Breast Cancer Awareness

Each year, I look forward to the first day of October. It means that, for the most part, the days of 90-plus degrees and humidity are over. That's welcome news to gardeners, who are worn out from battling the heat that exhausts both them and their crops and gardens.

Summer has its charms; the long, hot days help make the garden bountiful. Many beautiful flowers and ornamentals are at their glorious best in the heat. But there is something about those first cool mornings that promise a revival of the body and the spirit.

October is important not only for gardeners and those who love the outdoors, but for all women and those who love them. It's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and a reminder to get a mammogram. While the weather turns cool in October, display shelves turn pink. Each year, more companies are joining the list of those who promise a portion of the proceeds from sales of their products will go to breast cancer research.

Gardeners who want to support the fight against breast cancer can buy gardening tools like these I found at Al Cook Nursery in Beaumont. Look at your favorite nursery, home supply store and discount stores for similar products. As a breast cancer survivor who prays her daughter - and all our daughters and granddaughters - never have to battle this cruel and persistent disease, I join millions of other women who say, thank you.

Pride of Barbados

While eating lunch with friends after church today, the subject of plants that produce colorful blooms in Southeast Texas came up. Glen and Mary mentioned that when they evacuated for Hurricane Ike, they stayed in Uvalde. While there, they became fascinated with mass plantings of a good-sized shrub with vivid red/orange blooms 3 inches across. When they returned home to Winnie, they called the city of Uvalde and asked for the name of the plant.

They had fallen in love with Pride of Barbados (Caesalpinia pulcherrima), an evergreen shrub that can grow to a small tree in frost-free areas. They called around local nurseries and found one at Al Cook's in Beaumont.

There are many things to like about this plant, which is so drought-hardy once established. In zone 9, it is a deciduous shrub. After a frost, it can die down, but comes back faithfully in spring and quickly attains 5 feet or more in height. It reseeds freely, so if you don't like to deadhead, plant it somewhere that you can mow around or weed out seedlings. The plant blooms in summer and fall and benefits from pruning to a desired shape - or you can let it spread into a small tree. It can grow in alkaline to acidic, well-drained soils. Full sun is best for the showiest blooms, but it tolerates some shade. All these positive traits earned the Pride of Barbados the Texas SuperStar designation.

Wrist-neutral hand tools

When it comes to gardening hand tools, I am always on the lookout for something that helps my weak grip and wrist strength. A set I found this weekend in Fredericksburg shows promise.

The tools are by NRG (it stands for natural radius grip and is pronounced energy), and the ergonomic design keeps the wrist in a neutral position to reduce stress and fatigue by providing more strength and power. They are ultra-light and have big, comfy handles. Women with very small hands might find the handles a bit large, though I think they'll be good for me.

I bought the hand trowel (straight blade edges for scraping and scooping and a beveled front edge to cut through compacted soil), cultivator (with three wicked-looking tines), hand transplanter (good for transplanting deeply rooted plants - the extra-long blade had little raised dots to measure bulb hole depths) and the nifty hand weeder (a long, narrow blade to pop out weeds without disturbing plants - plus a seed well).

The pieces were $12.99 each, which I will happily pay for something that works. They come with a lifetime guarantee, too. Note: I like to shop locally. I bought these when I ran across them in Fredericksburg because I hadn't noticed them in Beaumont and wasn't sure I could find them here. When I got home, I did a search of NRG's website and found that Al Cook Nursery out on Hwy 105 sells them.