Susan Grooms | Submitted PhotoColeus are easy to grow and add lots of color to shady areas.

Hello. This weekend is the Plant Swap and Sale held by Amaryllis Club on the front lawn of The Crescent. 

From 2-4 p.m. Sunday, May 22, everyone is invited to bring their plants or garden-related items to The Crescent, 902 N. Patterson St. and sell or swap with other gardeners. Gardeners are always looking for a plant they have seen and wanted for several seasons. A plant may multiply rapidly in one yard and may fizzle out in another’s yard or garden. Ask others how they care for their plants so you will have growing instructions from a successful grower.

Amaryllis members have plants for sale at very reasonable prices. We don’t have a list of all the plants we will have and never know what other gardeners will bring. 

Members will have red-tip bromeliads; walking iris (butterfly-looking / white and blue), Iris confusa; another walking iris, Neomarica gracilis northiana, also called butterfly iris, in deep purplish-blue and white; pine cone ginger that has waxy red pine-cone-like bracts in fall: several orchids; sun coleus, maybe butterfly ginger; cannas; celosia, cockscomb plant; prayer plants, Maranta leuconeura; Chinese Rain Bells; Lions Tails; Blood lilies; Shrimp plants and I have no idea of what else might be available,

Do come to the Plant Swap and Sale, we have five master gardeners and a Ph.D. plant pathologist to assist in identifying a plant you have, bring photos and a piece if possible. The gardens behind the house and the Never Forget Garden dedicated to veterans of all services, are open to stroll through. We hope to see you in the afternoon at The Crescent.

Dogwood Garden Club will be there with their new cookbook “Classically Southern, Our Favorite Recipes.” Along with 350 delicious recipes, a history of The Crescent is included. Recipes include dishes served at the Antique Show at Mathis Auditorium. 

For decades patrons and visitors enjoyed the lunches and homemade cakes served by garden club ladies and the same dishes were requested each year. The cookbooks will be available at the Plant Swap and Sale, books cost $25. They make a great gift for anyone who loves Southern cuisine and history or The Crescent.

We are proceeding right along with late-spring blooms unfolding. Magnolia trees, Magnolia grandiflora, Southern magnolias, are flowering with their big white, lemony-scented flowers. Squirrels eat the blooms so not many are left at my place but there are more that 100 seed cones when they fall in autumn. One big flower will scent a room for hours but the flowers turn dark overnight.

Gardenias are flowering, too. They have pure white flowers that give off one of the most loved scents in the plant world. Blooms are four to five inches across, unless the plant is dwarf, small bushes produce smaller flowers. But the flowers are produced in abundance; with dark evergreen foliage and lovely white flowers, gardenias are an asset to any garden.

Roses are blooming in many gardens; hybrid teas, bush roses, running roses, floribundas and caneing roses. As days get hotter and insects and disease become more common, most roses need to be sprayed with a solution to control black spot, aphids, white flies and other problems.

Native gladiolus are standing tall in the edges of fields, along fencerows and beside dirt roads. Their flowers are a mix of red and yellow, the flower stems are very tall, commonly four to five feet and occasionally taller. This species of glad sets seed, when the seeds disperse more gladiolus have been sown to bloom in some future year.

Hope we will see you Sunday afternoon.

Susan Grooms lives and gardens in Lowndes County.