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| Tidal Wave Silver petunia |
News Release Distributed 11/01/10
By LSU AgCenter Horticulturists Dan Gill, Kyle Huffstickler and Allen Owings
Many gardeners get caught up in using the same bedding plants year after year. Pansies are very popular for the cool season, but the LSU AgCenter also recommends other cool-season bedding plants for home landscape use.
How about giving dianthus, Tidal Wave petunias, nicotiana, foxglove, columbine and others a try this year?
The Bouquet series dianthus is also great. Purple Bouquet is popular, but the flowers are not truly purple – they’re more of a hot-pinkish purple. These dianthus are another of the new interspecific hybrids. It also has been an outstanding performer in LSU AgCenter landscape plant evaluations. Purple Bouquet dianthus reaches heights of about 24-30 inches, and blooms last longer into the warm-season heat and humidity when compared with other varieties. Cut the plants back in late spring when foliage declines, and new foliage will emerge, followed by an early-summer bloom. Bouquet Rose Magic is also a great landscape performer. The other variety in the series is Bouquet Rose.
One of the best petunias is Tidal Wave Silver. It is the best performer in the series, which also includes purple, pink and hot-cherry flower colors. Louisiana landscape plantings of petunias should be done in late September through early November and then in early February through mid-March. Tidal Wave Silver is a “hedgiflora”-type petunia. Plants are very large. They reach spreads of 3 feet with heights of 2 feet. Space individual plants 18-24 inches apart in landscape beds.
Nicotianas are good alternative cool-season bedding plants for south Louisiana. Nicotiana is flowering tobacco. Most for landscape use are “dwarf” in size but still reach heights of 24 inches. Nicotianas have less cold hardiness than some other cool-season flowers, however, so that needs to be considered. In south Louisiana, they should be able to withstand winter temperature conditions as long as plants are hardened off some before the first frosts and freezes. You can also plant them in mid- to late February. Plants last until late spring. Flower colors available include white, lime, rose, red and more. They do best during the cool season in full sun but will perform better into late spring if partial shade is provided. The Nicki series is usually sold in seed catalogs as a mix.
Camelot foxgloves are new to the market. The AgCenter has evaluated them the past couple years. These also are called digitalis and are actually a biannual. Plant them in the fall and 3- to 4-foot-tall spikes of flowers emerge in the spring. Flowers come two to three weeks before the popular Foxy variety and last two to three weeks longer. Camelot foxglove flowers are lavender, cream, rose and white with lavender. Cream and rose are the better-performing colors. Camelot foxgloves are a Louisiana Super Plant for fall 2010.
The LSU AgCenter has been evaluating the landscape performance of columbines the past two years. The Swan and Songbird series are both propagated by seed. Columbine is known to many of us, but the Songbird and Swan series from PanAmerican Seed offer flower colors most of us don’t see in these great plants.
Columbine is a perennial that’s normally treated as an annual in Louisiana. For the landscape, plant it in mid- to late fall for eight weeks of flowers in March through early to mid-May. Many flower colors are now available besides the yellow or golden columbines that we may be familiar with from Texas.
Varieties in the Songbird series are Blue Bird, Bunting, Cardinal Improved, Dove, Goldfinch, Robin and Nightingale. Varieties in the Swan series are Blue White, Burgundy White, Pink Yellow, Red White, Rose White, Violet White, White and Yellow. These are hard to find, and you will do better finding them at garden centers in flower during spring than in the ideal planting months of October through early December.
Visit LaHouse in Baton Rouge to see sustainable landscape practices in action. The home and landscape resource center is near the intersection of Burbank Drive and Nicholson Drive (Louisiana Highway 30) in Baton Rouge, across the street from the LSU baseball stadium. For more information, go to www.lsuagcenter.com/lahouse and www.lsuagcenter.com/lyn.
Rick Bogren