2025 Gardening in the Panhandle LIVE! Webinars Begin March 6th
Gardening in the Panhandle LIVE! is launching Season 6 with new topics starting on March 6, 2025! Each episode is delivered live on Zoom Webinar then posted to our YouTube Playlist. If you would like to join us live and help drive the panel discussion, be sure to...
To Eat or Not to Eat Fall Colors with Ornamental Kale
As cooler weather settles across the Florida Panhandle, many homeowners refresh their landscape beds with plants that provide vibrant seasonal color. Ornamental kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala) and ornamental cabbage are reliable, eye-catching choices for fall...
Pruning Overgrown Shrubs
Q. My oleander shrubs are overgrown. How severely can they be pruned? A. Oleanders flower on current season’s growth. So, if you prune just before new growth occurs, you'll still get flowers. However, severe pruning (removing 1/3 or more of the plant), may result in...
Brown Is a Color Too
As we move through the coldest part of the year, you’ve probably noticed many perennial landscape plants turning brown. Your first instinct might be, yuck – where are my pruners? Those crispy leaves, spent flower stalks, and dark masses look like they need to...
Gifts from the Garden
Gifts from your garden are an easy and thoughtful way to share something special with a friend or neighbor. They can be low- or no-cost gestures that tells someone you are thinking of them. Many of us have annuals and perennials that reseed in the garden. If you have...
The Assassin Bug–A Beneficial Garden Visitor
When maintaining a garden, knowing the difference between your enemies and the “good guys” is half the battle. Once, I was teaching a group of landscape maintenance folks about beneficial insects, and quizzed them on their bug identification skills. I flashed up an...
A Plant From My Past
Growing up in Tennessee, my backyard was a large expanse of woods right off a concrete patio. In areas that received sunshine, one of my favorite plants was a groundcover called thrift, Phlox subulata. Each spring, pink flowers brightened the slope as the...
How do flowers know when to bloom?
Flowers are a beautiful addition to any landscape, but have you ever wondered why some plants bloom in the spring while others show off in the summer? Let’s start with why plants produce flowers. Simply put, flowers are the sexual reproductive structures a plant uses...
Consider Chestnuts for Your Landscape
Christmas is a season rife with horticultural significance. Extracts from the Boswellia and Commiphora myrrah trees were presented at the nativity as frankincense and myrrh. Holly (Ilex spp.) and Ivy (Hedera spp.) are common in decorations, and a huge number of...
Is a Limequat a Lime or a Kumquat?
The Christmas season is all about the gifts! This statement couldn't be further from the truth, but most likely some gifts will be given. An old traditional gift is gift fruit. And a lot of the time that gift fruit is a mix of citrus from Florida. A unique citrus...
Wax Myrtle–a Native Evergreen
Wax myrtle (Myrica/Morella cerifera) is one of those evergreen shrubs that mostly lives out its life in the background. Neither tall and imposing (on average, up to 12’; rarely as tall as 20’), nor full of showy flowers, it is nonetheless an important native species....