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Bones, Berries and Bark - The Keys to the Winter Landscape. A lot of people dread winter because the landscape can retreat from its beauty to one that looks more like Siberia. It doesn’t have to be that way if you can remember the three B’s, Bones, Berries, and Bark.
Go Green for Your Garden Improve Your Soil with Compost. Incorporating organic matter helps loosen tight heavy soils so they will drain or improve sandy soil's ability to hold water and nutrients. You win no matter your soil type.
With rains being almost non-existent for much of the region this past summer many of us have gone back to thinking about tough plants as well as water conservation.
It’s been in my lifetime that appliances started coming out with EER ratings. This is the Energy Efficient Rating from A through G and usually has an associated number like 10.4. Each appliance in your home including major heating and air-conditioning systems probably has these in bright yellow and easy to read. What about the landscape, what energy-efficient rating would it get?
A rain garden's basin collects and holds storm water for a short period of time, usually less than 24 hours. The soil absorbs the water and any pollutant particles. Proven Winners perennials like Upscale Monarda, Tuscan Sun heliopsis, Luminary phlox, Firefly yarrow and Storm Cloud amsonia, the Landscape Perennial of the Year, could all fit in a rain garden and help filter out the pollutants while providing water to the stems and leaves. The water evaporates back into the atmosphere from the plants.
Planting season is here and we all have a lot of wants like fragrance, tough and persevering, able to help with erosion and being a benefit to bees, birds and butterflies. That’s a tall order but believe it or not, there is a group, call them the A-Team or All-Stars that will do almost everything you wish. They each have that strong native DNA running through and through.
Hummingbirds Acrobats of the Garden World
As August arrives, we find ourselves smack in the middle of peak butterfly season in the south. After watching for years at the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens in Savannah, Columbus Botanical Garden in Columbus, GA, and Callaway Botanical Gardens in Pine Mountain, GA, I have always been watching hydrangeas.
The Temple of Bloom is like the tree of life to everyone who gardens for pollinators. It is a more compact form of Seven-Sons Flower known botanically as Heptacodium micronioides. I know that it has sound unknown and foreign in both variety, common name and botanical name as any I have put before you. The Temple of Bloom’s native habitat is China where its wild populations are under threat of extinction. If you live in zones 5a to 9b however, and you are looking for butterflies, bees and hummingbirds, then this is a must have plant.
Wondering what you could be doing in your Southern garden to help it thrive? Check here for seasonal tips and guidance from Southern gardening expert Norman Winter, tailored for hot, humid growing conditions.
