Not everything is a instant success in gardening. 

These are the pear trees that got the disease I mentioned in the former post. These three I may have saved. The ones in the past I didn't manage to save. I cut every single leaf and sadly most branches off these trees dipping my shears in bleach water after each and every cut.  Making sure all leaves and branches were in the get rid of bag! Not for the compost pile. One of the three trees had little more than the main trunk left by the time I got all the infected areas off it.  There was not a leaf left on any tree.  I treated the trees with a organic fungus spray, did it help well I guess I can honestly say it didn't hurt them :O). As you can see they are all putting out new leaves. They were so much bigger and had a lot of limbs. It will be a bit of a road back for them but with luck they will  continue to do good.  :O)

This next photo which is hard to see the trees but its two mulberry trees. They were doing super and then the one on the right all of a sudden said nope I am not happy and promptly began to die or so I thought. The leaves fell off it and I saw no signs of life but the tree seemed to stay pliable which gave me hope... I was just about ready to give up on it even though the tree was still pliable when what did I see.....

 I saw it was in fact not dead! It is coming back out at the base of the tree.  I had kept watering it and even gave it some miracle grow a couple times in hopes of getting it to come back.. Guess it worked! These were little mail order sticks when I got them. The one on the left in the above photo is doing pretty good actually.  so with luck this one that is coming back will live and grow! It takes two mulberry trees to get berries so I hope it lives or I will need to get another one!

I put in some Kiowa blackberries last year, oh ya in what turned out to be the dreaded year of the drought and heat wave of all time for Texas... I lost several things last year, heck Texas lost hundreds of thousands of huge established trees due to that drought and heat last year... however my Kiowa blackberries made it and not only did they make it, they did so without pampering and lots of water! In my book that makes them about the best Blackberry around :O) or one of for sure... So this year they really took off growing and I have got a few blackberries off them.. Kiowa blackberries are known as the biggest blackberry, berry wise that is. They say they can grow berries as big as the palm of your hand. Now folks I grew up in Arkansas the blackberry state. They grew wild there. I am talking nice blackberries not these itty bitty runty little things that grow on the ground in Texas that pass for blackberries here :O)... don't get me wrong if you have the patience to pick a million of them you can make jelly or syrup with these here in Texas :O). But are they what I grew up with, nope.

 Well neither are these Kiowa blackberries LOL... the description of these babies is not just hype.. Look at these berries and these are off of not fully mature plants! I have picked several just like these guys! Huge berries and they taste great!

So I am thinking boy these are great berries. I should put in more, right! So I look up how to propagate blackberries and find out that soft cuttings off new growth dipped in hormone growth powder will work great for this .. I just happened to have a lot of new growth on my berry plants right now... so  lets hope these babies all take root! I will let you know :O).

You guys remember the triplets Lola h ad... Sunny , Gary and Skittles the itty bitty tiny kid. Well he has grown, umm not as much as his siblings but he has grown  :O).  He is standing next to his sister Sunny in the first picture ... He is a sweetheart. He loves to be petted and picked up and held.  All of Lola's kids are pretty calm and friendly but Skittles is a real cuddle bug. 

Then because I don't have enough to water or keep up with, I decided I would surely like some more of the dark purple Crape Myrtles I have two of. They are so pretty and you don't see that color a lot in the nurseries. So ya I got to looking up how to propagate those as well from cutting. Now I am not entirely sure I did this right or this will work. I was a bit unclear on exactly what type cutting/wood they meant but I figured well soft wood new growth for the blackberries so maybe that would work on these as well. I had some new shoots at the base of my big ones and so  took some cuttings, dipped them in hormone root powder and stuck them in some pots! Ditto on the I will let ya know if this worked.