News Filed Under Lawn and Garden
Fresh herbs have a lot of home uses, and I love growing them in containers. Herbs can be used for cooking, fragrance, landscaping, crafts and decoration, and they can have medicinal properties if you contact your doctor before utilizing them for this purpose. Many herbs also perform well in containers.
May is here and you know what that means, it’s go time!
PICAYUNE, Miss. -- The Mississippi State University Crosby Arboretum will hold its biannual music night May 6 in Picayune. Attendees will enjoy three live performances by area acts during Music Under the Stars. The event will be held on the Pinecote Pavilion from 6 to 9 p.m.
There’s nothing as magical and whimsical as a garden filled with colorful butterflies. They’re fun to watch, but they also play an important role in our environment.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
PICAYUNE, Miss. -- The public is invited to celebrate part of the Mississippi State University Crosby Arboretum’s history during the Strawberries & Cream Festival April 16 in Picayune. The event commemorates the Depression-era strawberry farm located on the grounds of what is now a premier native plant conservatory. The festival begins at 1 p.m. and ends at 3 p.m. Activities will be held on the Pinecote Pavilion. Admission is free.
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.
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.
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:
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.
Sweet potato growers in Mississippi can get free nematode testing of soil samples they send to Mississippi State University from now until Dec. 31, 2024. The samples can be submitted in nematode bags available at local county MSU Extension Service offices; samples are also accepted in quart-sized, sealed plastic bags.
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.
MERIDIAN, Miss. -- Gardening and floral design enthusiasts and professionals can enjoy a floral design demonstration and reception at Merrehope in Meridian. Petals & Prosecco will feature Jim DelPrince, a horticulture specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. He will show attendees how to make 19th century-style mantel garlands.
For a few short weeks, daffodils grace the planet with their beauty and remind us of warm weather right around the corner.
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.
BELZONI, Miss. -- A team whose mission is to “Keep Belzoni Beautiful” has earned national recognition for its work.
Keep America Beautiful, a nonprofit organization committed to community improvement and beautification, presented the Mississippi State University Extension Service a Keep America Beautiful State Agency Partnership award for 2021. Only 13 such awards were presented nationwide. Keep Belzoni Beautiful -- KBB for short -- is a chapter of Keep Mississippi Beautiful.