DAILY NZ P A G E 1E COLOR P U B D A T E 06-17-06 O P E R A T O R RREINHARD D A T E // T I M E :

Spaces
State

State
SAN ANTONIO
EXPRESS-NEWS
Windows and an open floor plan
SATURDAY give a home a light, airy feel
JUNE 17, 2006 PAGE 10E
SECTION E

Midnight
turns cubs
into grizzlies
Midnight has always held a certain
mystique. It is the forbidden fruit of
the life clock. From fairy tales to
monster movies, it is the bewitching
hour when things happen. Interesting
things. Carriages turn back into
pumpkins, mild mannered men
sprout hair as they transform into
werewolves and the streets turn to
PHOTOS BY WILLIAM LUTHER/STAFF
orgies of violence and mayhem while
the rivers run red with blood. Well,
that is what I always
imagined. As you get
older, midnight is
just the opposite of
noon. When you are
awake to see mid-
night in your 40s, it
just means you will
be tired tomorrow.
Ah, but midnight
for the young is awe-
some. It begins as the
MICHAEL goal of all adolescent
sleepovers. The plan
BY TRACY HOBSON LEHMANN
EXPRESS-NEWS HOME & GARDEN EDITOR
O’ROURKE includes movies, pop-
corn, sleeping bags
and staying up until

L
ike everyone these days, midnight. It is a mini
John Kight is looking for New Year’s Eve in footie pajamas.
rain. Like the rest of us, he As one enters her teens, midnight
wants relief from the miser- at home becomes rather pedestrian.
able heat and drought. The true thrill of midnight is being
But Kight has another interest, out and about among the creatures of
perhaps a more significant one: He the night. Besides the usual theme
made a vow to his wife. park visits and middle-of-the-night
“He promised me I would always trips to Wal-Mart, my daughters and
have water,” says Mary Evelyn Kight. I haven’t done a lot of midnight out-
Unlike most folks, the Kights rely ings. That is what made last week-
solely on rain for their water needs. end so special. I decided to take the
Every drop of water for drinking, girls to a midnight movie. But our
cooking, bathing, cleaning and lawn first midnight movie wasn’t just a
irrigation at trip to the safe and sound theaters of
their house San Antonio. I decided to take them
Water use north of to a theater on Hollywood Boulevard
A three-person Boerne in Hollywood, Calif. At midnight. If
household would use comes via you are going to be a bear, be a griz-
about 99 gallons of the clouds. zly.
water a day indoors And even Knowing we would be in California
and 45 outdoors. The with the when the Disney/Pixar movie “Cars”
daily rundown and dry spell opened, I sort of promised the girls
the household total: that’s lin- we would see it at the El Capitan
Faucets: 5 minutes gered since Theater in Hollywood. I sort of prom-
per person, 1.5 gal- December ised we could go opening day. I sort
lons a minute. Total: 2004, the of do things like that without think-
22.5 gallons. Kights ing it through. I didn’t think about it
Showers: 5 minutes aren’t con- being sold out. Sold out it was.
per person, 2 gallons cerned El Capitan Theater was the jewel
a minute. Total: 30 about being of Hollywood Boulevard back when it
gallons. parched. opened on May 3, 1926, as “Holly-
Toilets: 6 flushes per The big wood’s First Home of Spoken
person, 2 gallons per green tanks Drama.” Clark Gable and Joan Fon-
flush. Total: 36 gal- out back taine appeared in plays there. In
lons. still hold 1941, Orson Welles premiered “Citi-
about 21,000 zen Kane” there. The theater, as well
Washing machine: 3
loads per week, 16 gallons of as the boulevard, is steeped in his-
gallons per load. To- water, tory.
tal: 48 gallons a roughly Hollywood Boulevard has a reputa-
week. (That’s based two-thirds tion for being interesting. Despite
on a front-loading of the Disney’s presence and the Kodak
washing machine; 30,000-gallon Theater’s arrival, it still has a
top-loading machines capacity, “Pretty Woman” aspect to it. But a
use about 40 gallons captured promise is a promise. Since every
per load.) from roof- showing of “Cars” was sold out ex-
Dishwasher: 4 loads top runoff. cept the midnight showing, I bought
per week, 8 gallons Even with-
per load. Total: 32 out a drop See O’ROURKE/4E
gallons a week. of rain,
Source: John Kight Kight fig-
ures that
amount
would keep the faucets flowing for
the better part of a year without any GOOD TO G R OW
lawn watering.
“With 2 to 3 inches of rain, we’ll be
full again,” he says.

See RAINFALL/12E
A glass of water from John Kight’s 30,000-gallon rainwater-collection system is crystal clear. In the top
photo, Kight stands next to one of the tanks that store the water at the home near Boerne he shares
with his wife, Mary Evelyn. John Kight designed the system.

Ikebana students look at spaces as well as stems LADY BIRD JOHNSON WILDFLOWER CENTER

Japanese-style arrangements, as taught in museum

class, stress natural, seasonal materials. Zexmenia
(Wedelia hispida)
D Tough times call for tough plants,
BY MARY HEIDBRINK Student Alicia Leff learned and zexmenia proves it’s a survivor by
blooming in the current blistering con-
EXPRESS-NEWS STAFF WRITER about Japanese culture from her
ditions.
parents, who fell in love with it The evergreen perennial produces

T
he Japanese word for it
is moribana. Directly
translated, it means
heap of flowers. That’s
not a very poetic way to
describe artful flower arrange-
ments that emphasize the spaces
between the stems as much as the
materials used.
As Don Olsen teaches about mo-
ribana and other forms of ikebana,
the Japanese art of flower arrang-
ing, he weaves in lessons in the
language. The spiked floral frog
that holds the stems is a kenzan,
meaning “sword mountain.” He
prefers the Japanese term to the
less-graceful English names.
while living in California. When
Leff’s mother died 18 years ago,
she left a box of ikebana supplies.
Her mother would talk about the
Japanese genius for revealing
beauty and simplicity, discussions
that stayed with Leff. “I have al-
ways wanted to do this very specif-
ic thing,” she says.
On a recent Saturday, Leff at-
tended her first ikebana class
along with 16 other students at the
San Antonio Museum of Art.
Three more classes will be offered
— June 24 and July 8 and 22 —
and will cover a variety of ar-
See ARRANGEMENTS/5E
yellow daisylike flowers that measure
about an inch across. In full sun, the
plant grows upright and takes the form
of a small shrub. With some shade, it
tends to stretch and sprawl as a ground
cover.
Foliage has a rough texture and can
irritate the skin.
■ Light: Sun to part sun.
■ Size: 2 to 3 feet tall; 2 feet wide.
■ Water: Drought tolerant.
■ Bloom: May through October.
■ Cultivation: Shear the plant back in
BILLY CALZADA/STAFF
midsummer to keep it in good form.
Heather Snow carefully trims the cedar elm branches in an arrangement Needs good drainage but adapts to a
she’s making during an ikebana class taught by Don Olsen at the San An- variety of soils.
tonio Museum of Art.

DAILY NZ P A G E 1E COLOR P U B D A T E 06-17-06 O P E R A T O R RREINHARD D A T E // T I M E :

 DAILY NZ P A G E 12E C O L O R
12E
State
Rainfall collectors have good water, and lots of it
CONTINUED FROM 1E
Kight, 71, designed and in-
stalled the rainwater collection
system for the hilltop home he
and Mary Evelyn moved into in
August 2002. They lived in the
finished-out garage for a year as
their 3,500-square-foot house was
being built. All the while, they’ve
relied on rain, with no backup
water supply.
In planning the system, the re-
tired engineer pored over climate
data and studied his household
water use. His meticulous re-
cords show daily water use in-
doors of a fairly steady 70 gallons
per day. Factor in last year’s land-
scape watering, and the number
more than doubles to an annual-
ized average of 146 gallons a day.
Kight looked at annual rainfall
in Boerne, which averages about
36 inches a year, and at the
drought of record — in the 1950s
— in which there was no rain for
100 days. From his standing-seam
metal roof, which covers 6,400
square feet, he can collect 4,000
gallons of water from every inch
of rain. Crunching all those num-
bers, and padding the days with-
out rain to 120, he arrived at the
30,000-gallon storage capacity.
“I always want to be a little bit
conservative,” he says. Now he’s
adding three 1,550-gallon tanks
because, he says, Mary Evelyn
sees water being lost in heavy
rains.
Like the Kights, more people in
the Hill Country are going back
to the water-supply systems of
our forefathers. Weighing the cost
— and risk — of drilling a well
against the cost of a rainwater-
harvesting system was a factor
for Kight.
“The aquifers in the Hill Coun-
try definitely have sweet spots,
but there’s a risk of not getting
water,” says Chris Brown, a San
Antonio-based water conserva-
tion consultant and principal co-
author of the third edition of the
“Texas Manual on Rainwater
Harvesting,” a publication of the
Texas Water Development Board.
Unlike previous versions of the
manual, which focused mainly
on using rainwater collection for
landscape watering, the updated
manual, released in spring 2005,
devotes more attention to captur-
ing potable water.
Brown estimates the cost of a
whole-house rainwater collection
system around $15,000, in line
with what Kight spent on his sys-
tem. Prices vary according to the
size and material of the cisterns.
At Bohnert Lumber Co. in
Comfort, a 2,500-gallon polypropy-
lene tank costs $800, says Steve
Bohnert. Eight of the tanks would
collect 20,000 gallons of water at
$6,400. “A well is going to cost
you three times that amount
now,” Bohnert says. Wood and
metal tanks cost more, but Bohn-
ert says he has seen homeowners
disguise poly tanks by wrapping
them with cedar stays or galvan-
ized metal.
Polyethylene tanks that hold
3,000 gallons cost $1,000 each at
Golden Eagle Landscape in In-
gram, a company that sells equip-
ment and installs rainwater-har-
vesting systems. The biggest cost
variable in installation is in
building a pad for the tanks, says
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DAILY NZ P A G E 12E C O L O R
landscape designer Katherine
Crawford. Digging into a hillside,
building a retaining wall and
backfilling it will drive up the
cost, she notes.
Required filters don’t add sig-
nificantly to the cost, but home-
owners do need to have sufficient
rooftop areas, gutters and down-
spouts. Some rainwater harves-
ters elect to build “rain barns,”
shedlike structures that conceal
tanks and provide collection area
for rain runoff.
When Sandy and Raúl Peña ex-
plored water options for their
property near Center Point nine
years ago, they got a $12,000 esti-
mate for a well. Like the Kights,
they opted for rainwater collec-
tion and have installed four 3,000-
gallon cisterns in the basement of
the home they are building.
“It makes so much sense to use
the rain,” says Sandy Peña. “It’s
free, and we’re not punching an-
other hole in the aquifer.” The Pe-
ñas’ tanks filled to their 12,000-gal-
lon capacity with 10 inches of
rain more than a year ago, and
the Peñas have used only small
amounts of the water in mixing
mortar for the house. Now, they
rely on tanks that capture 6,500
gallons of water from their work-
210.342.0901
P U B D A T E 06-17-06 O P E R A T O R PDAVID D A T E // T I M E :
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 2006 / * * * /
D
State
RESOURCES
SEMINAR AND TOUR
What: John Kight will discuss
rainwater collection in a seminar
sponsored by Cibolo Nature
Center. Participants can see
Kight’s system firsthand.
When: 9 a.m.-noon June 24.
Where: Meet at Cibolo Nature
Center parking lot, 140 City Park
Road, off Texas 46 East, Boerne.
Car-pool to Kight residence.
Cost: Members, $15; couples $20.
Nonmembers, $20, couples $25.
Reservations: Limited to 30
people. Call (830) 249-4616.
ON THE WEB
American Rainwater Catchment
Systems Association
www.arcsa-usa.org
Group founded in Austin in 1994
to promote rainwater catchment
in the U.S. Site includes links to
suppliers of materials for
rainwater collection systems.
PHOTOS BY WILLIAM LUTHER/STAFF
Texas Water Development Board
ABOVE: Raúl and ing as you’re going to get,” says www.twdb.state.tx.us
Sandy Peña are al- John Kight.
most dwarfed by In each of the systems, water
Download the agency’s 88-page
the tanks that hold from gutters passes first through handbook that covers system
the rainwater they a roof washer that filters out dust, configuration, water quality and
collect at their leaves, blooms and bird drop- treatment. Web site features a
western Kerr pings. Kight uses a sock filter calculator to help property
County home. Their made of double-weave shade cloth owners design a system.
system, like the primarily to catch oak blooms.
Kights’, provides all “You do not want organic mate- Texas Cooperative Extension
their water. rial in the storage tanks,” he says. http://rainwaterharvesting.
LEFT: John Kight “It sours the water.” From the cis- tamu.edu
shows the UV filter terns, the Kights’ potable water Site explains the development of
(at right) that de- goes through a series of three fil- a system to collect rainwater for
stroys bacteria in ters. A 5-micron cloth filter irrigating the landscape.
the collected water, catches the first particles, then
which is well-fil- the water passes through a 3-mi- The Kights have a front-loading
tered first. cron charcoal filter. “Remember, a washer, which uses about 16 gal-
hair is 30 microns,” Kight notes. lons per load compared with
From there, it goes through a more than 40 gallons for a stan-
UV filter to zap any bacteria. dard top-loading model. Still,
The result is crystal-clear water notes Mary Evelyn Kight with a
that doesn’t leave sediment on fix- smile, “he lets me take one long
tures — all thanks to the rain. shower a week.”
shop and the 12-by-16-foot cabin ter-collection systems they use. “All you have to do is collect They also used drought-tolerant
they live in. “When friends come over, the enough water in rainy times to Sahara Bermuda grass in their
Both the Peñas and the Kights first thing they want to do is have get you through about three landscape and put down about 8
note the high quality of their wa- a drink of our water,” she says. months without rain,” Sandy inches of topsoil over the solid
ter. Mary Evelyn Kight says they Peña says. “We have a year’s sup- rock so the grass could establish
“By the time we actually drink didn’t use water from their sys- ply of water.” a deeper root system. Mary Eve-
our water, it’s almost the quality tem until it was analyzed in Kerr- Brown notes a weather adage lyn Kight irrigates only the small
of water used for kidney dialy- ville. Now, John Kight refers to that applies to the Hill Country: front yard, and only when it’s
sis,” says Sandy Peña, who re- records from twice-a-year testing. “Our climate can be adequately stressed. The grass is deep green
signed from her job as adminis- The water is soft — but a differ- described as drought punctuated in the front, and she’s run the
trator of the department of hu- ent soft, because soap rinses off by flood.” He adds, “Rain may sprinklers only twice this year.
man and molecular genetics at easily, the Kights note — and it come infrequently in Central She will water more frequently —
Baylor College of Medicine in measures 5 on total dissolved sol- Texas, but it does come.” and take two long showers a week
Houston when she and her hus- ids. Environmental Protection Still, rainwater harvesters such — when the new tanks are filled.
band moved to western Kerr Agency standards cap total dis- as the Peñas and Kights must use And her husband is keeping
County in 1996. Raúl Peña retired solved solids at 1,000 in public wa- water frugally. his promise of a lasting water
as a software developer for Shell ter supplies. “If you’re going to use rainwa- supply.
Oil and has designed the rainwa- “That’s about as close to noth- ter, you have to buy into the con-
servation lifestyle,” says Brown. tlehmann@express-news.net
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P U B D A T E 06-17-06 O P E R A T O R PDAVID D A T E // T I M E :
 DAILY NZ P A G E 1E COLOR P U B D A T E 05-21-05 O P E R A T O R RREINHARD D A T E // T I M E :

SAN ANTONIO Spaces

EXPRESS-NEWS
A couple collected
SATURDAY
Texas-anything and everything
MAY 21, 2005 to decorate their home
SECTION E PAGE 10E

In praise
of normal
August
1976 was the summer of the
bicentennial, the “Summer of
Sam” and the summer I got
screwed on my summer vaca-
tion. Almost 30 years later I’m
still bitter.
“What do you mean school
starts in mid-August?” I can still
hear myself asking. Moving to
Texas from California that sum-
mer was traumatic enough on
my 12-year-old psyche, but the
loss of cherished summer vaca-
tion seemed al-
most too much
to bear. August?
August is still
summer every-
where else.
Why isn’t Au-
gust summer
here?
It is a ques-
tion that has
bothered me
MICHAEL ever since. Kids
getting on
O’ROURKE school buses in
100 degree heat
is abusive.
When you see
Jerry Lewis on television for 24
hours straight you should be
preparing for school to start, not
already burned out by it.
Lo and behold, on the 30th an-
niversary of my worst summer
ever, injustice may finally be
righted. It looks like a bill
poised to become a law will re-
quire Texas schools to begin on
the Tuesday after Labor Day
and end by June 7th.
Yes!
The new, normal school year
has people deeply divided. The
pro-normal people say it will
save money on electricity, help
tourism and give families more
summer time together. The anti-
normal (pro-abnormal) people
claim the longer summer takes
away local control, will force old-
er students to take finals after
Christmas break and may im-
pede TAKS test preparedness. (It
always comes down to the TAKS
test doesn’t it?)
Bottom line: Students will still
have to go to school for 180 days
and they will still spend a dis-
A birthday crop
proportionate amount of their
lives preparing for the TAKS
test. They will lose a few days of
of abundant beauty
schooltime breaks, but that is
worth a longer summer.
What will be different is Years, like shears, shape a garden.

See O’ROURKE/4E Weeks introduce fresh buds, new leaves.

Months coax roots to settle into the soil.
Seasons instill maturity and character.
Decades plant delights.
G OOD TO Time is Mother Nature’s tool.
G ROW As the San Antonio Botanical Garden
celebrates its 25th anniversary, we explore
delights that have sprung up in a quarter-
century of growing and evolving. The 33-acre
center yields a bountiful crop of surprises.
Turn to Page 12E for the 25 we plucked.

STORY BY TRACY HOBSON LEHMANN

P H O T O S B Y L I S A K R A N T Z A N D H E L E N L . M O N T O YA

TRACY HOBSON LEHMANN

Prickly pear
(Optunia spp.)
With potentially vicious spines,
prickly pears aren’t invited into
too many residential landscapes.
But the sunny yellow blossoms
dotting the cactus pads in pas-
tures this time of year make the
plant tempting. Just opt for a
spineless variety unless you are
using the plant as part of your se-
curity system.
In 1995, Texas lawmakers
named prickly pear the state
plant, making the Lone Star State
the only state with an official
plant.
The light green color of the
pads and their sculptural shape
make the plant an asset in the
garden.
■ Light: Sun.
■ Size: 2 to 5 feet tall; 4 to 6 feet
wide.
■ Water: Drought tolerant.
■ Bloom: Spring.
■ Cultivation: Needs good drain-
age.

DAILY NZ P A G E 1E COLOR P U B D A T E 05-21-05 O P E R A T O R RREINHARD D A T E // T I M E :

 DAILY NZ
12E
Digging up delights
In a garden, any day can be a
surprise party. Look closely
among the leaves, along the
paths and little quirks reveal
themselves.
In honor of the 25th anniver-
sary of the San Antonio Botanical
Garden, we poked around the 33
acres and harvested a delight for
each year. Horticulturist Paul Cox,
who’s been at the garden from
the construction phase and is
now the top guy there, and Can-
dace Andrews, managing director
of the San Antonio Botanical So-
ciety, shared insights in the
search.
Here’s what we found, starting
at the entrance and circling
through the grounds counter-
clockwise.
Sullivan Carriage
1
House
Designed by archi-
tect Alfred Giles and
built in 1896, the car-
riage house was
moved stone by stone to the gar-
dens in 1987. Now, visitors enter
through the former coach house
and stables. Guests can dine in
the former horse stalls of the Car-
riage House Kitchen.
Pot man
The terra cotta
2 guy’s ready for sum-
mer in his flip-flops,
but don’t be surprised
to see him decked
out for football season or show-
ing Spurs spirit.
Wisteria arbor
Perfect for ‘I do’s,’
3 especially when it’s
dripping with fragrant
purple blooms in
spring.
Hoja santa
Amid the many tex-
4 tures and scents of the
Garden for the Blind is
the hoja santa. Tear
off a bit of a large
heart-shaped leaf and take a
whiff of the root beer fragrance.
Free pass
The San Antonio
5 Garden Center picks
up the admission tab
for blind guests.
Turtle rock
The stone turtle,
6 really a cluster of
stones, looks as if he’s
climbing out of the
pond in Kumamoto
En.
Ants in the plants
Tucked among the
7 exotic plants in the Ex-
hibition Room of the
conservatory are
plants that play host
to ants, some of them quite ag-
gressive defenders of the flora.
Don’t worry. Only the plants are
on display.
Cake, music to mark Botanical Garden’s birthday
A birthday bash spread over
two days and more than 30 acres
is quite a party. And Viva Botan-
ica is quite a party.
The festival this year marks
the 25th anniversary of the San
Antonio Botanical Garden. Yes,
Celebrating our 90 th year
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DAILY NZ
P A G E 12E COLOR
ON THE COVER
Clockwise from top right:
Turtle rock in Kumamoto En Gar-
den; cupola on the Sullivan Car-
riage House; kapok tree in the
Lucile Halsell Conservatory; a mal-
low hibiscus; the seed of the coco
de mer, aka monkey butt; a jas-
mine-shrouded arbor shades the
entrance to a cottage on Water-
saver Lane; fence bordering the
Japanese garden.
Alien flora
With its long strap-
8 like leaves, the Wel-
witschia in the Helen
Kleberg Desert Pavil-
ion looks like some-
thing from another planet. The
plant, native to the Namib Des-
ert, baffles even the botanists
who try to classify it.
Giant seed
It doesn’t take an
9 adolescent to see the
monkey butt in the gi-
ant seed in the Palm
and Cycad House, but
kids do love the spectacle. From
the 25-pound seed sprouts a coco
de mer.
Bird’s eye view
Follow the winding
10 path through the
palm house to a cat-
walk that gives a peek
at the treetops. The
idea for the walkway came from
the botanic garden conservatory
in Paris.
King of the jungle
The 8-foot-long
11 fronds on the angiop-
teris — or king fern —
make it hard to miss.
And it’s still growing.
This Australia native is primitive
among primitive ferns.
Right stuffing
The spiny trunk on
12 the kapok tree in the
conservatory courtyard
conceals the plant’s
softer side. Kapok
seeds yield cottonlike fiber that is
used to stuff everything from pil-
lows to life vests.
High point
The overlook, the
13 highest point inside
Loop 410, offers beau-
tiful panoramas of the
city.
Water works
14
Remnants of George
Brackenridge’s water
supply system from
the late 1800s remain
on the hill. The wall of
the former holding tank now
borders the amphitheater.
Little sprouts
Youngsters spend
15 Saturday mornings
tending vegetable
plots under the tutel-
age of experienced
gardeners. A bonus: They eat
their veggies.
16
Going
batty
For-
merly on
top of
the hill,
the ga-
zebo is patterned after a bat
house because the city used to be
an epicenter of the bat popula-
tion.
there will be cake for the silver
anniversary.
The celebration runs from
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and
Sunday at the garden, 555 Fun-
ston Place.
Admission costs $8 for adults,
Month
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See store for details. Expires 5/31/05
Mon.-Fri. 10-7 pm
Sat. 10-5pm Sun 1-5
CERAMIC
TILE Laminate
Natural
Stone
P A G E 12E COLOR
P U B D A T E 05-21-05
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
The Lucile Halsell Conservatory soars above the Botanical Garden.
Ducky
The fowl at the East
17 Texas Lake appreciate
handouts. Birders ap-
preciate the variety of
waterfowl and other birds
throughout the gardens.
Sit a spell
The inviting porch
18 on the East Texas Log
Cabin overlooks the
lake.
Madrone
A lone madrone
19 survived floods in
1987 that claimed
ing to bloom.
others. The hardy na-
tive specimen is start-
Schumacher House
The recently refur-
20 bished cottage, origi-
nally built in Freder-
icksburg in 1849,
shows the evolution
of German building styles.
Mini ’scapes
A stroll down Wa-
21 tersaver Lane gives a
glimpse at a half-doz-
en landscape styles
that illustrate the di-
verse possibilities with plants
suited to the area. Take a close
look at the recycled glass walk-
way in the cottage garden. What
sparkle.
22
Making
magic
Toiling be-
hind the
scenes in
greenhouses and trial gardens is
Ying Doon Moy, the brilliant re-
search horticulturist behind a
number of papayas, gingers, roses
and hibiscuses bred for South
Texas.
$4 for children ages 3 to 13.
Gardeners will find a variety
of plants for sale, including
herbs, orchids, day lilies, cac-
tuses, bonsai and drought-toler-
ant varieties.
Bands will offer a variety of
Cris’s BAREWOOD
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P U B D A T E 05-21-05
O P E R A T O R DHILDEBR D A T E // TIME:
SATURDAY, MAY 21, 2005 / * * * /
D
A C C EN T ON HOME
MIKE HASKEY/COLUMBUS LEDGER-ENQUIRER
There’s a trick to finding the best placement for art collections, as
Geri Davis (left) and Jennifer Campbell of Columbus, Ga., know.
Tips keep collections
from looking cluttered
BY MARY BETH BRECKENRIDGE making a trial grouping on the
wall using photocopies of the
KNIGHT RIDDER
Displaying a collection of fam-
pictures in their frames and at-
taching them with low-tack
ily photographs on your walls painter’s tape. It’s helpful to
honors your heritage while add- mark off a perimeter as a guide
ing warmth to your home. and to treat the entire arrange-
However, what’s intended as ment as one large piece of art,
an infusion of personality can she said.
end up a mess if it’s not ar- Aim for overall symmetry, she
ranged artfully, said Karen
Thompson, a design expert with
Home Depot.
advised, but remember that a
little asymmetry adds interest.
Try to keep the distance be-
The first step to an effective tween frames relatively consis-
arrangement is choosing a spot tent and the pictures no more
where the photos won’t be sub- than a few inches apart.
jected to damage. Avoid direct Make sure the arrangement is
sunlight, heat sources and areas at or near the eye level from
with high humidity, such as which it will be viewed most of
bathrooms, Thompson said.
Next, choose frames and mats
that will enhance the photos
the time. Artwork should be
hung lower in an area such as a
dining room where people usu-
and make the collection cohe- ally are seated, and higher in an
sive. Thompson recommended
sticking with a limited selection
of similar frames, especially if
area such as a hallway where
they’re usually standing.
When you’re satisfied with
you’re displaying both color and the arrangement, mark the wall
black-and-white photos. If you
can’t afford new frames, paint
at the middle of the top edge of
the photocopies while they’re
old ones to make them coordi-
nate. She also recommended us-
still on the wall. Measure the
distance between the top of the
Bubbling over
The symbol-stuffed
ing wide mats in a neutral
cream color.
Now comes the creative part:
frame and the hanging mecha-
nism, either a hook or taut
wire. Hang the pictures securely
23 fountain in the Sa-
cred Garden is carved
arranging. Thompson suggested using appropriate hardware.
from the same Oaxa-
can granite as the
head of the plaza fountain and
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When a stonemason
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— Tracy Hobson Lehmann
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O P E R A T O R DHILDEBR D A T E // TIME:
 SAN ANTONIO
EXPRESS-NEWS
SATURDAY
OCTOBER 20, 2007
SECTION E
Radio is
the most
personal
medium
For some of you, it might be
Ricci Ware, Judd Ashmore or
Bruce Hathaway. For others it
might have been Randy Car-
roll, Drex or Rio & Reyes. For
my little brother, it was Win-
ston & Alyce. For my little sis-
ter, it was Sonny Melendrez.
For my daughter it is Dave E.
Rios. For me, I can’t tell you
how many
tardy slips I re-
ceived in high
school because
I stayed in my
car to see what
John Lisle and
Steve Hahn
were going to
say next.
We all have
that one radio
MICHAEL
personality we
identify with
O’ROURKE most. Some of
us have more
than one. We
feel like we
know them personally because
they are the first voices we
hear when the clock-radio
alarm goes off. We feel like we
know them because their
voices fill the kitchen, emanat-
ing from the tiny pocket radio
that sits on the windowsill, as
we eat breakfast and pack a
lunch. They are already in the
car when you turn the key to
accompany you to work with
“traffic and weather together
on the (insert single digit
here).”
When they are hitting it out
of the park and firing on all
cylinders they are the voices
that keep you in your car a
few extra minutes before go-
ing into school or work. You
can tell when someone is
spending some quality time
with his or her radio friends.
The seatbelt is off, the back-
pack, briefcase or purse is in
the lap and the right hand on
the key about to shut off the
engine. But he can’t. The lis-
tener is waiting until what-
ever is transpiring on the ra-
dio completes. He is waiting
for the revelation, waiting for
the punch line or waiting for
the answer to the trivia ques-
tion he just knows he should
have known and will slap his
forehead when he hears it.
When I worked in radio, I
tried to explain that to man-
agement. The “about-to-turn-
the-key-but-can’t” moment is
what all personality radio
should strive for. Management
doesn’t get it. Of all the media
in which I have worked, radio
management remains the most
clueless about the product it
produces. Managers don’t un-
derstand their listeners, they
don’t understand their on-air
personalities and they don’t
understand the emotion of ra-
dio. There is a reason most
station managers come from
the sales department.
I love radio. The same could
be said for every San Antonio
radio guy mentioned above.
The reason the names reso-
nate in our collective souls is
because they are the tops of
their game. They “get” radio.
They “get” their listeners.
With all the advances in
See O’ROURKE/11E
MYSA.COM
Green, with envy?
South Texas gardeners
practice their hobby under
difficult conditions: the
weather’s either too dry or
too wet; the heat takes its
toll, then freezes come.
And there’s the soil or lack
thereof.
Those folks with four
distinct seasons and rich soil
have it made.
This week’s question:
If you could garden
anywhere else, where
would it be?
Keyword: Gardening
Spaces
Mementos gathered from a life
abroad fit perfectly
in a Mahncke Park home
PAGE 10E
A guide
to living
greener
‘Worldchanging’ has
tips, innovations for
eco-friendly choices.
D
BY CLAIRE WHITCOMB
UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
I
t’s a brave green world
out there. Every day,
someone is inventing
something for the home.
Like showers that recy-
TOSS IT IN cle the water you use, the
brainchild of a London design
GREEN (NITROGEN) student.
■ Vegetable and fruit peelings and Or Herman Miller’s uphol-
scraps stered Mirra desk chair, which
■ Coffee grounds is chic, ergonomic and 96 per-
■ Tea bags cent recyclable.
■ Fresh-cut grass
■ Plant cuttings
What some Or Vetrazzo’s eco-counter-
tops, made with ceramic aggre-
■ Egg shells might see as gate and recycled glass.
This sort of good news, along
■ Horse or chicken
manure a rotting with global innovations and a
sprinkling of very solid eco-
BROWN (CARBON)
■ Leaves
■ Twigs, wood chips
trash pile, tips, has been gathered into
“Worldchanging: A User’s
■ Dried grass gardeners Guide for the 21st Century”
(Abrams, $37.50). Edited by
■ Straw, hay
■ Stale bread
view as a Alex Steffen, co-founder of the
Web site WorldChanging.com,
■ Coffee filters
heap of trea- BUILD IT the book is billed as a “Whole
CUT IT UP LAYER Earth Catalog” for a new gen-
Chop or shred larger items such as
corn cobs, melon rinds, leaves and
sure. Refuse ■ Alternate layers of brown and green
materials.
eration.
Indeed it is. With a preface
sticks.
LEAVE IT OUT
from the ■ Keep the ratio at 2 parts brown to 1
part green.
by Al Gore, “Worldchanging”
is quirky, fun and full of sur-
■ Fats or oils
■ Meat, fish, bones
kitchen and ■ Water each layer to keep the pile con-
sistently moist.
prises, even for seasoned eco-
readers.
■ Pet waste (dog, cat, pig, reptile) lawn holds ■ Toss in a couple of scoops of compost
or soil to jump-start the microbes.
Flip through and you can
learn how to make iPod speak-
■ Ashes
■ Weeds that have gone to seed riches for the STIR
Mix with a pitchfork or compost turner
ers out of Altoid tins. You’ll
also be reminded that dim-
■ Diseased plants
soil. So pile to add air to the pile and speed the pro-
cess.
mers, automatic timers and
motion-detection sensors are
USE IT it up, WATER
■ Compost should feel like a wrung-out
among the top five things you
can do to conserve energy.
Compost can be finished in as little
as six weeks if the pile is turned fre- let it break sponge: damp, not drippy, not dry. “Worldchanging” introduces
you to permeable pavement
quently and the mix of ingredients is
ideal. Typically it takes about six down, then TROUBLESHOOTING that allows plants and grass to
grow through it. And it re-
months to ‘cook.’ Where to apply?
AROUND SHRUBS, TREES dig in. The compost pile will heat to about 140
degrees in the decomposition process,
minds you that a low-flow
showerhead — the fixture that
Spread compost around shrubs, pe-
— Tracy Hobson Lehmann resulting in a product with a rich, earthy mixes air with water and mi-
rennials and trees to nourish their
aroma. If the mix of ingredients is out of
roots. raculously produces a strong
balance, the microbes won’t be able to
ON THE LAWN break down the materials efficiently, and
spray — is a really good idea.
Top dress the lawn with a thin layer it might give off a foul odor or attract Indeed, Americans could save
of compost and watch the grass pests. 5.4 billion gallons of water per
green up. day simply by installing low-
IT STINKS
IN THE GARDEN Foul smell: Could be too wet or lacking ox- flow fixtures and toilets.
Keyword: Gardening
Work compost into the soil in flower ygen. Add dry material and mix well. If you want to join those
beds and the vegetable garden in More about composting
Ammonia odor: Likely caused by adding who would rather make it
spring or fall. too many grass clippings, which form a themselves than buy conven-
dense mat. Add carbon to the pile and tional products, “Worldchang-
THE BIN mix it up. ing” directs you to
PESTS
BUILD IT Fruit flies: If the pests are attracted to
See HOME/12E
■ Make a square bin from discarded your kitchen pail, make sure it has a tight-
pallets or a round container from fitting lid and empty it frequently. In the
wire mesh or chicken wire. bin, cover kitchen scraps with a thin layer
■ Ideal size is 1 cubic yard, 3 by 3 by of leaves or soil.
3 feet. Fire ants: Pile could be too dry. Keep
BUY IT
■ Choose from tumblers, twin bins
moist, and make sure it has the proper
mix of materials to heat sufficiently. GOOD
or simple wire containers.
Varmints: Raccoons, skunks and other
critters might come looking for a meal. To TO G R OW
PLACE IT discourage them:
■ Choose a location that’s con- ■ Bury kitchen scraps in the
venient for adding waste. middle of the pile.
■ Site should drain ■ Avoid food with fat, meat
well. or dairy.
■ Keep the
door se-
cured.
TRACY HOBSON LEHMANN
Philippine violet
(Barleria cristata)
The trumpet-shaped purple
flowers on the Philippine violet
are attention-grabbers. They are
about 2 inches long, and they
bloom in abundance this time of
year. Set against the deep green
foliage of the root-hardy peren-
nial shrub, the flowers stand out
from their shady spots in the
landscape.
The plant likes tropical condi-
tions and will freeze back in
harsh winters. Trim back to the
ground, and it will sprout from
the roots in spring.
The common name of Philip-
pine violet is a bit of a mystery, as
it originates in India and Myan-
mar, and it’s not part of the violet
family.
Plant in a perennial bed, and
give it plenty of space.
■ Light: Part shade to part sun.
■ Size: 4 to 5 feet tall; 3 feet
wide.
■ Water: Moderate.
■ Bloom: Late summer through
fall.
ABOVE PHOTO, COURTESY ‘COMPOST’ BY KEN THOMPSON (DK PUBLISHING; $18); ■ Cultivation: Mulch to protect
TOP PHOTO BY AKEYA DICKSON/WASHINGTON POST.
roots in winter.
SOURCES: ORGANIC GARDENING, EARTHMACHINE.COM, TEXAS COOPERATIVE EXTENSION
10E
A settee and two Windsor chairs provide seating around a tilt-top chair table in the dining area of Harriette Gorman’s home in Comfort. The house will be part of a tour April 14.
Antiques collector rescues former armadillo farm from ruin, fills it with treasures
PLACE OF HISTORY
ABOVE: In the living
room, Queen Anne
sconces hang beside
a primitive painting
of a trio of girls
huddled under an
umbrella. The paint-
ing is above a hunt-
board set with a
collection of stone
fruit.
RIGHT: A portrait of
George Washington
presides over the li-
brary, a room espe-
cially rich in history.
Hidden
treasures
History abounds in the furnish-
ings of Harriette Gorman’s house.
She believes in using what she
has collected, everything from
17th- and 18th-century chairs to
fabrics woven in the early 19th
century, but she’s not out of
touch with the 21st century.
Some modern conveniences can
become inconveniences when it
H OUS E R ULE S
comes to aesthetics, so she tucks
them out of sight as much as
possible.
TUNING OUT TELEVISIONS
“We all strive to find some-
thing to put our TVs in,” Gorman
says of antiques aficionados. In
the living room, she tucked the
tube into a hand-grained corner
cabinet. In the kitchen, the set
sits behind the doors of a newly
built corner cabinet.
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 2007
D
SPACES
PHOTOS BY GLORIA FERNIZ/STAFF
BY TRACY HOBSON LEHMANN
EXPRESS-NEWS HOME & GARDEN EDITOR
C
OMFORT — At 82, Harriette Gor-
man is one of the youngest things
in her house. Heck, she has tallow
candles that qualified as antiques
when she was born in 1925. And by then, some of
her chairs exceeded the definition of antique by a
century.
“To me, a true antique is at least 100 years old,”
says Gorman, who two months ago moved into a
German farmhouse that itself qualifies as an an-
tique. Completed in 1898, the two-story house be-
hind a wattle fence has a history fittingly rich for
the owner’s collection of collections.
She purchased the property, formerly an arma-
dillo farm, just outside Comfort six years ago. Harriette Gorman treasures a portrait of
Thomas Jefferson that hangs in the library.
Then, the porch and balcony that grace the front
of the house were crumbling, but what Gorman
describes as the deplorable condition of the struc-
ture didn’t deter her.
“I moved out here to get another challenge,”
says Gorman, no novice at renovation as she Keyword: SALife
For more photos of Harriette Gorman’s
faced seven deteriorating buildings on the five
home and a look at past Spaces features
See LIFETIME/11E
PARK THE APPLIANCES bonnet and other items atop a
“When they said, ‘Do you maple chest. She tucks her tele-
want a garage in your kitchen?’ I phone discreetly behind a lamp
thought they were crazy,” Gor- on the chest.
man says. But she visits the “ga-
PUT A LID ON IT
rage” every morning to access
A display of firkins — lidded
her coffeemaker. She also stashes
buckets — and churns bring a
other appliances behind the door
dash of color to the kitchen with
beneath the television in the cor-
their faded blue and green paint.
ner cabinet.
But they are utilitarian, too.
HOLD THE PHONE “That’s where I keep dog food,”
In her bedroom, Gorman dis- Gorman says. A mug holds flowers beside some old books, complementing
— Tracy Hobson Lehmann the view of the farm.
plays a handmade silk folding
 SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 2007 11E
D

Better look through ‘trash’ again

There is a saying: “One per-
son’s trash is another person’s
more companies started manu-
facturing throwaway contain-
CURRENT PRICES
treasure.” Collectors under- ers. Current prices are recorded from
stand this better than most In 1930 pictures of animals or antiques shows, flea markets,
other people. Old ads, milk bot- presidents were added to Dixie sales and auctions throughout
tles, worn shoes, spark plugs, cup ice-cream lids. Movie stars the United States. Prices vary in
barbed wire, insulators, credit were featured in 1933 and war different locations because of
cards, swizzle sticks, key-chain planes and ships in the 1940s.
Easter Dawn Worship Easter Day Worship
local economic conditions. Sunrise Service 7:00 a.m. Service 10:30 a.m.
tags and empty boxes that once Sample prices for cups from followed by complimentary followed by Easter Egg Hunt
■ Piggy bank, ‘I Made Chicago Pancake Breakfast & for the Children
held bullets all are seriously past years by various manufac- Easter Egg Hunt for the Children 230 Weil Road • Cibolo (just off FM 1103)
collected by turers include a Coca-Cola cup, Famous,’ black, cast iron, Arcade, 1530 Kitty Hawk Road • Universal City

groups who 1960, $20; Popeye on a Happy c. 1900, 4 inches, $255. Celebrate Easter with us as we worship the Risen Savior! • 210-659-3311 • www.ursaved.com

RALPH AND have even
formed clubs to
TERRY KOVEL trade informa-
tion.
ANTIQUES & Did you ever
COLLECTING think of saving
old paper cups?
Not just any
paper cup. It should be deco-
rated to show it was used at an
event like a World’s Fair or the
Olympics. Or it should have an
important brand name or pic-
ture celebrities. The cup’s deco-
ration must indicate either an
event or a date.
The Dixie cup, one of the
world’s oldest paper cups, was
just an idea in 1907. The Public
Cup Vendor Co. was incorpo-
KING FEATURES SYNDICATE
This Tarzan ice-cream cup was
made by Lily-Tulip Cup Corp. in
the 1930s. Hake’s Americana and
Collectibles of Timonium, Md.,
priced it at $518. You can find
paper-cup collectibles for much
less, but this one is rare and in
mint condition.
rated in 1909 to make the cups,
and by 1919 it was named the
Dixie Cup Co. At first no one
wanted disposable cups, but
during the flu epidemic of 1918,
laws banned public communal
drinking glasses. Soon paper
cups were also used to hold ice
cream and other products, and
Birthday cup, 1950s, $8; Dairy
Queen cup, 1949, $8; and Votes
for Women, Empire States,
1915, $200.
It pays to save trash.
Q. I am 89 and still have a
1902 bathing suit that belonged
to my mother. It’s a navy-blue
sailor suit with white trim, leg-
gings and high, laced shoes.
The shoes are not in good
shape, but the rest of it is.
What do you think I could sell
it for?
A. Many suits the age of
your mother’s came with leg-
gings and shoes. Women took
the shoes off, then went into
the water, leggings and all. Col-
lectors of vintage clothing
■ Deb-U-Teen Lunch and Thermo
bottle kit, Styrofoam thermos,
Hasbro, 1950s, $455.
■ Cast-iron doorstop, English
bulldog puppies in barrel, signed
‘Steacy & Wilton Co.,
Wrightsville, Pa., copyright 1932,’
63⁄4 by 81⁄4 inches, $695.
— Ralph and Terry Kovel
might pay $100 or more for
your suit.
Write to Kovels, San Antonio
Express-News, King Features
Syndicate, 300 W. 57th St., 15th
Floor, New York, NY 10019.

‘Lifetime of love and collecting’ fill home

CONTINUED FROM 10E
acres. She and her husband, Bill,
who died in 1996, restored a 1914
hospital in town and lived there
13 years.
“When I walked in this awful-
looking thing and I saw the walls,
I said, ‘Whoa. Wait a minute,’ ”
she recalls, noting the 18-inch-
thick double brick walls. Gorman
first settled into a three-room cot-
tage on the property, formerly the
display house at Apelt Armadillo
Farm. The space that Gorman
filled to brimming with folk art is
previously where armadillo
shells were transformed and sold
as baskets, lampshades, ashtrays
and purses.
She lived there as work pro-
gressed on the main house and
the property.
A building that housed arma-
dillos — an eyesore with a critter-
keeping 10-foot-deep ditch and 10-
foot-tall fence around it — was
demolished. From it, Gorman sal-
vaged wide pecky cypress boards
that now enclose the space under
the stairs in the main house. The
restored one-room rock building
by the highway, formerly an ar-
madillo barbecue stand, will be-
come an antiques shop.
One of Gorman’s greatest chal-
lenges in the renovation was add-
ing a kitchen, pantry and laun-
dry room to the main house. On-
ly a slab remained where the
original kitchen had been. “Over
a period of a hundred-something
years, you just do what you have
to,” she says of the evolution of
the house.
The light-filled addition that
spans the back of the house mar-
ries well with the original struc-
ture, thanks to carefully chosen
materials and antique furnish-
ings. Bricks laid in a herringbone
pattern complement pumpkin-col-
ored cabinets and maple counters
in the kitchen. (Gorman says feis-
tily that she wouldn’t reveal her
custom paint colors even if she
remembered them, to discourage
copycats.)
Gorman fashioned an island
from three pieces. The work area
across from the sink is an eight-
drawer chest with bin pulls — al-
“I just lug stuff around until I
find a use for it,” says Gorman,
who began collecting early Amer-
ican antiques more than a half-
century ago. Her love of old
things began with a black iron
teakettle she discovered in a junk-
yard in Tyler.
“I thought that was the living
end,” she says. “I couldn’t wait to
get home and plant red gerani-
ums in it.”
Gorman no long has the teaket-
tle — “I wish I did” — but she
lives surrounded by antiques and
the history they impart.
The entryway is filled with
pieces from the William and
GLORIA FERNIZ/STAFF Mary era. Her bedroom is Queen
Assorted churns and firkins sit alongside a kitchen island that comprises Anne. Upstairs, there’s a Shaker
three separate pieces. Gorman added the kitchen to her 1898 house. room.
Portraits of George Washington
SEE FOR YOURSELF ing what she owns. “I wouldn’t
have anything you couldn’t touch
and Abraham Lincoln hang in
the library, a front room fitted
Harriette Gorman’s house will be or use.” with custom bookcases painted a
among six houses featured on Though it pained her, she says, rich teal and filled with books
the Comfort Heritage she cut up handmade crewel fab- about historical figures. She used
Foundation Tour of Homes. ric to make curtains for the living the same teal color on wainscot-
room and library. A smart red ing, dentil molding and beams. A
When: Noon-5 p.m. April 14. and teal plaid loveseat in the li- 48-star flag stands in one corner,
Tickets: In advance, $12. Call Taxi brary wears part of Gorman’s and a portrait of Thomas Jeffer-
Breithaupt at (830) 995-5018. large collection of homespun fab- son hangs above the loveseat.
Day of tour, $15, starting at 11 ric — cloth pioneers wove from “This is the love of my life,”
thread they spun from flax or cot- she says, admiring the Jefferson
a.m. at Comfort State Bank
ton they grew or wool from their portrait. “He’s my favorite. He
Building, High and Seventh sheep. She notes the sun will de- was an ingenious American.”
streets. teriorate the cloth, so she plans to A table in the center of the
Also: Tour booklets available at have shutters made for the win- room displays old marbles and
Comfort State Bank Building. dow by the loveseat. other games, even an old deck of
The original house on the prop- playing cards, showing that early
most brand new by her standards erty, a log cabin built in 1854, was Americans weren’t all work. She
at an estimated 80 years old. taken down and reconstructed log marvels at the handwork on rugs
Against the back of the chest, she by log as a back entrance to the and the craftsmanship of the fur-
set a German desk top that looks main house. Like the rest of the niture. “It was made on some-
like a small trunk atop a low New house, the buttery — the New one’s fingers,” she says often as
England table. Above it hangs a England term for a pantry — is she looks at various pieces in the
light fixture Gorman had made filled with relics from ages past. house.
from a cone-shaped fire bucket. Here, Gorman incorporated a set With every item, she can relate
One of Gorman’s many pas- of stairs that years ago found a story about where she found it,
sions is lighting, and she has ev- their way from a New England how it was made or how it was
erything from small oil-burning house to an antiques shop here. used.
betty lamps to an 18th-century The faded blue paint and a tread “What you have here is a life-
scissor light to a goat-skin shaded worn thin from generations of time of love and collecting,” Gor-
lamp she had fashioned from a use attracted her, though “every- man says. And she’s not done.
brass eagle finial atop a piece of body in town thought I was crazy There’s the barn to renovate
tramp art. She also collects — and for buying it.” and the garden to create at the
uses — Pennsylvania redware In their current home, the place she’s contemplating naming
pottery, pewter, early clothes stairs sit against a wall and rise Gorman-Dillo Farm “because I’m
hangers and treenware, kitchen- to the ceiling, their newfound the only one who cared enough to
ware and implements fashioned purpose to display other objects fix it up.”
from single pieces of wood. and to show off the patina that
Gorman is emphatic about us- comes with time and use. tlehmann@express-news.net

Feeding nitrogen and iron: There’s a trick to it

Our plants are growing at 90
mph. Warm weather and recent
rains have combined to give us
maximum spring growth, or so
it would seem. Still, there are
some things you can do to have
even more success with the
plants in your landscape and
garden, and most of them re-
volve around proper feedings.
Plants need nitrogen to pro-
duce new stems and leaves.
Therefore, anytime you want a
plant to grow more vigorously,
the answer you’ll hear every-
where will be to apply a high-ni-
trogen fertilizer.
However, there’s a lot more to
the story than that. You see, the
middle number in the three-
number fertilizer analysis repre-
sents the phosphorus content of
the fertilizer. Phosphorus pro-
motes roots, flowers and fruit, so
the normal conclusion would be
that you need to add more phos-
phorus to your flower and vege-
table gardens. Right? Well, not
so fast. Phosphorus may already
be there in plentiful quantities.
In fact, your soil may actually
have too much phosphorus, to
the point that it adversely affects
the growth of your plants.
The only way you can tell
whether you have too much
phosphorus is with an accurate
soil test. It’s a good idea to have
one run every two or three
years just to
monitor things.
Phosphorus
tends to accu-
mulate in clay
soils. It leaches
away in loams
and sands but,
again, the only
way to tell for
sure is to have
NEIL the soil tested.
If the report
SPERRY says you need
to apply only ni-
trogen, believe
DOWN
TO EARTH it and follow its
guidelines no
matter what
type of plant you’re trying to
grow. Texas has several high-
quality, nitrogen-only fertilizers.
Ideally, half or more of the nitro-
gen should be in slow-release
form. It may seem odd to add
only nitrogen to a rose garden
or tomato patch, but if that’s
what the soil test suggests, you
need to follow its findings.
The other critical element that
is often deficient is iron. Its
story is equally complicated, but
boiling it all down to the basics,
iron comes in two forms: soluble
and insoluble. It will be in the
soluble form when soils are
acidic, so plants will be able to
assimilate any amount that they
need. In alkaline soils, however,
the iron becomes insoluble and
some plants will begin to show
iron deficiency. First signs of
shortages will appear as yellow-
ing of the end leaves. As the
problem progresses, the blades
will turn more yellow but the
veins will remain dark green.
Eventually the leaves will turn
pale green all over. In severe
cases, they will even be almost
white, then browned and
scorched.
Iron deficiency is also called
chlorosis, and plants that are
likely to show it around San An-
tonio include wisterias, ligus-
trums, mimosas, bald cypresses,
box elders, cherry laurels and,
for anyone who tries to grow
them, azaleas, camellias and dog-
woods. It can show up in many
other species, but the pattern of
yellowing will always be the
same; that is, on the newest
growth first.
You might figure you can just
add a little iron to solve all
these shortages, but again, it’s
not all that easy. If you’re gar-
dening in an alkaline soil and if
you add more iron, it may be-
come insoluble, too, just like the
iron that is already there. So
you need to add iron in tandem
with sulfur. The sulfur acts to
form sulfuric acid when it gets
wet, and that will help keep the
iron available, at least tempora-
rily.
The best ways to solve iron
deficiency follow different paths.
You can replace the alkaline soil
entirely. Create a planting mix
that has generous amounts of
organic matter. Material such as
peat moss, compost and pine
bark mulch are naturally acidic,
so iron remains soluble in them.
Of course, they’re not inexpen-
sive, so you can only justify go-
ing to those measures for plants
that will stay small and whose
roots won’t outgrow the pre-
pared planting medium. Best
trick of all: Stay away from
plants you know need high lev-
els of iron in the first place. Af-
ter all, why create a problem
when it’s just as easy to create a
solution?
Proper feeding is not a diffi-
cult or complicated task. It just
requires common sense and a
little bit of study. From that
point on, your plants will take
care of the rest.
Neil Sperry is publisher of Neil
Sperry’s Gardens magazine. His
Down to Earth column appears
Saturdays in S.A. Life. Though
time does not permit Sperry to
answer individual gardening
questions, readers may suggest
topics for future columns by
sending him an e-mail at
features@express-news.net.
 SAN ANTONIO Spaces
EXPRESS-NEWS
Bright colors — from buttery yellow
SATURDAY to vivid red — saturate the walls in a
APRIL 19, 2008 house featured on a tour today
SECTION F PAGE 12F

Catch the
‘Brothers’
Nothing triggers a nostalgia run like
watching a television program from your
childhood. Sometimes even the theme
song will send you back in time.
The theme from “Bonanza” has me sit-
ting on my paternal grandparents’
circa-1970 green shag carpet in San Jose,
Calif. An episode of BY TRACY HOBSON LEHMANN
“Happy Days” mentally EXPRESS-NEWS HOME AND GARDEN EDITOR
transports me to my
beanbag chair in front of
our first color television
set, and I never hear the
theme from “Sesame
Street” without feeling
like I am back standing
in our teeny two-bed-
room apartment in Tuc-
son, Ariz., watching the
MICHAEL very first episode while
waiting for the school

O’ROURKE bus to take me to kinder-

garten in November 1969.
All old shows are like
that. “Mod Squad” has
me in back in the basement in Arlington,
Va., with my grandmother, “Northern Ex-
posure” brings me back to my newlywed
days, and the theme from “Barney”
makes me feel like my daughters are
again newborns.
TV has always triggered those mo-
ments. Nick at Nite counts on it. The
shows we grew up with remind us of
growing up. So I was absolutely tickled
when my 16-year-old daughter hopped in

See O’ROURKE/3F

G OOD TO G R OW

TRACY HOBSON LEHMANN

Lobelia
(Lobelia erinus)
Sometimes the tiniest flowers pack the
biggest punch. That’s the case with lobelia,
which produces masses of violet- to indigo-
colored blossoms.
It’s a small, cool-weather annual that
will cascade without running amok. Use it
in annual borders or in containers. It looks
particularly striking in contrast with the
white of alyssum or the bright yellow of
pansies or snapdragons.
■ Light: Sun to part shade.
■ Size: 4 to 8 inches tall; 12 to 18 inches
wide.
■ Bloom: Spring and fall.
■ Water: Moderate.
■ Cultivation: Replace when warm weather
arrives.

Test your knowledge of Fiesta facts

against other San Antonians.
TODAY’S QUESTION
Who were King Cotton, Selamat and
Omala?
To check your answer and watch ‘man on
the street’ responses, go to MySA.com.
Keyword: Fiesta

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 DAILY NZ P A G E 1E COLOR P U B D A T E 08-05-06 O P E R A T O R RREINHARD D A T E // T I M E :

Coming Sunday Spaces

State

State
SAN ANTONIO
EXPRESS-NEWS
Chapter 6 of the A New Braunfels couple
SATURDAY Express-News’ collect favorite ideas and
AUGUST 5, 2006 staff-written ‘Cora’s Heart’ build their castle
SECTION E PAGE 10E

Mr. Snippy’s
really bad day
Oh, come on!
I was already tired, cranky and, as
those who were with me moments be-
fore might attest, snippy. Call it Mur-
phy’s Law, karma or dismiss it as just
having a bad day, but sometimes it feels
as if every molecule in the universe is
out to get you. Or at least in the mood
to have a solid laugh at your expense.
Not a giggle, chortle or a snicker. A full-
out, hard-to-catch-your-breath, belly
laugh.
Early last Saturday morning my wife,
Diane, was taking me to pick up our
new car. She had an appointment on
the other side of town, so she would
drop me off, I would close the deal and
then drive the car
home. It was all so sim-
ple, really.
Attitude can compli-
cate the simplest task,
and even I will admit
my attitude was bad. It
wasn’t one thing. It was
just a bunch of straws
and a camel with a bad
lower lumbar. I’ll blame
lack of sleep because
MICHAEL that is kinder than
blaming whatever char-

O’ROURKE acter flaw it is that

makes one snippy. When
one is predisposed to be-
ing crabby, fatigue is
simply an accelerant poured on the ill-
tempered fire.
We were running late and, as we TRACY HOBSON LEHMANN/STAFF

pulled onto a side street, I got out of the ‘Attraction,’ a hardy day-blooming red lily, puts on a show in a pond at San Angelo’s Civic League Park. It’s part of horticulturist Ken Landon’s International Wa-
car and began to walk into the dealer- terlily Collection. INSET BELOW: A damselfly rests on the petals of ‘Texas Dawn,’ a hardy yellow water lily that can produce as many as 120 blooms a year.
ship. Given my state of mind I didn’t
walk as much as I stomped. Diane
slowly pulled away. I was already start-
ing to feel guilty about my behavior. It
wasn’t a pleasant drive or a pleasant
morning for that matter. I was grunting
out monosyllabic answers to harmless
conversation starters. She tried to cool
my mood but, after two decades of me,
knew it was better to cut her losses.
I was almost to the door of the dealer-
ship when I noticed it. My breast
pocket seemed heavy. A quick glance
told me I had twice as many cell
phones in my pocket as usual. I had
Diane’s. Honestly, my first instinct was
to call her on her phone and tell her I
had her cell. Fortunately, I realized the
stupidity of that idea almost immedi-
ately. Had I actually dialed my phone TRACY HOBSON LEHMANN/STAFF

only to have her phone ring in my

pocket I would have felt like the dumb-
est human on the planet. I’m familiar
Grower amasses world-class collection Nectar pools in the gold-
en center of a ‘Rhonda
Kay’ star lily at the Inter-
with that feeling. It has happened be- national Waterlily Collec-
fore. BY TRACY HOBSON seven years out of my tion.
I took off running. I could see her LEHMANN life,” he says.
brake lights. She was heading down a EXPRESS-NEWS HOME & GARDEN Fellow lily expert Pa-
EDITOR trick Nutt, retired from
See O’ROURKE/11E Longwood Gardens in TEXAS SUPERSTAR LILIES

S
AN ANGELO
— Giverny had
Claude Monet.
This West
Texas city has
Ken Landon.
G OOD TO G R OW Monet created lasting
water lilies on canvas.
Landon’s are born of
seed in concrete ponds
or in pools in his green-
house, and he dedicates much of his work to
making the mystical aquatic plants last.
“They’re my kids,” Landon says of the plants
in the International Waterlily Collection. And
what a colorful brood it is.
Pink, yellow, purple and white flowers reflect
in the pools at Civic League Park, colorful ac-
cents amid the varied green leaves. There are
smooth leaves and ones with ruffled edges.
There are glossy green circles and ones speck-
led with maroon. And there are the giants of
the family, the platterlike Victorias that pro-
duce leaves up to 8 feet across.
Landon, 58, is no braggart. But like any
proud parent, he likes to boast about his kids.
Take ‘Ineta Ruth,’ named for his mother and
the only yellow star lily produced. “That took
Pennsylvania, elabo-
rates on ‘Ineta Ruth,’ a ‘Texas Dawn,’ a yellow water lily
hybrid developed from a developed by Ken Landon, was the
leading bloomer among lilies tested
lily called ‘St. Louis
Gold.’ “He’s the only for the Texas SuperStar program, ac-
cording to Jerry Parsons of Texas
man who’s been able to
get fertile seeds from ‘St. Cooperative Extension. It and seven
Louis Gold,’ ” Nutt says other water lilies earn SuperStar sta-
TRACY HOBSON LEHMANN/STAFF tus this month for their adaptability
of Landon.
to growing conditions throughout
‘St. Louis Gold’ is an
the state.
older lily developed by Nutt’s mentor, George
The selections include:
Harry Pring of St. Louis. Pring, he says, intro-
■ ‘Texas Dawn,’ hardy yellow
duced more Nymphaea hybrids than anyone in
the world, “although Ken will probably rival ■ ‘Colorado,’ hardy salmon
him in time.” ■ ‘Laydekeri Fulgens,’ hardy red
“We’ve tried to preserve his hybrids, and be- ■ ‘Perry’s Double White,’ hardy white
tween the two of us we probably have the best
■ ‘Clyde Ikins,’ hardy apricot
collection of Pring’s hybrids in the world,”
Nutt says. ■ ‘Panama Pacific,’ tropical purple
Landon estimates he has created about 60 ■ ‘Star of Siam,’ tropical blue
“keeper” hybrids. “In horticultural work, you ■ ‘Red Flare,’ tropical night bloomer
keep maybe 5 percent of what you create in a
lifetime.”
Another star in Landon’s family tree is Nym-
phaea violacea. “I was told I couldn’t grow
them in North America,” Landon says, point-
Keyword: Gardening
See WATER LILY/12E
Learn more about water lilies.

PETER A. HOGG/MONROVIA

Split-leaf philodendron
(Philodendron selloum)
With frilly leaves that grow as big as 3
feet long, the split-leaf philodendron
makes an impressive stand in the land-
scape. And it does so without causing a
fuss.
The cascade of dark, glossy leaves on the
mounding plant make it a nice addition to
the landscape. The plant tolerates even
deep shade and gives a tropical accent but
tolerates our Zone 8b winters if planted in
a protected area.
Use as a foundation planting, near a
pool or in large containers.
■ Light: Shade to part sun.
■ Size: 10 feet tall; 15 feet wide.
■ Water: Low.
■ Bloom: Creamy white spathe in summer. PATRICK DOVE/SPECIAL TO THE EXPRESS-NEWS

Not a significant bloom. PATRICK DOVE/SPECIAL TO THE EXPRESS-NEWS The ‘Larissa Racine’ water lily is a new cre-
■ Cultivation: Water regularly to establish. ation by San Angelo’s Ken Landon. The
Landon wades through the center pool at the International Waterlily Collection to collect
flower has not yet reached the market.
plants to send to gardens near Houston. Landon develops and collects the plants.

DAILY NZ P A G E 1E COLOR P U B D A T E 08-05-06 O P E R A T O R RREINHARD D A T E // T I M E :

 DAILY NZ
12E
State
Water lily
collection
among
the best
CONTINUED FROM 1E
ing to the thriving plants and un-
derscoring his defiant nature. “It
took me two years to get ’em up,
but they are up.”
The plants, which he describes
as temperamental, like 90-degree
water and little movement in the
water. Landon grew the tubers
last year, overwintered them and
then grew the plants this year.
“To see this flower blooming
here, to John Q. Public it doesn’t
mean anything,” he says. “For a
botanist or botanical enthusiast
or water lily expert, it’s meaning-
ful.”
Nutt, who describes as “a pil-
grimage” his visit to West Texas
from the 1,000-acre garden in
Pennsylvania created by Pierre
duPont, says Landon “probably
has one of the finest displays of
water lilies in the world.”
While he concentrates on cre-
ating hybrids, he also is intent
on preserving the species. A dec-
ade ago, Landon founded the In-
ternational Waterlily Preserva-
tion Repository, through which
he collects specimens and shares
seeds.
When flooding on the Nile
River threatened the sacred blue
lily of the Nile (N. caerulea),
Egyptian officials called Landon
and came here to get 2 million
seeds to restart the plant. Of the
large order, Landon says, “It’s
not hard to do because each seed
pod has 60,000 to 70,000 seeds.”
Landon treks to jungles and
remote locales in search of rare
specimens, and he relates stories
of hopscotching across an alliga-
tor’s head (he thought it was a
rock until its mouth opened) and
other harrowing adventures to
get his hands on seldom-seen aq-
uatic plants.
“The gene pool is going away,”
he says of the genus that is
threatened by flooding, swamp
draining for development and en-
croaching populations in third-
world countries. “They’re not
worried about lilies, they’re wor-
ried about surviving,” he says.
Efforts to wipe out invasive spe-
cies such as water hyacinth
sometimes wipe out noninvasive
nymphaeas, and hybrids also
take over established species.
Landon worries that future
generations won’t know the
plants he knows. But he’s trying
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to perpetuate the species.
“His focus is to preserve . . .
Nymphaea from all around the
world, not just Texas, not just the
South, not just the United States,
but the entire world, which is a
pretty awesome task,” says Paula
Biles, executive director of the
International Waterlily and Wa-
ter Gardening Society based in
Bradenton, Fla.
From two seedlings of Nym-
phaea gigantea, a species native
to Australia, Landon created
‘Blue Cloud,’ a lavender-blue
flower. “We have it in the pool at
Longwood,” Nutt says of the hy-
brid. “It’s our pride and joy.”
Visitors to the West Texas
park can see giganteas blooming
in their entire color range —
pink, blue and white. Often, gar-
den guests from Australia have
never seen a single variety of the
plant in their homeland, Nutt
says.
Landon notes the park display
represents only about 1 percent
of his plant family, which he says
is the largest collection of the ge-
nus Nymphaea in the world. He
grows the plants in a greenhouse
in Miles, about 20 miles north-
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P A G E 12E COLOR
P U B D A T E 08-05-06 O P E R A T O R KMUNOZ D A T E // TIME:
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 2006 / * * * /
D
State
LILY FEST
What: Celebration of
A C C EN T ON HOME
the International
Waterlily Collection.
Tour the collection and
It’s a spoof, but its designs
see the latest hybrids
are within reach of most
developed by
horticulturist Ken
Landon.
BY LINDA HALES
WASHINGTON POST
DWR) can be fabricated with a
clock mechanism, the circular
When: 9 a.m.-noon end of a cardboard salt container
Sept. 16. Landon will
lead a tour at 11 a.m.
The furnishing emporium De-
sign Within Reach offers an envi-
able stock of modern classics by
and 12 colorful Tootsie Roll Pops
inserted around the edge.
You get what you pay for, but
Where: Civic League catalog, online and in stores. But the homemade aesthetic is part
Park, San Angelo. to some shoppers, prices remain of the exercise.
Located on North Park inaccessible. That’s what sparked The replicas were dreamed up
Street between Harris the spoof: Design Without Reach. by Rob Price, a 27-year-old gradu-
and Beauregard “Not everyone can afford to be ate of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
avenues. patrons of modern design,” ex- He designs Cuisinart and
plains the Web site Thwart KitchenAid housewares by day
Admission: Free. design.com, which offers instruc- and saves “raw creativity” for
Info: (325) 657-4279 tions for making replicas — in home. Price says he built each of
or SanAngeloTexas.org. minutes and for pennies. the replicas. The clock had to
Impoverished fans of Alessi’s come down after the Tootsie Roll
$85 crumpled stainless-steel fruit Pops melted on his wall.
PATRICK DOVE/SPECIAL TO THE EXPRESS-NEWS bowl can crumple their own con- However one decides to allo-
tainer from a sheet of aluminum cate cash for flash, Thwart De-
ABOVE: A flower of ‘Ineta Ruth’ foil. An homage to George Nel- sign’s manifesto emphasizes:
rises above a pond at the Interna- son’s iconic Ball clock ($285 at “Don’t let creativity lie dormant.”
tional Waterlily Collection. Ken
Landon, who developed it,
named the plant for his mother.
LEFT: A bee hovers over a flower
UNPAINTED FURNITURE CO.
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And if this is an unlikely loca- SCHOOL YEAR!
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dener. Trained as an industrial Starting at $199
engineer with a minor in botany,
his love for water lilies began Mon - Sat 10 - 6 • Sun 12 - 5
824-7249 ❖ 6842 San Pedro
when he was a teen building a
pond in Albuquerque, N.M. After
TRACY HOBSON LEHMANN/STAFF a bit of searching, he found a re-
east of here and at gardens tailer who ordered an aquatic
around the world.
While this semiarid region,
plant for him.
That plant died when the fam- S U M M E R
with an annual rainfall average
of 18 inches, seems an improba-
ily moved to Fort Worth in the
1960s, but Landon’s mother spot- CLOSEOUT SALE!
ble place to establish a world- ted a newspaper story about a
class water lily garden, Landon woman selling water lilies, and
settled here to be near family. In Landon began digging a pond.
1988, he took over a pond built in He overnighted his new plant in
the 1930s as a reflective pool in a the garage before the pool was
Works Progress Administration complete and was smitten by the
project, and with the support of sweet fragrance of the flower that
the local Council of Garden greeted him the next morning.
Clubs transformed the muddy “I was hooked,” he recalls.
mess into what is now the main Landon’s work has earned
pond. Five smaller ponds sur- him a spot in the International
round the center pool, and Water Gardening Society Hall of
there’s room for one more that Fame. That, however, isn’t what
will be built as funding allows. he views as his greatest claim to
Landon says he has turned down fame.
potentially lucrative offers to re- Landon also finds time to in- Limited Time Only!
locate the collection. He owns all dulge his passion for pyrotech- Italian Porcelain Tile Ceramic Tile
the plants, and the city pays his nics. He received a call from the *
salary as curator.
Guests, with cameras clicking,
White House to supply strobe
star fireworks for President Rea- .99 * Sq. 18"x18" .59 *
Ft. 16"x16"
Sq. Ft.
wander the labyrinth of side- gan’s second inauguration.
walks among the pools. Some fo- Locals, in fact, know Landon
cus their lenses on the flowers. as well for his annual Fourth of
Others use the lilies as back- July fireworks display as for his CERAMIC • WOOD FLOORING • COUNTER TOPS • BACK SPLASH • SHOWERS
drops for family photos, captur- water lilies. Giverny couldn’t say FREE ESTIMATES
ing the next generation with the that for Monet. 210-558-3138 • 6565 Babcock Rd., Ste. 4
plants Landon has preserved for 1 year Warranty on Labor
them. National Geographic pho- tlehmann@express-news.net *w/purchase of installation
TAX FREE
DAYS!
No Payments and
No Interest Until 2007*
PLUS
Buy any O’Krent flooring product throughout the month of August,
and we will credit your sales tax back to you immediately. Plus, if
you buy today, pay no finance charges, fees or interest until 2007!
FINE FLOORING SINCE 1915 210-C-A-R-P-E-T-S
2075 N. Loop 1604 E
(210-227-7387)
or Toll Free: 800-369-7387
(at Gold Canyon Rd.)
Monday–Friday: 10–7
San Antonio, Texas 78232
Saturday: 10–5
Sunday: 1–5
HWY 281 NORTH
GOLD CANYON RD
* www.okrentfloors.com
LOOP 1604 *With approved credit. See store for details.
Expires 8/31/06.
A name you can trust, floor after floor, year after year.
The
Shutter Maker
THE
SHUTTER
The Look You Want
the Quality you Deserve
341-2744
Factory Showroom
10425 Gulfdale
• Best Built Shutter in America
• Locally Owned - We Are The Factory
• Quick and Custom-built
• We Build-We Install
• Blinds and More
• FREE ESTIMATES
www.theshuttermaker.com
P U B D A T E 08-05-06 O P E R A T O R KMUNOZ D A T E // TIME: