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North Mississippi Gardening Tips
April, 2004

FLOWERS

By the middle of this month it is safe to set out those packs of colorful, frost tender bedding plants among your perennials in your flowerbeds. Select annual plants that compliment your perennials in color, form and texture. Consider color and timing of blooms, mature height and spread and cultural requirements, such as light and water before planting that six pack of annuals helter skelter among your perennials. Also, remember that planting a group or drift of the same plant is more effective than one here and one there. Odd numbers are more pleasing than even numbers of plants. Be careful about disturbing the established roots and sprouts of perennials as you plant. Be adventuresome and try something new this year. There are always new plant selections to choose from to add interest and spice up your garden!

When the night temperatures are consistently above 55 degrees Fahrenheit, it is safe to plant tender bulbous, tuberous, and rhizome plants, such as canna, caladium, elephant ear, dahlia, ginger lily and tuberose. You can still lift and divide perennials if the plants do not have full top growth or have not started to bloom. If you haven't already, now is the time to cut back tropical flowering plants like hibiscus, ixora and allamanda if you wintered these over.

TREES AND SHRUBS

If needed, prune spring flowering trees and shrubs immediately after bloom. In my book, the only reason you would be pruning trees would be to remove dead, broken, crossed or damaged limbs. The only other legitimate reason to prune a limb off a tree is if it rakes you off the riding lawn mower or pokes you in the eye as you walk past. If you are pruning to maintain size, you have the tree in the wrong place.

Mulching around the base of newly planted trees and shrubs is a good idea. It retains moisture, moderates soil temperatures, controls weeds and looks real pretty. Please do not pack the mulch up around the trunk. This just creates an environment for disease and insect damage and provides cover for the vicious little vole to gnaw the bark on the trunk.

This is not the best time to plant balled and burlapped or containerized trees and shrubs (best time is in fall or early spring), but go ahead. Be sure to pay special attention to watering during the first season of growth. It is not recommended to plant bare-root shrubs and vines after the new leaves have come out.

GROUND COVERS AND LAWNS

Use ground covers where shade is too dense or the terrain is too rough for turf grass. Many types of ground covers can provide color and texture differences in the landscape and keep soil in place. Ground covers are typically described as less than 18 inches in height and generally require little maintenance once they are established. Some, such as mondo grass, resemble grass in growth form while others, such as sweet Williams and violets are grown as much for flower color as for the foliage.

The best ground cover for shady areas, in my humble opinion, is moss. If you want year-round color, virtually no maintenance, and a soft bed to lie on and watch the summer clouds go by, moss is the hands down winner. For years, I have been encouraging a lawn of moss to grow under the towering hardwoods that comprise my front yard. Since this is its native habitat and the moss was flourishing to begin with, all I have had to do is ride around in the fall on my mower with the mulching blade and chew up all the leaves. If fall leaves are left throughout the winter, the moss will be smothered and will not grow. Right now, in early February, as I am writing this, I am looking out my upstairs window onto a light green carpet of moss. There is nary a leaf on the oaks, hickories and ashes, but the moss is lush and green and it never needs mowing!

VEGETABLES

This is the month that most north Mississippians plant their summer vegetable gardens. Time to plant sweet corn, beans, squash, peppers and tomatoes. For those vegetables that require a warm soil for good germination, like watermelons, muskmelons, and okra, it might be better to wait until early May when the soil temperature is warmer.

A couple of years ago, I wrote in this column how the old-timers tested soil temperatures. It seems that folks would shuck off their pants and sit their bare behinds on the ground. If this made you gasp, or otherwise was shocking to the system, I mean the effect on the person doing the sitting, not the effect on the bystanders observing, then the ground was too cold for good seed germination. If it was not unpleasant, again, the effect on the sitter, not the bystander, then the soil was warm enough.

If you don't want to chance the neighbors calling the law, I wouldn't suggest you try this. Buy a thermometer instead. Several readers approached me after this came out originally and wanted to know if I had actually tried this. Well, I will have to plead the fifth on that one!

Lelia Scott Kelly, Ph.D., writes North Mississippi Gardening Tips monthly and is a Horticulture Specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. Her office is in the North Mississippi Research & Extension Center, Verona.