Southern Gardening

Colorful flowers always get the most attention in the landscape or combination containers. But today I’d like to share some the unsung heroes of the garden, the spillers. Spillers are those plants that have sprawling growth; here are a few that are good choices. Creeping jenny, known botanically as Lysimachia, is a little ground cover with sprawling growth. This is an accurately named selection called Goldilocks due to its bright golden yellow leaves. This is great in a container paired with dark leaved companions.

I think one of the classic summer plants for our Mississippi gardens has to be bougainvillea. This tropical plant is perfect for a hanging basket or container on the porch and patio. Today Southern Gardening is visiting Rivers Nursery for a good look at these plants that require little care and can return many years of enjoyment. These bougainvillea baskets will develop long arching branches as the summer progresses. Be careful when handling because of the sharp thorns on the stems. The flowers are available in a variety of colors, but did you know they are not actually flowers?

With Mother's Day coming up, consider putting together a beautiful combination container to brighten up a shady corner on her porch or patio. Not all plants will perform well when placed in a shady corner, so let's look at some plants that will be perfect for Mom's present. For this container, I’m looking for plants that like shade and partial shade. There are plenty of plants with colorful and interesting foliage. For example, Kong coleus is perfect with its large colorful leaves that feature incredible patterns. Another plant with striking foliage is Charmed Wine oxalis.

Every once in a while we like to show a few plants that are not your ordinary Mississippi landscape variety. In the past we’ve shown you odd plants called Buddha Hand and Mother of Thousands. Here is another fantastically curious hybrid, called fatshedra, which comes from a cross of Japanese fatsia and English ivy. This slow growing selection is called Angyo Star and has beautiful richly green sweetgum-like leaves with creamy white borders. Because of its ivy heritage, it’s called a semi-upright grower, and needs a little support.