Neil Sperry Gardens

Neil Sperry was raised in College Station, where his father worked as a professor and his mother served as the head librarian. He initially started his studies at Texas A&M but later moved to The Ohio State University, where he earned both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in horticulture. Since 1970, he has become a well-known figure in Texas gardening.

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We’re talking ‘Daylilies’ here

2 days ago | neilsperry.com | Neil Sperry

Every hobby, every industry has its own special language. Even down to something as simple as the lovely daylily flower. Here are words you’re likely to encounter as you hear people talking or as you read descriptions about them. Scape – The leafless stalk that supports the flowers. Crown – The point at which the daylily plant emerges from the ground, that is, the base of the plant. Fan – The cluster of leaves growing from a single crown.
Gardening This Weekend: June 5, 2025

4 days ago | neilsperry.com | Neil Sperry

With the weather warming as June unfolds before us, here are the prime tasks to put on your list for this weekend. See which apply in your landscape and garden. PLANT• New lawns from sod or seed as soon as possible. Rising temperatures make it more difficult to keep the new plantings properly watered.
Glory Be to the Gloriosas!

1 week ago | neilsperry.com | Neil Sperry

Native Texans are familiar with Blackeyed Susans as wildflowers. Well, dress ‘em up in a new suit of leaves and give them a few touch-ups and improvements, and you have a fabulous perennial garden flower called ‘Goldsturm’ gloriosa daisy. It’s a Rudbeckia, as are all the gloriosas. I’d tried a lot of the others back 40 or 45 years ago, and they all seemed to do well for a year or two, but then they were gone. Then I saw this one growing in a planting in the Dallas Park Department.
Watch out for poison hemlock

1 week ago | neilsperry.com | Neil Sperry

My dad’s entire career at Texas A&M was spent dealing with plants that were poisonous, primarily to livestock, but also to humans. His list included bitterweed, mescal bean (Texas mountain laurel), coyotillo, African rue, and a long list of others. I’m sure he addressed poison hemlock, but I must admit that I don’t recall it.
Q&A – Ask Neil: May 22, 2025 - Neil Sperry's GARDENS

2 weeks ago | neilsperry.com | Neil Sperry

(Please read these instructions carefully.)Before you post your question, please look at recent issues to see if someone else has already asked it. You might find your answer there. May 15, 2025 Q&AMay 8, 2025 Q&AMay 1, 2025 Q&AApril 24, 2025 Q&AApril 17, 2025 Q&AHow to submit your question…(Note: You may need to allow a pop-up window to come up in order to get the link for sending your photo(s).
Oxalis brings back fond memories

2 weeks ago | neilsperry.com | Neil Sperry

I started my career in horticulture mowing yards in College Station about the time Bear Bryant left A&M for the University of Alabama. (Side note: his son and I were in the same grade and played Little League baseball together.)As I was mowing, I was always looking at landscaping, and this cheerful little perennial caught my eye every spring. And it still does. Those years were back in the late 1950s into the early ‘60s, and you almost never saw perennials sold in garden centers.
Time is here to control crape myrtle bark scale

3 weeks ago | neilsperry.com | Neil Sperry

This ugly pest has come of legal age here in the United States. First reported in Richardson, Texas, in 2004, it now has spread across the South and up the East Coast in those 21 years. Rather than write a dissertation on the insect, I’m going to put what I’ve learned in those years in bullet form to make it easier to read. Crape myrtle bark scaleScientific name:Acanthococcus lagerstroemiaFirst observed: Brought by a home gardener to Calloway’s Nursery in Richardson TX Sept. 2004.
King of the begonias

3 weeks ago | neilsperry.com | Neil Sperry

This is not the kind of plant you’d expect to come from the Himalayas. Then again, few of us has actually traveled there, so we probably didn’t know there are subtropical rainforests on the Himalayan slopes in northeastern India, China, and Vietnam. That’s where these plants call home. However, that’s a bit of a stretch, because horticulturists have had their hands in breeding these beauties for a couple of centuries.
Gardening This Weekend: May 15, 2025

3 weeks ago | neilsperry.com | Neil Sperry

We have new assignments on our close-in horizon. That’s partly due to the temperatures and partly because of the time of year. Scan through the list. PLANT• Watch nurseries for late-spring perennials. Supplies dwindle quickly, so if you see something you like, better grab it and plant it. Watch for coneflowers, cannas, mallows, daylilies, and others. Also fall-blooming perennials such as fall asters and Mexican bush sage.
Q&A – Ask Neil: May 15, 2025 - Neil Sperry's GARDENS

3 weeks ago | neilsperry.com | Neil Sperry

(Please read these instructions carefully.)Before you post your question, please look at recent issues to see if someone else has already asked it. You might find your answer there. May 8, 2025 Q&AMay 1, 2025 Q&AApril 24, 2025 Q&AApril 17, 2025 Q&AApril 10, 2025 Q&AHow to submit your question…(Note: You may need to allow a pop-up window to come up in order to get the link for sending your photo(s).