Southern Gardening is back at Pine Hills Nursery and I really want to share some of the garden treasures I’ve found. Hamelia, also called firebush, is a tough plant for our summer and fall seasons. This is a vigorous growing plant and suited for our garden spaces. The attractive foliage is evergreen and arranged in combinations of three. The flowers are arranged in whorled clusters of gorgeous reddish orange flowers. The tubular flowers are produced all summer and well into the fall season. A new selection is Lime Sizzler with a mixed variegation of chartreuse yellow and lime green foliage. Crossandra Orange Marmalade, known botanically as Crossandra infundibuliformis is sometimes called firecracker flower and absolutely thrives in our summer heat and humidity and really brings the color. This easy to grow plant is a real attention grabber. An uncommon garden plant I love is golden thryallis, known botanically as Galphimia glauca. These shrubs will put on a display of bright yellow flower clusters, each tinged with red stamens and pistils, and all displayed on the rusty brown stems. Tecoma is another uncommon flowering perennial plant in Mississippi. It has bright green 2 to 3-inch leaflets, which have sharply toothed edges. The tubular flowers, both yellow or orange, are 1-2 inches long and hang in showy clusters at the branch tips and forks. The blooms appear in flushes throughout the growing season. You can’t go wrong adding any of these bright and colorful plants to your landscape. I’m horticulturist Gary Bachman and I’ll see you next time on Southern Gardening.
