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News Filed Under Flower Gardens

Colorful small plants fill a container.
April 24, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

Mother’s Day will be here before you know it. If you are struggling to find a present for your mom, consider a mixed succulent container planting. There are hundreds of types of succulent plants that make beautiful combination container plantings. Most local garden centers and nurseries I see typically have many selections of succulents from which to choose.

Black swallowtail caterpillar on a plant.
April 21, 2023 - Filed Under: Lawn and Garden, Flower Gardens

Did you know that certain plants provide food to certain butterflies? Just like adult and baby humans eat different things, the same applies to butterflies!

Red, white and purple flowers bloom above foliage.
April 17, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

Every year, I look for ways to add interest to my front porch with colorful hanging baskets, and there are many different plant choices and combinations that make this possible. One of my favorite hanging basket combinations is Supertunia petunias and Superbells.

A dark shrub is covered in pink blooms.
April 10, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

One thing we know we can count on in the South is that it’s going to get hot. It is useful to include plants in your landscape that can handle the hot and dry conditions.

Loropetalum is a drought-tolerant plant that adds rich color and charm to your landscape.

A collage of photos of hydrangeas, loropetalums and azaleas
April 6, 2023 - Filed Under: Lawn and Garden, Flower Gardens, Landscape Design and Management, Landscape Plants and Trees Diseases, Christmas Trees

RAYMOND, Miss. -- The hard freeze that swept Mississippi on March 19 and 20 dampened some of spring’s early displays and left many landscape plants with unsightly cold damage. Now, homeowners are wondering what to do about their landscape plants that lost their leaves or have brown-tipped or brown, shriveled leaves.

Dr. Eddie Smith
April 3, 2023 - Filed Under: Lawn and Garden, Flower Gardens

Eddie Smith is the new face and driving force of the Southern Gardening family of resources that includes weekly videos, newspaper columns, guest appearances and social media posts focused on gardening in Mississippi.

A cluster of red blooms is surrounded by green leaves.
April 3, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

I believe the geranium is one of the most popular landscape plants in the South. I see them at almost every garden center or nursery I visit. I also remember as a kid seeing my grandmother’s potted geranium in a container on her front porch. It had bright-red flowers.

White daisies.
March 31, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens, Landscape Architecture, Landscape and Garden Design

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:

Numerous red, trumpet-shaped flowers bloom on a vine.
March 27, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

Weeds are often defined as being any plant out of place, but that definition never sat well with me. This simplistic definition seems to emphasize the aggressiveness of plants that don’t behave in the garden. For example, I’ve never heard anyone having problems with hydrangeas popping up in the landscape unexpectedly.

A large, yellow bloom.
March 20, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

I’m a fan of whatever plants happens to be in bloom at any given time, but sunflowers are definitely one of my top five favorites, especially for use in arrangements. Last summer, I decided I wanted to have sunflowers every week until frost.

Frayed Daffodils
March 17, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

For a few short weeks, daffodils grace the planet with their beauty and remind us of warm weather right around the corner.

A bush has dozens of light-orange blooms.
March 13, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

Azaleas are starting to produce their beautiful flowers in my landscape, and it is a welcome sight after a few months of cold weather. Like many of your azaleas, mine had some tender, new growth that suffered cold damage from the freezing temperatures we got last December. I hope you did the right thing and did not do any pruning to your azaleas yet.

A hummingbird feeds on lantana.
March 6, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

It’s time once again to clean those hummingbird feeders and cook up the sugar water. In Mississippi, we can set our feeders out in early March as hummingbirds are migrating north from southern climes. Providing food in backyards is important, as these birds need to consume half their body weight each day.

Orange milkweed.
March 3, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens, Landscape Architecture

I woke up to a dusting of yellow pollen on my car this week, the true sign that spring is on its way! Several flowers are blooming, making the world a little more vibrant after a cold, gray winter.

Bottles and bags fill a row of shelves in a store.
February 27, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

Go down the garden section of any home improvement store, and you will find a dizzying array of fertilizer options available to help you reach your garden goals. But which one should you choose?

The numbers on each bag of fertilizer mean something different, so let’s take some of the confusion out of this common problem.

Light-purple blooms on a vine have dark-purple centers.
February 20, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

After a dreary winter comes every gardener’s favorite time of year: spring! Here are some hot plants you should try this season. Some varieties are fairly new, while others are making quite a comeback.

A leaf shaped like a heart grows in a pot.
February 13, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

Valentine’s Day is a time for people around the world to profess their love for someone or, like most of us, our love for our gardens!

A bottlebrush-shaped flower and leaves are shown close-up.
February 6, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

January can feel like a long month for me. The holiday bustle is over, cold temperatures settle in, and the sky turns grey for days on end. But it doesn’t stay that way for long.

January 31, 2023 - Filed Under: Lawn and Garden, Cut Flowers and Houseplants, Floral Design, Flower Gardens

BILOXI, Miss. -- Gardening and floral design enthusiasts and professionals can enjoy a public lecture by Martha Whitney Butler, a Bay St. Louis floral designer. Butler will deliver a floral design demonstration that includes techniques based on sustainable floral design practices, as well as her experience in art history and the use of antique and vintage floral containers.

A hand holding shears prepares to trim a branch.
January 30, 2023 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

Exceptionally low temperatures this winter caused more cold damage than our typical, milder winters. But try not to panic and prune as soon as you see damage. It is best to let the plant heal and recover what healthy tissue it still has, and then prune the dead parts a little later.

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