Southern Gardening

As my wife and I traveled around the Southeast last week visiting family and old friends, one stop was especially memorable.

This past week, I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Washington, D.C., while I stayed in Alexandria, Virginia. I was in town because the American Horticultural Society selected me, the Southern Gardener, to receive the Great American Gardener B.Y. Morrison Communication Award.

I grew up horticulturally deficient, so being named a Great American Gardener is extremely humbling. I truly enjoy promoting plants and ways to find gardening success to Mississippi and beyond.

In my role as the Southern Gardener, I get to share many great plants all across Mississippi and beyond. Some are new and some are old reliables, but all get to be called my favorite landscape plants from time to time.

One thing is for sure: All of these plants are Southern Gardening Approved.

The fourth and last column in our hibiscus series focuses on a woody species, Hibiscus mutabilis or confederate rose.

Week three of the Southern Gardening tour of hibiscus brings the spotlight on the hardy hibiscus. This easy-to-grow ornamental is largely unknown to many home gardeners, but with the impact they can have in any landscape, I think every garden should have at least one hardy hibiscus.

This is week two of the "Tour de Hibiscus," featuring great choices for our Mississippi gardens and landscapes. I don't know any home gardener who can resist the colorful flowers of Cajun hibiscus plants, with equally colorful names like Hoochie Papa, Peppermint Patty and Crawfish Pie.

One of the plant groups I love to grow in my home landscape is the hibiscus. To that end, I'm going to dedicate the next several columns to different options of these beautiful flowering shrubs that are available for the home gardener

Last week, I had the pleasure of being the kick-starter speaker for the Mississippi Master Gardener State Conference. My wide-ranging presentation included some of my recommendations of sure-fire, must-have plants for your landscape and garden, all Mississippi Medallion plants.
 

One group of landscape plants that is really starting to take off with its summer show is the lantana. These popular landscape plants are available in a dizzying variety of sizes and colors.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve found myself joining home gardeners everywhere in planting more plants to attract pollinators.

In fact, along with being a stop on the Rosalyn Carter Butterfly Trail, my home landscape is also registered with the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge, which has the goal of registering 1 million pollinator gardens. If you’d like to register your garden, go to http://millionpollinatorgardens.org for more information.

Last week, I really enjoyed sharing the story of the Peggy Martin rose and showing off this marvelous rose growing in my home landscape. I think Southern Gardening Nation liked the Peggy Martin story, as well, based on the positive response from the various social media outlets.

So I'm staying on the same plant theme this week to discuss garden roses that can bring enjoyment to the home gardener.

Peggy Martin roses are called climbers, but this term is a little misleading as she doesn’t actually climb by herself. This rose is more of a leaner and likes to sprawl. It needs to be secured and trained to grow up and over a wall, fence or trellis.

I'm sticking with the butterfly garden theme again this week as I tell you about another must-have plant that I'm positive will not disappoint. Pentas are some of the best annual, summer-color plants, and they act like a magnet for butterflies and hummingbirds because the flowers are a rich source of nectar.

There's still plenty of time to plant some butterfly weed in your home garden and enjoy colorful Monarch butterflies as they visit this summer.

Thank goodness spring has arrived!

After what seems to be an eternity, I finally had a chance to do some much-needed work in my landscape and garden. The pleasant weather we’ve had only adds to my enthusiasm.

Many folks have been waiting for this moment - the day it's warm enough and past the main threat of frost to become tomato planting time.

What a crazy late winter and early spring we’ve had so far this year: warm, cold and repeat.

The seasons are playing tricks on us with cold temperatures following warm. While we go through this latest cold snap, which I have high hopes will be the last, I want to address a landscape issue that’s generating quite a few questions.

I join the gardening world in waiting for the Southern indica azaleas to officially kick off the spring season with their gaudy show of beautiful color. But there’s one landscape shrub that tends to get lost when the azaleas start showing off, and it is actually one of my spring-flowering favorites.

This week, I want to tell you about the Indian hawthorn.

This week, I want to spend our time considering the last of the 2019 Mississippi Medallion selections, Sweetie Pie blackberry.