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The snow bush is sought after for its colorful foliage and unique habit rather than its bloom. It produces slender, burgundy-colored zigzagging stems with leaves painted in green, cream and pink.
February 19, 2004 - Filed Under: Lawn and Garden

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

This year it looks like the snow bush will again be one of the hottest plants at the garden and patio shows, but you had shop early if you want one or more.

Some may ask, "What in the world is a snow bush? Isn't the winter long, cold and wet enough without mentioning snow?"

Strata is a frosty gray and blue violet Salvia farinacea that combines well with a host of colors including these yellow Prairie Sun rudbeckias.
February 12, 2004 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

Victoria Blue, a 1998 Mississippi Medallion award winner, has always been one of my favorite varieties of Salvia farinacea, or mealy-cup sage, but there are certainly some other selections worthy of a prime spot in the landscape.

Fresh Look Yellow offers season-long garden color with minimal care.
February 5, 2004 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

If you are ready for some new garden appeal, look no further than two of this year's All-America Selections winners: Fresh Look Red and Fresh Look Yellow celosia.

Fresh Look Red celosia performs like a fresh floral arrangement all summer and for that reason is an All-America Selections Gold Medal Winner.

Thriving in the summer heat and humidity with drought or rainy conditions, Fresh Look Red decorates a garden or patio container with rosy red plumes.

Oriental Limelight
January 29, 2004 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

If silver foliage is the first thing you think of at the mention to the word artemisia, you haven't seen Oriental Limelight. This introduction by Proven Winners has really captured the imagination of landscape designers everywhere. It is also an incredible plant for mixed baskets and containers.

In the first year the Rajun Cajun gets established nicely and for most of the summer sends up shooting star-like stalks topped with brilliant red blossoms. By the third year the clump has enlarged considerably, yielding dozens of flower stalks at once.
January 22, 2004 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

The Rajun Cajun ruellia really impressed me last summer and makes it high on my list for the landscape in 2004. I have grown this fiery red flower before but as usual, it is other gardeners' applications or companions that really cause my excitement.

For optimal Southern performance, grow the Golden Hakone where it gets some morning sun but shade protection in the afternoon.
January 15, 2004 - Filed Under: Lawn and Garden

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

To be perfectly honest, I like the 70-degree days we had around New Year's Day, and I loathe the low-20s that followed. A two- or three-week winter would suit me fine because I am ready to dig in the dirt.

Raised bed gardening puts the joy back in planting flowers and shrubs.
January 8, 2004 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens, Vegetable Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

The key to happiness with flowers in 2004 may depend on raised beds.

Twenty years ago the phrase "raised bed gardening" conjured up visions of railroad or landscape timbers encompassing the vegetable garden. The reasons were simple: the soil was yucky, and these walls of wood could hold in the perfect organic and topsoil blends brought in by a truck.

The Perennial Plant Association named Athyrium niponicum Pictum the 2004 Perennial Plant of the Year. This perennial low-maintenance Japanese painted fern is one of the showiest ferns for shade gardens.
January 1, 2004 - Filed Under: Lawn and Garden

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

The Perennial Plant Association has been one of the hardest working and innovative promotional organizations in the country. They keep you on your toes because you never know whether the winner will be a flower, grass, or in this year's case, a fern.

The Perennial Plant Association has named Athyrium niponicum Pictum the 2004 Perennial Plant of the Year. This perennial low-maintenance Japanese painted fern is one of the showiest ferns for shade gardens.

AARS winning roses are all judged on 15 key gardening characteristics including disease resistance, hardiness, color, form, flowering effect, fragrance, vigor and novelty. Winners must perform exceptionally well over a two-year period in numerous test gardens throughout the United States.
December 25, 2003 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman WinterMSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

The cold holiday season seems like a good time to give everyone a glimpse of the new All-America Rose Selection winners that will be at garden centers in just a few weeks.

This year's trio is just what you would expect award-winning roses to be: beautiful, fragrant, disease-resistant and easy to maintain. Day Breaker, Honey Perfume and Memorial Day have outperformed the field to be awarded the coveted AARS honor.

Mistletoe is parasitic on the stems of woody plants, from which they derive water, minerals, nutrients and small amounts of organic compounds carried in the sap. In other words, they suck the life right out of that beloved oak.
December 18, 2003 - Filed Under: Lawn and Garden

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

Although I don't come from a long line of kissers, many families enjoy the holiday tradition of hanging the mistletoe. Most of us probably remember running to or fleeing from the mistletoe as teenagers, depending on who happened to be under it.

Natchez crape myrtle, known for its white blossoms during the summer, has beautiful bark that adds a special look to winter landscapes. The deep cinnamon-brown bark develops around the fifth year.
December 11, 2003 - Filed Under: Trees

By Norman WinterMSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

Winter is not normally the time to tout the virtues of the crape myrtle unless you have newer varieties. Several of the new hybrids have bark that is really something special in the winter landscape.

This hybridization primarily is between Lagerstroemia indica, the old-fashioned crape myrtle of our ancestors, and Lagerstroemia fauriei. Both are native to China, Southeast Asia and Japan.

With almost indescribable leaf color and huge panicles of bright red berries, nandinas are among the very best shrubs for fall and winter color in terms of both leaves and fruit.
December 4, 2003 - Filed Under: Lawn and Garden

By Norman WinterMSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

With almost indescribable leaf color and huge panicles of bright red berries, nandinas are among our very best shrubs for fall and winter color in terms of both leaves and fruit. Sad is the home landscape without a heavy sampling of these wonderful shrubs.

Sometimes called heavenly bamboo, nandina does indeed have a somewhat exotic appearance. It is actually in the barberry family and has relatives like the mahonia.

Bouquet Purple is a tall cut-flower type dianthus that is cold tolerant yet able to endure a Mississippi summer. The flowers are a bright, bold, cheerful hot pink-purple color.
November 25, 2003 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

At our house the dianthus have really started to show out, and I would encourage all gardeners to make use of this wonderful cool-season flower.

I say cool season, but today's dianthus are a far cry from the ones we used to call pinks. Today by virtue of hybridizing species, they are tough from the standpoint of both cold and added-heat tolerance. This hybridization brought together species from China (chinensis) and Southern Europe (barbatus) for a great new plant.

In addition to combining with sweet alyssum, pansy or dianthus in the fall, try dusty miller with other drought-tolerant spring selections like gomphrena, salvia, purple heart, pink lantana and yarrow.
November 20, 2003 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

Garden centers are loaded with the highest quality fall bedding plants, getting gardeners ready to pull up those marigolds and cut back lantanas, verbenas, salvias and mums if they haven't already.

The last few weeks I have been touting the traditional pansies, snapdragons, violas and cabbages, but there are other great plants that you might not have tried.

Flowering kale and cabbage excel in beds of brightly colored pansies, violas, panolas and snapdragons.
November 13, 2003 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

The current weather pattern appears to have been designed with the flowering kale and cabbage in mind. Considered among the best of all the wonderful cool-season plants, flowering kale and cabbage produce foliage in brilliant, colorful shades of lavender, green, purple, pink and white. They last from October or November through April, bringing the winter garden alive.

When gardeners discover the harmony that results from using varying colors and textures, what was once considered simply a flower border takes on the look of a real garden.
November 6, 2003 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

For years I have written about combining colors in gardens to add that desired sizzle. The great flower displays that catch gardeners' eyes most surely had color, but other variations can also help create that spark.

These red Montego snapdragons demontrate how showy single-colored plantings can be when combined with yellow pansies.
October 30, 2003 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist

The first flower to capture my eye as a child was the snapdragon. I am sure it was the stunning, vibrant colors coupled with the wonderful fragrance.

I recently have seen two of the best selections of snapdragons ever, one in Ocean Springs and one in Jackson. The snapdragon is one of our best cool-season flowers, and now is the time to get them planted.

The Duet viola mix features bold, vibrant orange, yellow, violet, cream and lavender petals, and the Swirl mix has an heirloom, or antique, look with pale yellow, cream with lilac and lavender shades.
October 24, 2003 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist

Just when I'm old enough to get set in my ways, something new happens in the plant world to get me unsettled. The most recent episode involves violas.

I have always been a mass-plant-a-single-color kind of guy. In other words, mixes and blends have never been my cup of tea. But now I'll admit I am beginning to be won over by mixes, particularly the new Sorbet viola mixes.

The Panola clear features flowers without blotches and new colors including rose, scarlet and sky blue, which are not yet available in single colors.
October 17, 2003 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

The name Panola says it all: this rugged fall- and winter-bloomer combines the best characteristics of pansies and violas.

A 2000 Mississippi Medallion award winner, the Panola swept the awards from other pansy-type crops in recent Ohio trials.

Visitors to the Fall Flower and Garden Fest can expect to find a variety of flowers and ornamental grasses, like the muhly grass and dwarf pampas shown here.
October 10, 2003 - Filed Under: Flower Gardens, Vegetable Gardens

By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

The best free gardening or horticultural event in the South is just a few days away. The Fall Flower and Garden Fest Oct. 17-18 is better than festivals in many other states and offers fun for the whole family.

This extravaganza takes place at the Truck Crops Branch Experiment Station on Highway 51 just south of Crystal Springs from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. each day. Attendance increased last year by just over 1,000 for a two-day total of about 7,000.

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