IN THE GARDEN BY BETTY MORRELL

IN THE GARDEN BY BETTY MORRELL

beautiful bloomers

With spring finally here, you can add beautiful color to your landscape with a variety of colorful plants, like Daphne, Fragrant Rebloom, and Longwood Blue.

March has arrived, and now is the time to put all your “armchair gardening” ideas from the winter months into your garden, whether it is a new bed, replacing old plants, or just refreshing with something new.

A beautiful backdrop for any garden is a flowering shrub, and the best way to add color is with annuals, perennials, and bulbs. Perennials are the backbone of most flower gardens because they come back each year.

A very pretty and fragrant shrub that has clusters of white flowers is the Daphne (Aureomarginata alba). The most aromatic Daphne of all Daphnes has rosy-purple buds, which open to elegant, white-clustered flowers that bloom in early spring and perfumes the entire garden. This shrub remains attractive the entire year.

This fast-growing evergreen with long and slender dark green variegated foliage, outlined in bright gold, grows in part shade. Its height and width run from 4 to 5 feet. Use in beds, borders, mass plantings, or as a specimen. It’s a beauty!

How about Fragrant Rebloom (Hemerocallis rebloomer), a lovely mini-daylily that blooms non-stop from mid-summer through fall. Ideal for the perennial garden or containers, its yellow blooms are fragrant and self-cleaning, so the plants is always neat. They are heat and drought-tolerant, 18 inches high, and they love the sun. Plant them one inch deep. These plants add color when others are tired of the heat.

A beautiful plant with a hard-tofind rich shade of blue is Longwood Blue (Caryopteris). It is in the displays at Longwood Gardens. This stand-out plant has an upright growth and is a longtime heavy bloomer with silvery foliage. It needs little attention.

Longwood Blue blooms most heavily from mid- summer into fall. Butterflies won’t be able to resist these mouth-watering blooms and hummingbirds will be right behind them. This upright plant grows 2 to 4 feet in height and width, blooms the first year, and is a fast grower.

This very fragrant repeat bloomer can be planted in full sun to part-shade. It is heat- and deer-resistant. Use it as a border, accent, cut flower, ornamental, or for fall foliage. It won’t disappoint!

A new series of Azaleas that bloom heavily in spring and fall has arrived. This Azalea is called Perfecto Mundo, a plant that sets large clusters of orange-tored flowers for months. Perfecto blooms on the old wood in spring and after a short rest, it blooms on the new wood until the autumn frost.

Perfecto Mundo grows 2 to 4 feet in height and width. Use it for borders, edgings, landscape, in containers, or as a specimen. Pruning after the spring bloom will encourage new blooms.

If you have any questions, email me at bamorrell33@gmail.com. In the meantime, Happy Gardening!

TIP OF THE MONTH

Now is the time for new garden soil and fertilizer. When checking plants for winter freeze damage, use your thumb nail to see what part of the plant survived. Don’t be too hasty to yank them out!