Southern Gardening from 2023
I usually write the Southern Gardening column about how the different seasons change the look of our landscapes and gardens, what seasonal plants look great and when it’s time to transition with new plants for the next season. Just like in the garden, a career has a season for everything, and there comes a point when you realize it’s time for a change.
I don’t know about you, but I have been bombarded with seed catalogs this winter. Since about age 12, one of my favorite hobbies has been looking through catalogs at all the new plants.
Some new plants have forever changed the horticulture industry, while others disappear after just one season.
All of us gardeners are super eager to get things moving in our landscape. And who wouldn’t be, with sunny, 70-degree January days? Of course, everything looks horrible from the “freezemageddon” that we experienced just a few weeks ago. It is still too early to start pruning and cleaning up our plants, but I must confess that I don’t always follow the rules. There may be a few plants that I just could not look at anymore.
As you walk around the landscape in January and look forward to the joy of starting a flower or vegetable garden, don’t overlook what you are stepping on. Healthy, productive plants require healthy soil. While soil may not be as eye-catching as narcissus or redbud flowers, it does require your attention.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.