Gardening in Texas has been a real challenge!  We moved here from Louisiana, where I gardened for shade and acidic soils.  Here, I garden for full sun and alkaline soils!  It has been like starting all over again.  But I love the sun loving plants, and have learned that going with proven native species is the best route.  These plants are well adapted to the heavy clay soils, and deal with the extremes in temperature changes pretty well.  The soil is a "black land prairie" clay.  It is highly colloidal, and you have to be careful when making any amendments.  The only soil amendments I use are organic matter, hardwood mulches and home made composts from the farm animal manures.
   I grow a variety of cooking and tea herbs in both flower beds and in pot gardens on the back patio.  Some of the smaller pots are moved into the greenhouse during the coldest parts of the winter.  I use the greenhouse for starting my vegetable seeds early, and transplant them to the flower beds in the spring, when the chance of a frost is minimal.  Usually this is after Easter.  Vegetable crops that have done well for us are tomatoes, peppers of all sorts, eggplant, okra, green beans, squash, onions, garlic, various winter greens, and a variety of melons.  One of our best producers is the Texas Sweet variety of  onions.
   I love rose gardening the best.  I have many different varieties.  My favorites are the antiques, and a few of the more modern floribundas and grandifloras.  Miniature roses are fun to grow also.  I have some hybrid teas for my cutting garden.  Still, nothing beats the scent of some of the old antique garden roses.  If it doesn't have a strong scent, then it doesn't go in my garden!  A rose has to smell like a rose.   I fertilize my roses twice a year using Rose Glo, an organic fertilizer, and a shovel full of compost, called Back to Earth.  I fertilize in the early spring just after pruning, which I do on February 21, and again in the early fall, for that last fall flush of blooms.  For black spot, I use just baking soda and water.  Click on the link below and you can take a tour of a few of my roses..