February is a turning point in the garden when it’s still cold outside but signs of spring start to come alive with sprouts of bulbs emerging from the ground.
We start to think of getting things ready for spring, the jobs we will need to do before planting and get ourselves properly prepared for the springtime.
For those of us who participate in community plantings, we are selecting the colors at each planting and determine what will be drought-tolerant and withstand the heat. After selecting the right plants the next concern is when to plant. For the annual flowers its best to wait until after Mother’s Day and even until closer to Memorial Day. The soil in the ground has to warm up so it can be worked up so a date is selected with a rain date as second choice.
The Wildflower Garden Clubs plants at the Moose Lodge in Greenville. Centenarian Virginia O’Dell stays active with the club in helping with the planting.
The Ladybug Garden Club stays active in the community with planting and maintaining the Greenville Traffic Circle flower beds and 54 hayracks. The Ladybug’s also plant and maintain the flower beds at the Darke County Fairgrounds and containers at Garst Museum.
The Butterflies Junior Garden Club plants and maintains the container gardening at the Greenville Girls Softball Diamonds. In addition to the community plantings, various members plant at their local churches and other flower beds in the area. After all of the volunteer work, it’s usually the member gardens and flowers beds are the last to get planted.
Decisions on what to plant is usually a committee making that decision as it changes every year.
In the past the Sweet Marguerite Potato vine was used in some of the areas. When the foliage plant first came on the market is was considered a powerful, fast grower that was a good filler for containers, window boxes, and ground covers. Plus it had the beautiful vibrant chartreuse foliage that everyone liked.
It can quickly take over a container with the vigorous growth. It’s still a favorite for some but a newer variety is taking over.
The Sweet Caroline Bewitched Green with Envy ‘Ipomoea batatas’ is a great component plant, excellent heat tolerance and good vigor.
It works great in landscapes as an annual ground cover, as well as in combinations and containers by themselves. The plant is very adaptable, working in both sun and shade conditions, although the colors are deeper and brighter in full sun than they are in shadier environments where colors are tinged with more green.
This beautiful plant will be incorporated in containers at GGSA and will be available at Miller Flowers, Greenvill