Want to become a successful Texas gardener? Get to know these important facts.

You probably saw or read the story from U-Haul in the last few days: Texas is its No. 1 destination for one-way state-to-state truck rentals. For whatever the reason, public or private, our state is like a magnet, and people are the iron filings.

Many of those people have come from states where gardening was much easier than it is here in Texas. Since we have many newcomers to our area (Howdy, and welcome!), and since we also have many first-time homeowners sticking their trowels into the garden for the very first time, I’m going to list some critical facts you must always remember if you hope to succeed in gardening here in North Central Texas.

Commit these to memory …

Let’s just use this as a collection of starters. I’m going to come back with a few more of these little gardening facts in the near future.

▪ We are USDA Hardiness Zone 7. Their 2012 map shows that we fall entirely within Zone 8, but you’d be better off using the older 1990 map where we are Zone 7. Look the maps up online if you’re unfamiliar. Winters since 2012 have been cold (Remember last February?). The USDA Hardiness Zone Map helps you choose plants that have the best chance of surviving where you live. Choose those for Zones 7 or 6. Zone 8 plants (less hardy) will need protected locations.

▪ Average date of the last killing freeze in North Central Texas is March 20-22. You have a 50-50 chance on that date of having one more killing frost or freeze. The latest date for a killing freeze, depending on where you are, is around April 10. The whole thing is a bell-shaped curve, where you have a 90% chance of losing freeze-sensitive plants if you set them out too soon (early March) and a 10% chance if you set them out really late (April 8-10). Most gardeners try to hit the middle.

▪ Average date of the first killing freeze in the fall in DFW is Nov. 20. It can freeze here in late October, or it may not freeze until well into December. For planting a fall garden, however, you need to use late October as your benchmark and figure back from it to allow your crops adequate time to produce a full crop.

▪ Northerners who move to Texas often look at all this as “Wow! What a long growing season for gardens.” In reality, Texas has two growing seasons, one for the spring garden and the second for the fall garden. They are separated by eight weeks of intense summer heat when most vegetable plants will not be productive. The fall garden is often the better.

▪ We are in a 700- to 750-hour chill area for fruit crops. That’s most critical in choosing peach and other stone fruit varieties. They have built-in mechanisms for measuring cumulative hours they experience between 32F and 45F. That total is the number of “chilling” hours. Some peach varieties, developed for South Texas, Florida and other warm-winter areas, only require 250-400 chilling hours. When they have reached that total, the first warm days will bring them into bud and bloom, even if it’s still the middle of January. Therefore, they’ll lose their crops in northern climates by blooming way too early. High-chill peaches that need, say 1,200 hours of chilling, by comparison, may never produce flowers or fruit. They don’t get enough cold. They may never produce leaves. So you need to remember that in Fort Worth and North Central Texas we receive 700-750 chilling hours on average.

▪ Almost all of us in the Metroplex garden in alkaline black clay gumbo soils. The pH (acidity/alkalinity) of our soils ranges from 7.5 to 7.8 for most of the area, although there are small pockets of red soil that are neutral (7.0) or slightly acidic. Most plants that we would grow in our landscapes and gardens tend to prefer slightly acidic soils, so we need to choose our plants carefully and prepare their soils properly.

▪ Whenever possible, opt away from plants that need strongly acidic soil and that tend to turn yellow in alkaline conditions. That’s especially the case with large plants with those needs (American hollies and their hybrids, East Texas pines, dogwoods, even azaleas, wisterias and hydrangeas). Our irrigation water is even more alkaline than our native soils, so it’s challenging to keep these plants happy for more than their first few years.

▪ Texas A&M research has shown that the best fertilizer for general-purpose use in our area is an all-nitrogen granular product (any brand) that contains one-third or more of that nitrogen in slow-release form. Clay soils accumulate the middle number of the three-number analysis you’ll see printed on the bag. That’s phosphorus, and it dissolves very slowly in alkaline conditions. That’s why it builds up, even to detrimental levels. If a soil test shows that your soil is too high in phosphorus, all of your plants, from tomatoes to turfgrass, can be fed with the same type of high-quality, phosphate-free lawn food.

▪ Look to Texas Certified and Texas Master Certified Nursery Professionals for timely and reliable information to help with your landscape and garden. You’re most likely to find them at independent retail garden centers, feed stores, and occasionally even hardware stores. They proudly wear their name badges that identify them.

You can hear Neil Sperry on KLIF 570AM on Saturday afternoons 1-3 p.m. and on WBAP 820AM Sunday mornings 8-10 a.m. Join him at www.neilsperry.com and follow him on Facebook.