by Margaret Gratz
CULTIVATION You can start pansies from seed, but that can get a little complicated. It is more practical to buy established plants and choose the colors you want. Pansies that come in larger pots will make a bigger impact and are easier to establish. Pansies prefer...
by Margaret Gratz
As autumn approaches and the omnipresent heat of a Mississippi summer begins to wane, the garden beckons. Once again, it is time to venture out to the patio or front porch when “morning guilds the skies” or in the crepuscular light at day’s end. However, the...
by Margaret Gratz
July and August in Mississippi are seldom balmy or temperate, but Mississippians have learned to tolerate the long, hot summers. Outside activities are not necessarily curtailed but tend to move poolside or to a shady nook on the patio or to the front porch with...
by Margaret Gratz
This is the 21st century, and we are all bustling about and multitasking, so, you may ask, who has time to stop and smell the roses, much less grow them? Ah, but if you grow old-fashioned roses, making time for such a sensory experience may be feasible. Old-fashioned...
by Margaret Gratz
Spring is an exhilarating time for gardeners, and in Mississippi the little flowers do not necessarily peep through the ground as the Sunday school song would have us believe. They burst forth with a profusion of blossoms, color, and fragrance. And for gardeners who...
by Margaret Gratz
Springtime comes early to Mississippi—thank goodness—and daffodils herald spring’s arrival in all its glory. And even though we are far removed from England’s famed Lake District, Mississippi gardeners, like Wordsworth, are prone to wax poetic when a “host of golden...
by Margaret Gratz
Centuries ago in the gardens of the Imperial Palace of some long-forgotten Dynasty, a gardener lovingly tended the beautiful peonies that flourished under his watchful eye, and in the ancient temple gardens of Kyoto, these lovely flowers have perfumed the air for many...
by Margaret Gratz
As the poet John Keats once said in his famous “Ode to Autumn,” the months of September and October are indeed “a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.” The flowers in the garden may be waning, but the woods are sporting their fall colors, and there is respite from...
