I have practiced composting in my back yard for several years. With my neighbor's grass clippings (he refused to leave them on his lawn), lots of tree leaves, vegetable and fruit scraps from the kitchen and many, many dead plants to contribute to the heap, I have no shortage of material.

NATALIE CAUDILL/DMN

The new compost tumbler protects hardworking earthworms from Ruby Dee (left) and Violet.

I've even been known to load strangers' plastic bags of grass clippings left by the landscaper into the back of my car, as well as plastic bags of heavy, wet coffee grounds from my neighborhood coffee shop.

I relate to the frequent colloquial references to homemade compost as "black gold." I love the sweet, rich earthy smell of compost done right. I believe it amends the native black clay of my property. I appreciate the work done by the earthworms I reveal with a turn of the digging fork.

I practiced the slow method of composting, meaning I piled all the ingredients in a corner of my back yard and routinely watered it and turned it. The heap was an eyesore, but it was a natural eyesore rather than a plastic eyesore – plastic, in bright green or dull brown, being the material of store-bought bins.

The other problem with most bins is that they looked way too small to hold the compostable waste my house and garden generate. With the addition of the four (now seven) city chickens in 2003, I suddenly had a large amount of fouled straw bedding to add to the mix.

On the one hand, fresh chicken manure is hot, meaning its addition to the heap generates heat that, in turn, speeds up decomposition of the green and brown materials. On the other hand, straw takes longer to break down than oak leaves, grass clippings or lettuce.

The hens are happy to turn the compost heap for me. Their strong legs never seem to tire of scratching away at the heap. A 4-foot-tall compost pile can be flattened in a few hours by industrious chickens.

At the end of the day, however, I have to rake it back into a tall pile so it can cook. And the heap, post hen scratch, is minus several hundred earthworms. Ethel, Mae, Fern and their counterparts are welcome to grubs and cutworms, but it bothered me to see them swallowing the hard-working earthworms.

I resorted to covering the compost heap with, what else, a bright blue plastic tarp to keep the chickens out of it.

A few weeks ago, therefore, I bought a green plastic Tumbleweed composter. Shaped like a capsule and made of heavy-duty polypropylene, the 46-inch-tall tumbler has a 58-gallon capacity (7 to 8 cubic feet).

There's a stainless steel rod running through the middle of the bin that helps aerate the material inside when you give it the prescribed daily spins. There's not a handle to facilitate turning the cylinder; you have to push and pull (and huff and puff if the to-capacity contents have settled heavily).

"It's simple in design yet built with high-quality materials," says Michael Johnson, co-owner of Green Living near Lakewood. It's the only compost tumbler the store stocks. "Most are way too small for the amount of plant matter that Dallas residents have. We've never had one fail."

With the right mix of ingredients, moisture, temperature and dedicated spinning, the manufacturer claims it will produce finished compost in as few as 21 days. I'm past that point on my maiden batch, but I still see that stubborn straw. Compost is considered ready when you cannot distinguish any of the original contents from the fluffy brown material.

As with every other failure in my garden, I figure it's my fault the straw has not decomposed swiftly. I consulted with a master composter (an official designation) in Arlington to see if he could troubleshoot.

"Straw is particularly high in cellulose," says John Darling, who earned his certification from the city of Arlington's initial class 11 years ago. "I think in terms of six weeks [for finished compost] if I'm staying right on it."

So should I just be patient and keep tumbling the Tumbleweed, I asked. Or should I be adding more green, more brown?

"If you're going to dig it into a garden bed," he says, "you don't want big chunks of carbon [straw, for example] that's going to pull nitrogen away from the plants."

He recalls Dallas Morning News columnist Howard Garrett's instructions: If you're going to use it as mulch, even partly finished compost is good. "As a top dressing, it's good stuff."

And that's good news for me. Because a nutrient-rich top dressing is exactly what I have in mind.

That means I can dump the first batch out of the Tumbleweed, refill it with the rest of the partially decomposed material that remains under the blue tarp, retire the tarp and have only one big piece of plastic remaining in my garden.

Jimmy Turner, the Dallas Arboretum's director of research, builds inventory for its annual sale based on plant trials there. His staff keeps track of how well a trial plant withstands our difficult growing conditions – heat, humidity, high nighttime temperatures, water restrictions, clay soil – and he chooses those with the best marks for the spring sale.

Today at 4 p.m. Mr. Turner, in his typical outspoken, folksy style, will share the arboretum's research at a lecture called Lone Star Greats: Tough Texas Plants. After the class ($22 per person), nonmember participants may join the members' preview sale from 5:30 until 8.

With more than 23,000 plants, the sale includes perennials, succulents and summer annuals, starting at $1 each. There also will be some tropical and rare plants for the seasoned horticulturist.

Mr. Turner anticipates plant fanciers will vie for a giant elephant ear from Thailand (Colocasia gigantea) with leaves 7 feet long by 5 feet wide, wine-red 'Ellen Bosanquet' and pink 'Bradley' crinum lilies and trailing 'Fanfare' impatiens that thrives in shade to full sun.

For large containers or an upright statement in garden beds, he'll have the new purple fountain grass 'Prince' and its compact sister 'Princess' (Pennisetum). Introduced by Athens Select in Georgia, the grass's color deepens the hotter it gets. He also expects Salvia transylvanica 'Blue Cloud' to sell out. "It's the best perennial blue clumping sage for our area and almost impossible to find," he says.

The sale is free to the public Saturday (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and Sunday (8 a.m. to noon). The arboretum may be able to accommodate last-minute participants at today's class; call 214-515-6540.

M.G.

The Tumbleweed compost tumbler