Stock up for spring planting at seasonal sales
April 15, the day when gardeners know they can safely install new plants without worrying about frost stunting or killing them, is just five days away.
This year, the date coincides exactly with two big sales benefiting public gardens: Spring’s Best Plant Sale at the Memphis Botanic Garden in Audubon Park and the Volunteer Plant Sale at Lichterman Nature Center, 5992 Quince Road.
Both events feature plants that will thrive in our growing conditions and knowledgeable volunteers and professionals to help you make your selections.
Hours for the sale at the botanic garden are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The regular sale at the nature center will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. Remaining plants will be sold at half price from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
Anytime and anywhere you go shopping for plants, you should bring some important information, said Rick Pudwell, director of horticulture at the Memphis Botanic Garden.
Most important, he said, are the light and drainage conditions in the places where you want to add plants.
Those helping you make selections will need to know if the plants will be in full sun for at least eight hours per day, part sun, part shade, light shade or deep shade.
Awareness of directional exposures such as east, west, north or south-facing is helpful, too, as is having the dimensions of beds you want to fill.
A few images of the space to be landscaped can also be useful.
Making a list of plants you’ve admired in catalogs, public gardens or around your neighborhood is also a great tool. But be aware that you might have to choose a substitute depending on your unique growing conditions, the plant’s requirements and its availability.
“The biggest mistake gardeners make is relying on impulse shopping,” Pudwell said.
If you are like me, you have numerous examples of those love-at-first-sight purchases still in their nursery pots on the patio for years.
But I still think gardeners should open their hearts and pocketbooks to a special plant or two not on their lists and find a suitable spot for them.
Here are some highlights of each sale:
The botanic garden’s sale, the biggest in the area, features hundreds of perennials grown in its own greenhouses as well as trees, shrubs, perennials and edible plants from area nurseries such as Dabney Nursery, Dan West Garden Centers, Little Hill Nursery, Homestead Farms Greenhouse and Nursery in Coldwater, Mississippi, and Melodia Hill Plant Farm just outside Jackson, Tennessee.
This year, expect to find good supplies of heucheras, re-blooming daylilies and giant farfugiums grown on site.
In case you don’t know them, farfugiums have large glossy leaves, either solid green or spotted, that grow in clumps 30 inches wide. You can admire their daisy-like yellow flowers in October in front of the Visitors Center.
Also available are pink scabiosas, blue and red lobelias, “Denim and Lace” Russian sage, Decadence and Dutch chocolate baptisias, mini and standard size hostas, spigelia, numerous hardy ferns, Color Wheel Stokes aster (whose flowers begin white, mature to lavender and age to deep blue) and Glamour Girl, a tall garden phlox that produces large panicles of hot coral pink flowers on dark purple stems with disease-free foliage.
Tropical houseplants like the colorful shrimp plant will be available for use in seasonal containers.
In keeping with the garden’s spring theme this year (landscaping with edibles), you will also find numerous vegetables and fruits for sale, many of them pretty enough to mix with ornamentals.
Lichterman’s sale leans heavily toward native plants including a half-dozen different milkweeds, the only plants eaten by monarch butterfly larvae.
Other caterpillars will happily munch on the leaves of the spicebush, passionflower vine, pawpaw, Dutchman’s pipe, sassafras, parsley and dill offered at the sale.
Also available are numerous plants providing nectar for the adult butterflies such as liatris, ironweed, penstemon, goldenrod and coneflowers of many colors, including the rare Tennessee coneflower.
Several types of buckeyes, columbines, hardy ferns, sunflowers. woodland wildflowers and more than 20 varieties of perennial salvia are also on the plant list.
Non-native plants starred on the plant list include three species of hydrangeas, several figs and three kinds of heat-tolerant fuchsias with the gorgeous bright pink and purple flowers that do not fizzle during our hot summers.
The heat-tolerant fuchsias come from seeds saved and propagated by Angelika Hall, a master gardener and Lichterman volunteer.
“Besides native plants, the Lichterman sale has a tradition of offering passalong brought to us by our volunteers,” said Andy Williams, manager of the nature center.
A list of plants to sold be at Lichterman is posted at memphismuseums.org.
READY TO EAT
Edible landscaping guru Rosalind Creasy will present a talk on integrating herbs and other edible plants with ornamentals at a cocktail reception and silent auction from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at the Memphis Botanic Garden.
Creasy, a garden and food writer, photographer and landscape designer living in Northern California, has been advocating this style of gardening since the 1980s.
Several of her awardwinning books exploring how to do it will be available to purchase.
The event is designed to be casual and fun, said Mary Helen Butler, the botanic garden’s director of administration, with bidding on “earthy” horticultural items, prizes and cocktails made with fresh juices custom-blended by employees of Whole Foods.
A selection of edible plants will be available to purchase at the event, which is co-sponsored by the Little Garden Club. Tickets are $35, or $25 for members. For tickets call 901-636-4131.
AT THE DIXON
Garden Fair, a sale featuring “rare, choice and unusual plants” takes place April 22-23 at Dixon Gallery and Gardens.
A list of featured plants can be viewed at dixon. org. Click on “gardens.”
Dale Skaggs, director of horticulture at the Dixon, will present a slideshow and lecture previewing plants at the sale from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday in the Hughes Pavilion. It is free with regular admission.