have to eat, too.

To read more, pick up a copy of the April issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.

By Jelly Cocanougher

Brazen rumbles cut through the daylight stillness. Enamored by the grandiose symphony of the firmament, tinged in anticipation from where the light will snap next.
The clouds dance in the sky as a love letter to the electrically-charged synergy of the ground and air. It moves unashamed, reckless, and bold. It is raw power that could command attention for any being, a reminder that we are attuned to the primal opus of flora and fauna. The spirit of the prairie was awakened, the hands of a cowboy rests at the heart of it all, a symphony in combination.

By Tony Dean, [email protected]

There are a handful of mean-spirited plants that seem to have developed a liking to growing in places where they are a nuisance on North Texas grazing lands. One of those plants is definitely tasajillo. I can not count the number of gates I have had to open that required a fight with this prickly foe.

I now realize there is a plausible reason why so many fence lines and gates are home to tasajillo, being that birds eat the seeds, and then deposit them along the fences thus creating a virtual nursery for this unfriendly species.

Tasajillo is a perennial member of the cactus family and can be found in all areas of the state, but with less presence in deep East Texas. It grows as individual plants or as thicket-forming clumps. This cactus seems to be most adapted to loamy soils and is often found in association with mesquite.
To read more, pick up a copy of the March issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.