LIFE'S A GARDEN

I am going to jump back into a story that I started last week about a three week journey to Morocco. Mimi and I had headed back to Morocco and had made it to Marrakesh, known as the gateway to the Sahara. We climbed around the snowcapped grand Atlas mountain range which drops down on the other side into the Golden Sahara Desert for as far as you can see. We were headed into an area that is very sparsely populated in the villages were very spread out. There is not a lot of tou

During the first year after Mimi and I got married Mimi was teaching English literature and coaching cross country at Madison Ridgeland Academy. During that time we finished building the greenhouses and had begun to grow bedding plants for Garden Works and 60 other customers. Mimi was coming in to help me plant before school and after coaching, that meant getting there at 5:30 AM and leaving well after dark. We knew we couldn’t keep that schedule going forever so after a year

Last night Mimi and I had some of our best gardening friends over for a tour of the yard and for some dinner. We prepared the dinner together the night prior so it wouldn’t be such a big deal to come home and be ready to host at 6 o’clock. We wanted to have enough daylight to take our time through the yard and we also wanted them to be there for when darkness comes. Our friends are close to the same age that we are and garden in a similar style that we do. We learn from each

Finally! I’m a little late to the dance but I finally got the front highway bed planted up with the colorful flower show that will hopefully take us all the way through summer and into fall planting. I think this one will be worth the drive by to see. I went back to my old school Pepto- Bismal pink petunias surrounded by Indian Summer Rudbekia, Electric Orange Sunpatiens and white, cascading Vinca. I planted 4 Castor Bean trees and some Amaranth. My old, giant petunia baskets

I guess it really doesn’t matter how long you plan to live at the house and the garden that you are a steward of now. Even if you jump from place to place every two or three years, it doesn’t hurt to keep records of what you’ve done in your garden. It’s nice to keep up with the weather trends, the frost dates, the cool temperatures in the spring time and the type plants that you’ve used and what kind of luck you had with them. It’s nice to keep up with where you bought those

Moving into May is always somewhat of a relief to me. It’s the time of year that you know for sure that It’s time to find those heat tolerant plants for your yard, especially those that you change out annually. March is always crazy with the temperatures going way up and way down, but mostly just enough to tempt you into your garden. April never seems stable as far as temperatures and rainfall to me. As most Aprils go we had some temperatures in the low 40s at night and we ha

I will never forget the day in 1973 or 74 that my father came home to tell us that we were leaving our house in a neighborhood in Jackson and headed to what used to be the country out in Madison County. My parents found some acreage and a fixer-upper off of Highway 51 so we could start living some dreams. We were into horses. This would make it way easier than keeping them at a barn in Jackson. My parents also wanted to start their second garden Center where they believed Jac

I do love to walk around in my yard during the evening hours after the tools have been put away, dirty clothes thrown in the washer and a run through the shower. Sometimes the grill will be going which gives Mimi and I some time to look around at what we got done that day or what needs to be done. On those walks one of us will have a camera so we can add one more picture to our thousands of our yard in our iPhotos. I keep thinking one day I'm going to get that photo good enou

As we move deeper into April, that means we’re getting closer to May. May is the date Mimi and I have been living for since we have committed to being on the MRA tour of gardens this year. We have done some big projects, but we have had to wait to plant some of the tender plants until the last minute because the temperatures at night have been so topsy-turvy. We had a point last week that we agreed it’s time to jump in with everything. It seems that the nights have stabilized

There is more exciting news for the horticulture world in Mississippi. On March 6 our Governor signed a bill into law designating April as Native Plant Month. I have watched the bill to law process all my life since my mother was a legislator for 24 years. Let me tell you that getting a bill passed is no easy task. Many people and many hours of hard work went into getting a vital movement started in our state. We are all lucky to have such dedicated and committed folks workin

Happy Easter! In the gardening world that means a lot. We have always used Easter as the magic date to make your next move in the garden. This year Easter is unusually early so we can only hope that the old wives tale will hold true. I don’t remember a year in my life that we had a frost after Easter. I may be forgetting one, but it has always astounded me that somehow mother nature knows to call it quits on all this funny business after Easter. Like last year, Easter was in

Green Oak nursery is a Jackson icon. My mother and father started this garden center in 1960. They were pioneers of their day as there weren’t many garden centers at the time. I think Callaway’s and Barnes Brothers started just about the same time or maybe a little after. My parents were friends with those guys as they all started this business together in Jackson. Garden c enters have come a long way since those days as is common with the garden center business and family