The month flies, and unless you are careful, you may find after the holidays, it is too late to get delivery on some of the shrubs and trees for the garden. So steal enough time from holiday festivities to do the essential gardening.
Planting Excellent Shrubs And Trees
Perhaps the best deciduous tree for the more miniature garden is a crabapple, for these are misty clouds of pink or rosy blooms in early spring when one is hungry for buds.
Many have flowers, red-colored foliage, and gay little fruits in fall. `Flora’ blooms early, pink colors with red fruits.
Plant the white daffodil ‘Thalia’ beneath this; they bloom simultaneously. ‘Almey’ has crimson flowers, silver dollar size, dark red fruit, and reddish leaves.
The small growing `Bechtels’ double (loensis plena) is covered with double pink blooms. “Eating” apples do not grow well in the South, but the crabs are happy here.
Several other small showy trees may be grown from seed. For example, Daubentonia has wisteria-like bunches of brilliant orange-red flowers all season.
Cassia (corymbose) bears terminal clusters of bright yellow pea-like blooms from July till frost.
Both are of the legume family and fold their leaves primly for sleep at dusk.
Both usually bloom the first or second year from seed. After that, they grow to a compact, bushy 10′ feet tall.
The pomegranate makes a small tree with striking orange-red blooms; the edible fruit is sometimes just the touch needed in an arrangement of fruit and flowers.
The butterfly lily (Hedychium coronarium), so called because each flower is shaped like a white butterfly, started to bloom in July, filling the garden with perfume.
It grows to 5′ feet and has canna-like foliage and roots.
Each stalk ends with a slender cone from which numerous butterflies emerge. It grows best in humusy, well-drained soil with plenty of water.
It is root hardy to 15° degrees Fahrenheit, but where it is colder, it would make a good tub plant, or the roots could be handled as cannas are.
Garden sanitation is essential to eliminate hiding places and insects. Rake, clean, and compost everything that is not diseased to have humus for spring beds.
Plants For Difficult Gardening Months
Looking back to hot, dry July and August, it’s the difficult gardening months – color was held high by the crape myrtles.
The liriodendron (Bungei), sometimes called Mexican hydrangea, held to 6′ feet high giant heads of rosy-pink, four-petalled, small blooms with a whisper of purple in the buds.
This plant should be planted more, for it blooms in either sun or shade and takes drouth. It is root hardy down to 17° degrees but must be watched for it spreads by stolons.
A tall perennial solid pink phlox bloomed all July and August, lovely in front of the pink canvas valiantly.
I do not know the name of this phlox, but it is “prevalent” in most of the South.
Most camellias are bought in fall and winter. Be careful to plant them where they will be well-drained, not too deep, and use plenty of leaf mold and peat to build up around them.
Camellias should stay out of the hot west sun.
Don’t let cold weather fool you into putting the sprinkler away. Dry winds can be as harmful to plants as hot winds.
Dry weather preceding or following a freeze does more damage than a wet freeze. Therefore, in winter, it is best to water in the morning.
If a hard freeze is predicted, try to be sure that camellias are well watered. If the whole plant can be coated with ice, it will save all the buds not showing color.
44659 by Kitty Simpson