I am beside myself trying to find plants to put in a brick flower bed. The flower bed was built with the house, in 1973, when we were 24 and built this house. I am now at the point of planting something lush, and perrenial, and not much maintenence. I see these split leaf plants […]
This weekend the Mississippi Native Plant Society will meet in Oxford, Mississippi. Registration will begin at 9:30 at the Oxford Public Library on Saturday 10/27/07. E-mail me at gail@gailbarton.com for details.
I am by no means a purist, but I do love native plants and I would guess that at least half the […]
A few months after Hurricane Katrina, I had the bright idea to use some of the refuse wood to grow shitake mushrooms.
I did some research and found that I had plenty of the right type (hardwood oak, sweetgum, etc.), age (recently fallen) and size wood. All the fallen wood that I wanted to use was […]
Confederate roses are actually large hibiscus relatives that bloom in fall.
The normal form in my part of the state is the pink one pictured here. Notice the bumble bee dozing inside the flower.
I also have one that opens white and turns pink as the flower matures. This is quite appropriate since the Latin […]
This weekend I drove from Meridian to West Point down Highway 45. I saw large stands of narrowleaf sunflower all along the highway near Lauderdale. I also hear through the grapevine that Dr. Dirt’s majestic sunflower display is in full swing. For details about visiting Dr. Dirt’s garden in Edwards, Mississippi, check […]
Every year I optimistically plant a vegetable garden. I spend too much money on the seed and get to busy to do the high maintenance weeding required. I make a few harvests and then the garden ends up as a weed patch. Still - it is very satisfying to eat those $10.00 […]
We’ve spent a very lazy 3 day weekend mostly hanging on the porch. Our porch is tiny. It seats 4 fairly comfortably or 5 good friends knee to knee.
The porch overlooks our tiny pond. One of our main diversions this weekend has been to watch our 3 fish (George, Cynthia and Sheba) […]
Our native plant society made a field trip to south Mississippi a few weeks ago. One of the highlights of the trip was seeing the silky camellia (Stewartia malacodendron) in full bloom. I’ve used the picture here as my screen saver since then.
It’s interesting to view all the flower parts at close range. […]
What can I say? I took a blogging break for spring. I’m in a kind of writing rut. I write a gardening column and am stuck if I try to write anything longer/shorter than 2 double spaced pages or if I try to write anything inappropriate for the local paper. So […]
Rules for Watering Plants Effectively
1. Water slowly at low pressure
2. If hand watering, break the force of the water
3. Water thoroughly so that the root zone is saturated
4. Allow the top inches of the soil to dry before watering again
5. Don’t allow water to accumulate at the bottom of the root zone
For more details […]