Sunday, April 9 is Palm Sunday and Easter is a week away. Sunday is also the last day of The Garden Center’s Inc. Spring Flower Show; hours for the Flower Show for April 8 are from 10 a.m.-6: p.m.: and Sunday, April 9 from 1-4 p.m. for viewing and 4-5 p.m. to pick up plants and ribbons. Next week I hope to have all blue winners and top award winners along with some photos. 

The rain last Monday evening was so welcome. It washed the dust off plant foliage and watered them; by morning everything had perked up and looked much better. It had reached the point that I was having to water so many plants that are still considered not-established that a lot of my time was going to watering.

The last cold snap bit back many tender plants that had began to leaf out causing a lot of damage because the plants had sap in their branches and were putting on leaves and were in an active state of growth; when the cold hit, the sap in the branches caused some cells to burst and most leaves to be burnt back. Do not be hasty in cutting plants back or replacing them; after cold damage in the spring plants are often slow to begin growth again.

Annuals and perennials that reseed them selves may have volunteers coming up after the rain; check where possible parent plants grew last year and try to identify any baby plants. Often there are enough to transplant (when large enough) to fill a large area. Until the plants grow their second pair of leaves it is not possible to identify them for sure, as most first set of leaves look alike.

The first time I grew cleome I was expecting small plants and these big weedy plants with thorns kept coming up and I kept pulling them up looking near the ground for the plants I was expecting. One day I noticed a weed I had missed and it was blooming and was a cleome. I had no idea that cleome grows almost head-high and has small thorns. From that one pack of seeds I grew and shared cleome for over a decade, then they begin to fade away one year and within two years all had disappeared and now I can’t seem to get them to grow at all.

The same with gerbera daisies, the very long stemmed old fashioned ones. I had them in several colors and would save seed, plant them in a flat and grew lots of additional plants. When I moved I lost most of the gerberas, as far as I know yellow is the only color I have now and they (three plants) are looking peaked.

We are at the beginning of the warm-season growing period. Pecan trees are leafing out and folk lore says if pecan trees are leafing the cold is over; but there is still the possible Easter chill that often sweeps through with a few chilly days.

I am going ahead and breaking up the soil and sowing marigolds, zinnia, alyssum, nasturtium, black eyed Susan’s, tithonia (Mexican sunflower) and any other seed packs or saved seed I can find in my seed sack. I had hundreds of cosmos volunteers before the last cold, everyone was killed, now I think I have about a dozen coming up, but am hoping for many more.

The phlox or thrift given to me by Louise Johnson is so pretty this spring, most was accidently mowed down last spring and most died, this year I placed a border in front and it grew and is blooming for the first time. It has tiny purple flowers that cover the small wiry foliage that only grows about five to six inches tall.

Phlox subulata is a great little plant; it is a care free ground cover, prefers dry soil and slowly increases through the years. It comes in several colors, but purple is most often seen. In the Smoky Mountains it grows on rock faces in small cracks and pockets of soil. It is available in blue, white, bright red and pink and the foliage is evergreen. Louise has large borders of purple phlox around her flower beds-all her flower beds and the border is about three feet wide. It is a beautiful sight when blooming in early spring.

This early in spring we have a world of possibilities as to what we want to grow and what we can grow in our climate. Try something new this year, you may find a new favorite. If you don’t have much ground space, use containers or grow vertical; there are many vines that grow up and flower with large and beautiful flowers. Moon flowers, morning glories, cardinal vine, clematis, Dutchman’s pipeline, bleeding heart (Dicentra), black-eyed Susan vine (Thunbergia) are all vines that will bloom most of the summer.

We have seven if not eight months of growing ahead of us before we have to switch to cool-season plants. Plant for hummingbirds, butterflies and wildlife and the beauty you add to the world. See you next week.