Tulipa 'Elizabeth Arden'

Broccoli

Planting Potatoes

When planting potatoes make sure to get certified seed potatoes. Check with your local garden center (i.e. Southern States) or order from Johnny's Select Seeds or Territorial Seed Company 

24hrs before planting, cut the potatoes making sure each piece has at least one "eye". The "eye" is the point where the new plant will grow. 

Lay the pieces out on newspaper to dry. This allows the potato to heal and prevent disease.

Potatoes produce best in full sun and must have a well drained soil. 

Once the potatoes are ready for planting dig a 2 to 4" deep trench and place the seed pieces cut side down every 10 to 12". Cover with 1" of soil. 

If you have multiple rows space them 24 to 36" apart. 

Watering potatoes is important. Using your finger check soil moisture weekly. If the soil feels dry water thoroughly. Avoid over-watering which will cause potatoes to rot. 

Once the stems are 8" high mound soil half way up the stems. Following the initial mounding add 1 to 2" of soil weekly. This is an important step in producing potatoes. 

2 to 3 weeks after flowering you may begin harvesting potatoes. At this point they will be small in size, but for larger potatoes simply leave in the ground for a longer period. 

Whats Looking Good Right Now

Teucrium fruticans

Great silvery blue foliage provides interest all year long. 

Requires full sun and excellent drainage.

Prunus mume 'Hokkai-bungo'

One of the earliest mume's to bloom. 

The flower is a dark pink almost reddish color. 

Violas and Toadflax

Seed toadflax in October and it will make a nice green groundcover amongst other winter annuals until spring when it bursts into flower.

Camellia x vernalis 'Star Above Star' 

Flowers are white with pink outer petals. 

This cultivar is noteworthy for its excellent petal drop. 

Seed Cleaning

A good way to start a 28 degree morning?? 

Inside cleaning seeds. 

The month of November is a great time for collecting seed in South Carolina and cold December mornings are great time for cleaning seeds. 

Helianthus radula flower and seed

Zinnia flower (left) and seed (right)

Campsis radicans seed pod and seed

Dealing With Trees In Perennial Borders

Generally trees don't belong in a perennial border, 

but sometimes the circumstances dictate it. Here are some ways for you to deal with it. 

Dig an 18" deep trench around 5 to 7' away from the trunk.

This particular tree is Salix babylonica 'Yatsubusa' 

In the trench lay a root barrier that is impregnated with a chemical that  will keep the roots in check. 

For the complete story head over to Jenks Farmer's blog 

Each year around this time we reduce and thin the tree and also enhance the weepiness of the tree by removing most of the vertical branches and tipping branches which results in weepy new growth in the spring.

Look how much we removed. A good rule of thumb is to never remove more than 30% of the canopy in one pruning.

The finished product

Adenophora liliifolia

Chinese Toadflax seeded in over top Violas, Alliums, and Purple Milk Thistles

Horticultural Excursion

Instead of planting bulbs and cutting back frost damaged plants, I decided to take a trip earlier this week with my friend Jenks Farmer to visit a nursery and a few gardens in and around Athens, GA.

Our first stop was a great perennial nursery called Goodness Grows. They offer a wide selection of perennials and some unique woodies as well.

 One of the first perennials we noticed when walking up was Adenophora liliifolia (ladybells). I was drawn to it for two reasons 1.) It was flowering right now and 2.) it isn't available often. While speaking with the nursery owner Rick, he explained they had recently dug a clump of 

ladybells from their old nursery site and that was the reason these were flowering this late in the season. Another great perennial we bought was Viola pedata 'Eco Artist Palette' (perennial bird-foot violet) a native that flowers during April and May, a time when not to many native perennials in our area flower.  

A few other plants we picked up:

Juncus 'Twisted Dart'

Aster tataricus (tartarian aster)

Eucomis comosa 'Tugela Ruby' (perennial pineapple lily)

Physostegia virginiana 'Summer Snow' (obedient plant)

Veronica peduncularis 'Georgia Blue' (speedwell)

After leaving Goodness Grows we visited The State Botanical Garden of Georgia. 

From there we went to The University of Georgia Horticulture Trial Gardens.  

Here you can compare 20 different cultivars of geraniums that vary in flower color, flower size, leaf color, number of flowers and so on. 

We probably spent an hour taking cuttings of various annuals and mixing them together to see what would make great combinations for the following year.  

One of the great things about this trial garden is the location is right in the heart of campus which is great for promoting horticulture. Another great benefit of this trial garden is all the information they collect is available to the public at the trial gardens website.