Southern Gardening

Home gardeners are always looking for information on how plants may perform in their home landscapes. All-America Selections provides good information based on the premise of nationwide trials for local success. The South Mississippi Branch Station in Poplarville is an All-America Selections evaluation garden. Many of the past winners are grown every year for landscape and garden enthusiasts. In the past Southern Gardening has featured the easy to grow New Look celosia with its bright red plumes and attractive burgundy foliage. There is another celosia selection called Fresh Look.

A popular trend in landscaping is including vegetables with ornamental interest. Probably my favorite group are the ornamental peppers. Today I'm in the trial garden at the MSU South Mississippi Branch Station in Poplarville looking at great examples of ornamental peppers. There's a wide variety of foliage colors and fruit shapes. The overall impact and adaptability of ornamental peppers was recognized in 2010 when Purple Flash pepper was named a Mississippi Medallion winner. With its purple and white variegated leaves, it is one of the showiest peppers available on the market.

If there is one plant that could be called the flower of the south, it has to be the crape myrtle. Colorful flower clusters put on a show from early summer through late fall. Here at the MSU South Mississippi Branch Station in Poplarville crape myrtles have been grown and evaluated for over 25 years. The spectacular flowers are actually large panicles composed of many small flowers. These panicles can be more than eight inches long. Flower colors range from white, shades of pink and purple, and rich reds. The small flowers have a crinkled edge resembling crepe paper, hence the name.

One of the most powerful landscaping principles a homeowner can use is repetition. My friends Christi and Mike make good use of repetition with plants, colors and hardscape materials. One of the first things you see in their landscape are the splotches of red. Colorful Ti plant, Encore azaleas and Knockout roses spaced across the front landscape add red color punches. I really like the peacock sculptures paired with the red Dipladenia. Both really like to show off their colorful features. I also like the large ceramic urns and pots placed in various places across the landscape.

It’s no secret that I think pansies may be the perfect cool season flowering annual for our landscapes and gardens. Today I’m visiting Standing Pine Nursery checking out what may be an even better pansy for us to grow, Cool Wave pansies with their trailing habit. This unique growth habit makes Cool Wave a must have in your garden. Cool Wave trailing pansies are much more vigorous than the standard pansy varieties. The plants are well branched and will really fill a landscape bed or hanging basket with good color from fall all the way to next spring.

Poinsettias are the traditional flowering plant associated with the Christmas season. Today I’m visiting Vesley’s Nursery in Sumrall getting ready for the holidays. The brightly colored plants come in a variety of colors and patterns. However, what most people call the “flowers” are actually modified leaves called bracts. The true flowers are the yellow/green bead-like structures called cyathia. Here at Vesley’s the primary varieties being grown are Freedom and Prestige, in both red and white. These are popular varieties as they will color up in response to natural changes in the day length.

While growing up in Michigan, one of my favorite Christmas memories was going out to the farm to pick out the tree to bring home. Down here in Mississippi, many families have a similar tradition. Today I’m at Thomley’s Christmas Tree Farm in Hattiesburg getting ready for the holiday season. The Thomley family has been growing Christmas trees since 1967. There are three varieties of trees being grown here that have adapted to our southern growing conditions. Leyland Cypress is one of the most popular Christmas trees grown in the south.

Everyone knows my friend, Gary Bachman, the Southern Gardener. I’m his secret little Bloom buddy, Puff the Magic Snapdragon. Today, Gary agreed to let me tell you about some of my fellow snapdragon friends from the garden. We snapdragons are cool dudes. In fact, we really like the cool growing season. We have colorful personalities, and we stand out like a floral kaleidoscope in the landscape. My cousin Snapshot is a bushy, compact snapdragon topped by closely spaced, full flower spikes.

It’s the cool season, and there are still options to add color and interest to your landscape. Let’s take a look at some of my fall favorites. Today I’m at Dogwood Ridge Farms in Poplarville where Barbara and Mike Levy are growing a variety of great cool season landscape plants. A favorite bedding plant that is related to the pansy is the viola. Violas are good choices for both landscape and containers. The Penny Citrus mix is a prolific flower producer.

If there’s one bedding plant that just can’t be beat in our cool season landscape, it has to be the pansy. As a group, pansies are great for outstanding performance. The pansy series that has taken the landscape by storm are the Matrix pansies, and they have quickly become one of the industry’s leading cool season bedding plants. There is a wide range of colors available. Many have the traditional blotch, sometimes known as being faced. This is the dark coloration of the lower flower petals. A really attractive group of Matrix flowers have the clear colors.