Home Gardening

North Mississippi Gardening Tips
May, 2006

Flowers

I can remember a time in the not too distant past when gardeners’ choices of perennials were fairly limited. Now we have so many choices of good perennials, it’s hard to decide. With perennials we usually don’t get the long bloom season of the annuals, but we do get plant longevity.

By choosing the right perennials we can have a succession of bloom all spring and summer. Here is a suggested list of perennials categorized by blooming season to get you started. Spring bloomers: peony, German iris, Siberian iris, thrift (phlox subulata), blue phlox (phlox divaricata), blue star (amsonia), Shasta daisy, ‘Biloxi Blue’ or ‘Homestead Purple’ verbena. Summer bloomers: purple coneflower, rudbeckia, bee balm (monarda), daylily, liatris, and lythrum. Fall bloomers: goldenrod, aster, garden mum, mistflower (wild ageratum), and ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum.

Do not be tempted to cut or otherwise mess with the foliage of your spring-flowering bulbs. If you do this habitually, you will eventually weaken the bulb and flowering will be reduced. Remember your high school botany. The foliage manufactures the food that is stored in the bulb to support the bloom for next spring. Letting the foliage die naturally will ensure that all sugars (food) were translocated to the bulb. If the sight of sickly, yellowing foliage bothers you, plant annuals among the bulbs to help camouflage the unattractive bulb foliage.

Roses

Why is it that roses always seem to coincide their first full bloom with Mother’s day? Maybe this is a subtle hint from nature for all you children out there to get mama a rose bush on her special day. Thereafter, when it blooms every Mother’s day she will remember with great fondness her thoughtful child.

Hybrid tea roses are very popular because of their gorgeous blooms. They are also the highest maintenance roses you can get mama. There are numerous shrub and antique roses that offer magnificent, recurrrent, and fragrant blooms and do not require the spraying, pruning and other high maintenance of the hybrid teas. Talk to your favorite nurserymen about these roses. He can guide you in your selection.

Fruit

Strawberries are among the easiest home fruits to grow and one of the most productive. The plants’ lack of longevity and size cause them to respond quickly to attentions bestowed or forgotten. This and a long fruiting season mean lost ground often can be regained. If all else fails, plants are easily and quickly replaced. ‘Cardinal’ is a recommended cultivar for north Mississippi. For those of you who will enjoy a strawberry harvest and fresh strawberry pies, don’t forget to fertilize your plants after harvest. A general recommendation is 1 to 3 pounds of 13-13-13 fertilizer per 100 feet of row.

Container Gardens

For those of us who are of an age that our get-a-long doesn’t get-a-long quite like it used to, gardening in containers can be a very convenient and good thing. Container gardening is accessible, portable, flexible and whimsical. I can’t think of one plant that we couldn’t grow in a container. Yes, we can even grow trees. We just can’t grow really big trees.

Planting combination or “theme” gardens in containers can be fun, especially for children. How about planting a “Pizza Garden,” a “Tea Garden” or other “gardens” in large containers such as whiskey barrels. Pizza Garden plant choices could be tomato, chives, basil, and oregano. Tea garden choices could be lemon verbena, catnip, mint, German chamomile, and lemon balm. Label all the plants so the young ones will be learning as they are having fun tending their very own gardens.

Vegetables

This month is the time to continue planting our warm season vegetables like pole beans, squash, okra, watermelons, etc. It’s also harvest time for those of us who planted cool season vegetables. Broccoli, lettuce, radishes, spinach, onions and other vegetables can be enjoyed this month. All the weeding, fertilizing and work you’re doing on the warm season vegetables is less tiresome when you know you can return to the house with an armload of fresh cool season veggies.

Because of all the disease problems associated with our hot, humid Southern summers, choosing vegetable varieties based on their disease resistance is essential. Talk to your county Extension agent for recommended disease resistant vegetables. Using these recommendations will mean you won’t have to spray as often with fungicides and the less spraying the better for your family’s health and the environment.

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.