Southern Gardening

Heirloom vegetables certainly get their fair share of gardening attention. But many homeowners don’t realize that there are ornamental plants that are considered heirlooms. One that I’m becoming fonder of, especially in the summer and through the fall season, is Confederate Rose. This is an old fashioned plant that is not a rose at all. It is actually a hibiscus known botanically as Hibiscus mutabilis, with other common names such as Cotton rose or Cotton Rosemallow.

There’s no other plant that embodies the holiday season like the poinsettia. Southern Gardening is visiting Natchez Trace Greenhouses getting into the Christmas spirit. Traditionally, red poinsettias are the first choice of many holiday gardeners. Prestige Red is a great choice with dark green foliage providing the background to display its brilliant red color. Now I need to point out that the colorful “flowers” that we love so much are not flowers at all. They are actually modified leaves called bracts. Let’s take a look at how the greenhouse tricks these bracts into changing color.

I’m excited to be visiting the garden of a new friend. Peter is a self-described one man landscape operation and there’s always a project or two going on. C’mon, let’s go take a look. Entering his garden I’m drawn to the size of the angel trumpet and canna. At greater than ten feet tall I really love the late season pink downward hanging angel trumpet flowers and the tall red canna behind the angel trumpet remind me of the size of many of the old timey varieties. Peter uses these plants to shelter eggplants from the hot Mississippi summer heat. Good tip! Turning left I love the small pond.

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.

Today Southern Gardening is with our friend Colleen and her beautiful historic home in Natchez. I want to share a really neat space she has created in the landscape. Walking up you can’t help to notice the space is bordered by gorgeous bluestone that creates symmetry and an elegant well define border to the area. On both sides planting of Flutterby butterfly bushes are still attracting late season butterflies. Behind the butterfly bushes are a single row of Shishi Gashira camellia which reinforces the formality of the space. The defined lawn area is perfect for events and entertaining.