Southern Gardening

If you’re looking for a tough plant to keep right on blooming despite the heat of the summer, try gomphrena in your garden. This is one tough plant that likes really high temperatures. Sometimes called globe amaranth, legend has it that the original planting was at the gates of Hades.

If you’ve been reading this column and thinking I have a lot of favorite plants, you’re right. If you ask me for my favorites, my answer will depend on the season; some plants are more suitable than others at certain times of the year.

The new selections coming out each year make it even more difficult to have an absolute favorite flowering garden plant. But if there is one plant I have been the most impressed with over the last couple of years, it has to be Million Bells.

Early spring is a wonderful time, as the garden and landscape start to wake from the winter season. One of the many wonderful spring flowering plants is the Lenten rose, an old favorite that you may not often see.

Don’t forget flowering annual vines this spring when you look for bedding plants at your favorite local garden center. These plants add interest and color as they spread across fences and arbors.

Annual vines are fascinating, as they complete their entire life cycle right before your eyes. In just one season, the seeds germinate, the plants grow and flower, and they set seed for the next generation before they die. This is a lot of living packed into one short season.

St. Patrick’s Day triggers increased interest in bringing home from the garden center a three-leafed shamrock. In addition to the traditional green, more and more varieties are showing up with gorgeous purple to almost black foliage.

Some of the prettiest flowers you can grow in the garden or in containers are African daisies, and these beauties are starting to arrive at garden centers.

Known botanically as Osteospermum, African daisies are outstanding flowering plants. These plants are from South Africa and are relatively new to many home gardeners. African daisies have the familiar center disk of the daisy family, but theirs are dark metallic. The brightly colored petals come in various shades of white, pink, yellow, blue and purple.

Several years ago, a group of hybrid impatiens was developed, offering bright flowers and interesting foliage in the hot summer sun. Sunpatiens’ superior performance in the landscape earned them the status of Mississippi Medallion winner for 2011.

(top) Compact lilac Sunpatiens are great in flowering combination containers. These outstanding, tight-branching plants require little pruning.

(bottom) Sunpatiens are hybrid impatiens that thrive through the hottest parts of summer. They flower from spring until fall’s first frosts. (Photos by Gary Bachman)

Every year after several warm and sunny days in late February or early March, we begin to see just a little color peeking out of flower buds in our landscape. Then suddenly there is a rush of color, ranging from the faintest pinks to the boldest purples.

I get calls from people surprised to see these trees covered in gorgeous blooms. When I tell them the tree is a magnolia, some are astonished to learn there are magnolias other than the Southern Magnolia.

This winter’s irregular temperatures have been tough on landscape plants all across Mississippi and have given even positive gardeners a case of the winter blues. One sure-fire sign that spring is around the corner is the Gulf Coast Garden and Patio Show February 25, 26 and 27 at the Coast Coliseum in Biloxi.

I have been really impressed so far this winter with the performance of a new pansy called Plentifall.

The unique spreading and trailing growth habit of Plentifall pansies make them outstanding landscape plants. They are well-branched and vigorous growers. They can fill a landscape bed and provide pockets of color from fall all the way to late spring.

A lot of great foliage color develops in the cool temperatures of winter months. Japanese cleyera foliage develops a rich burgundy patina that complements its red petioles, and boxwood foliage becomes an orangey bronze. But my favorite colorful, red-tinged winter foliage has to be nandina.

Many landscapes look drab and dreary in January, and extremely cold temperatures across the state have presented gardeners with an even bigger challenge than usual this winter.

But I had an uplifting experience last week when I attended the Gulf States Horticultural Expo in Mobile. I came away having seen the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel and remembering that the warm days of spring will soon be upon us.

Shopping at the local garden center for potting mix for container plants can be confusing. A bag that simply says “garden soil” can have anything in it. While this may work for in-ground plants, plants in containers require a totally different kind of mix.

Bagged mixes for container plants are often called potting or container mixes. These mixes actually contain no soil at all. They are sold under a variety of trade names and are similar in their basic recipe.

The onslaught of gardening catalogs arriving at our homes is a sure sign of the impending spring and summer gardening seasons.

They have started to pile up at my house. Looking at the stack, I found myself daydreaming this weekend as the wintery blast came sweeping through Mississippi. How will our gardens look in a few short weeks? And how can we make this transformation a little easier?

Whoever said great looking gardens can be maintenance-free? A great looking garden is a lot of work, and with our busy lives, taking a few shortcuts can help us work more efficiently.

January is a good time to take a look at your landscape because views are not obstructed by much foliage. When we can get a really clear view of what lies beyond our own yards, we sometimes don’t like what we see.

Many times we see the neighbor’s house or some view we’re not interested in. These views are hidden in the summer but seem to stare back in the winter. You may notice some traffic noise that gets blocked out by summer foliage.

You could build a privacy fence or wall, but these can seem a little cold and stark. It may be time to plant a living screen.

The brand-new year is the perfect time to make gardening resolutions.

My job at Mississippi State University’s Coastal Research and Extension Center in Biloxi gives me the opportunity to answer a lot of questions and solve many garden problems. Based on this experience, here’s my list of resolutions Mississippi gardeners can make to be more successful in the new year.

Gardening, be it vegetables or flowers, is a popular pursuit. But as enjoyable as gardens can be, there are times when gardeners have problems. Here are some of the traps that gardeners fall into from time to time, and tips to help you avoid them.

With their brightly colored bracts full of holiday cheer, poinsettias are truly the quintessential Christmas plant.

The range of available poinsettia colors is truly phenomenal. Red, white, pink, maroon, speckled and marbled are just the tip of the iceberg. Recently, you may have noticed orange and even blue poinsettias with sparkles. Growers use plant dyes to change the bract colors and expand the variety of colors available to consumers.

The freezing temperatures we are experiencing this week are a stark reminder of the need to provide winter protection for some landscape and garden plants.

Here are some tips to help ward off some of old man winter’s chill. One of the best things you can do for evergreen landscape plants is to give them a good layer of mulch and water them thoroughly. The mulch acts as a blanket, insulating the root system from cold temperatures.

A plant I first saw early this year that has continued to amaze me through summer and fall is Galphimia glauca, commonly known as Golden Thryallis. It started flowering early in the summer, and the stand-out yellow flowers caught my full attention.

The flowers are a bright and cheery yellow and occur in clusters that are up to 6 inches long. Flowering begins in early June and continues through the fall. If warm temperatures linger, the flowering period will extend to the fall.