Lowes here in tulsa started carrying Hapi Gro landscapers mix. Its over by the mulches. It is pretty much all pine bark fines. I have been using it straight out of the bag and adding some perlite and micro nutrient slow release. Occasionally I find a bag that has a bit more sap wood than i would like but Al says less than 10% is ok. I usually just pick it out. So far it it very comparable to the 5.1.1 i used to make and at $3.00 for 2 cubic feet I cant complain. All of my citrus and tropicals are in it now and have been doing great. When I did make the 5.1.1 I would by the pine bark mulch at lowes and sift out the sizes I need. mike

Do you recall what section of OKC it was in, like East, West, Central, South, North? There are 3 that I recall that were located in older neighborhoods. The first is Horns, on Northwest Expressay. Alas, they closed just last year, after nearly 100 years in business. The second, is Satterlee's on May Avenue, now closed as well. The closed sometime in the 2000's, but I don't recall the exact year. Another, was Warren & Sons Nursery, in Del City, Oklahoma, on NE 23rd Street. They closed in 2003, and ownership transferred to O'Higgins. Not as innovative as Warren & Sons. Mr. Warren carried a lot of rare and unusual plants. I still have a passion vine that I purchased in 2000 from the nursery. There was also one cslled Moesel's, on NW 10th Street, that is closed as well now, I believe, that carried a lot different plants not found in many local nurseries. The only ones remaining in operation now in OKC that could possibly have any interest to me are TLC (one on Memorial and one on NW Expressway), Precure (main store I shop is on NW 63rd Street and Meridian), and Marcum's on the South side. Susan

Hi again Mark, What's going on with your garden and landscaping? Here are a few highlights of my doings. On a Quartz Mountain trip of 5 years ago I pocketed a few acorns and grew a QM fusiformis. It's been slow to gain size but seemed to speed up last summer gaining some size. I bet you have not seen a mature Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens 'Stricta') for years since that bitter winter spell of December 1983 killed every last specimen. I planted my specimen from a 1 gallon container in 1990. It's been very cold hardy surviving cold low as -3*f during a spell of Feb 1996. I have started to spot Italian Cypress around town but none large as mine. They are a nice landscape tree provided we don't have another 1983 like winter event. Skyrocket Juniper is a rather poor imitation of the real thing Italian Cyperss. For years I have been dabbling with cold hardy palms. The cold hardiest palm I have found through years of experience is the Rhapidophyllum hystrix common name Needle palm. Back in the bitter cold winters of those terrible 1980's Needle Palm would withstand below zero without any damage. The specimen pictured below has really gained size over the years. The link below is a short video showing a long row of hardy sabal palms I planted 15 years ago. Just click the link and a video will play. Row Of Sabals Video Click Here

Harriet, I agree, and it was that way dating back to at least the 1980s, though it got even better in the 1990s. I do think Howard Garrett had a lot to do with that---it seems to me that there was a huge number of folks gardening organically in the D-FW metro area long before it became nearly as popular in other areas. I still prefer shopping down there, although at least many of the organic products are now found in stores only 20-30 miles from where we live, whereas in our early years here we had to drive 80-90 miles, one way, to find those same organic products. So much has improved for organic gardeners in recent years. I grew up listening to Neil Sperry and have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for him. His books are my gardening bibles dating back decades. I listened to his gardening show from when it first started, which I think may have been in the 1970s when I was still in high school. I read his columns. I remember when he was our county extension agent back even prior to the radio show. Then at some point I became aware of Howard Garrett too, probably in the 1980s, and began reading his newspaper columns/books and listening to his program on the radio too. To this day, when I mention Howard Garrett, Tim quips his tag line from the end of the radio show "and don't forget to feed the birds". Maybe that is why we feed the birds to this day. When Neil Sperry and Howard Garrett had a sort of quiet war between them on the radio waves, with each of them making pointed remarks about what "other people" recommended without saying one another's names, I knew who those barbs were aimed at, and I hated it. They both are fine people, with different philosophies, and I bet if they knew each other outside of horticulture, they'd like each other just fine. I just tried to learn from both of them and to find my own way to garden based on what I know and feel is important. I've always been 95% organic though, so even when Neil recommends synthetic products, I tend to let that part go in one ear and out the other. I used a miticide (Kelthane) once in the 1980s and Round-up a few times, and Bug-B-Gone for grasshoppers once in the 2000s. That's about the extent of my synthetic product usage in terms of miticides, herbicides and insecticides, but I do use Daconil to prevent/halt the spread of Early Blight sometimes. So, I guess I garden more Howard's way in terms of the philosophy and general practices I use, but from Neil I have learned so much about everything involved in horticulture that I appreciate---his knowlege of plants, pests and diseases is huge and vast and there's just no one like him. I still get his e-newsletter weekly and devour every word. If you've read and listened to Neil all along, you know that he is much less chemically-oriented than he once was. He was, after all, a product of what he was taught when he was in college and they all were taught the chemical way back then. I just happen to prefer Howard's natural way a lot more and it generally works well for most things. You know how when you have two friends who you get along with just fine, but they cannot stand each other? Well, that's how I felt it was with Neil and Howard, though I did not know either one personally. I just kept wishing they could get along and appreciate one another as much as I appreciated both of them. I guess that never will happen though. Dawn