How's Your Garden?

BY LOIS TRIGG CHAPLIN

AMERICAN GARDEN ROSE SELECTIONS

Rose gardeners, a.k.a. rose collectors, are usually always happy to try a new rose. This year, three of the five winners of the American Garden Rose Selections (AGRS) are well suited to the Southeast. AGRS roses earn recommendation based on performance, beauty, disease resistance, and easy maintenance. Brindabella Pink Princess grows 3 to 4 feet tall and wide in a dense, shrub-like form that works well in the landscape, and it also has excellent resistance to black spot and powdery mildew. All that and the pretty pink blossoms smell good, too! OSO Easy Urban Legend is another landscape rose of similar size, but this one is red with bright yellow stamens in the center reminiscent of a camellia blossom. The plant bears handsome, dark green, disease-resistant foliage. The third is Petite Knock Out, the first miniature in the Knock Out series at only 1 ½ feet tall with blooms 1 ½ inches in diameter. This is one better suited for containers. The AGRS was established about 10 years ago to recommend rose varieties based on testing and objective evaluation at trial gardens in different regions of the U.S. Learn about the AGRS program and the location of test gardens at americangardenroseselections.com.

Brimdabella Pink

PRUNE LANDSCAPE ROSES

Landscape roses are roses that behave more like landscape shrubs than the traditional hybrid tea rose, which is prized for cutting. These include well-known names such as Simplicity, Brindabella, the Fairy, Pink Pet, OSO Easy, and Knockout roses. It’s important to prune mature plants to keep them full, vigorous and free of disease. Always prune in winter, before the leaves begin to bud. First, remove dead wood and any that looks diseased or discolored. Then remove stems that overlap and rub each other. Plants more than two or three years old benefit from cutting back all the remaining canes by one third of their current height yearly to keep them full and bushy. Winter is also a great time to clean under the plants. Remove old mulch, leaves, and debris along with cuttings because decaying litter from last season harbors pests that will increase insect and disease pressure on the plants next season. Lay fresh mulch to start off the growing season.

OSO Easy Urban Legend rose

THIS BOK CHOY IS PURPLE

Bok Choy is the cabbage of choice for folks who like to eat sautéed and stir-fried vegetables. Even if you don’t, it’s a beautiful leafy green for pots and spring flower beds. Purple Boy choy is particularly striking with its bright green veins. This is one for the red category for folks who eat a variety of colors of fruits and veggies because each pigment group contains different antioxidants. Easy to grow and fast, purple bok choy can be started indoors under lights now and planted into the garden about a month before the last frost. Just be prepared to cover it if there is an overnight deep dive in temperature.

Purple Bok Choy

REPURPOSING PINE LOGS

What to do with the extra pine trunks left behind after a tree falls or is taken down? One gardener turned lengths of trunk into a vertical log pile in the woods. In the summer it makes a good resting place for potted houseplants that need shade. The logs will eventually decompose leaving a little bit richer soil for wildflowers.

Fallen logs

IT’S CEDAR WAXWING SEASON

Every year for a short time, flocks of cedar waxwings descend in our yard for a few meals, cleaning every berry from nearby cherry laurel and yaupon trees. They also love hackberry, black cherry, red cedar, American holly , and mistletoe berries. The beautiful, sleek birds are named for their waxy red wing tip. Be on the lookout for them as they finish their winter stay here and head back north to raise their young in the spring. To attract flocks to your yard, plant some of their favorite berry trees.

Cedar waxwings