Landscape Design and Management
Eudora Welty House, Jackson, MS
Careful landscape planning can increase your family's enjoyment of your property, save money, solve difficult site problems, and add significantly to the value and beauty of your home.
Successful landscapes happen from well thought out plans and designs of outdoor spaces. By carefully considering how you will place landscape elements on your property, you can avoid many costly mistakes that may need later correcting.
This Mississippi Landscapes Design and Management section is designed to provide homeowners with information and solutions for creating successful home environments.
Publications
News
Daisies are one of the many flowers blooming during the month of April. (Photo by Canva)
After an unseasonal cold snap in March, spring has officially started and the warmer weather is here to stay– at least for a little while. Hopefully, the cold didn’t damage your plants! Working on your yard is a great excuse to spend time outside now that the weather is nice. Here are a few things you can work on in your landscape for the month of April:
Native plants have garnered a lot of attention, especially because of their relationship to pollinators, but these plants are valuable for many other reasons. In addition to pollen, they provide food and shelter for birds and other wildlife, as well as creating biodiversity in the ecosystem.
Despite their beautiful appearance, the Bradford pear tree is not recommended to have in your landscape. (Photo from MSU Extension)
If you have Bradford pear trees on your property, you are quite familiar with the odor they release. How could such a beautiful tree smell like rotting fish? The odor isn’t the only thing that makes this tree undesirable.
Light pruning on a yearly basis creates a naturally shaped crape myrtle.
Crape myrtles are popular for their low-maintenance beauty, but they can benefit from some light pruning this time of year.
Plants across the state that suffered from the unusually cold weather just days before Christmas will need some help recovering from damage they suffered in the deep freeze. Mike Brown, state climatologist and Mississippi State University meteorologist, said Mississippi’s average late December temperature is 44 degrees on the coast, 38 degrees in central Mississippi and 34 degrees in north Mississippi.
Success Stories
Brian Andrus irrigated exactly zero times on his Sunflower County farm in 2021. He didn’t even turn on his well.
Engineer designs sub-irrigated planter
The answer would have discouraged most people when Mike Boyles asked Mississippi State University Extension Service agent Jim McAdory about building a permanent, subirrigated planter on a concrete slab.
See what's new in Extension: Extension Supports University's Community Garden, Extension Appoints New 4-H Staff, Extension Landscape Symposium Honors Professor Emeritus, and Extension's Southern Gardener Opens Little Free Garden
After a tragic car accident in 2017 led to the deaths of two Central Elementary School students, school leaders raised money to support their funerals. Their efforts inspired many South Mississippi residents in Lucedale and across George County.
