This year, along with lavender, I tested several basils in the garden. Below are four basils worth growing in your southern garden. Two new culinary basils to tempt your palate There are at least two new culinary basils in the marketplace created not to bloom early. If you want to grow basil that is basically the size of a small shrub, you should try Amazel Basil® from Proven Winners. Around the fountain this year, I planted my Proven Winners trial plants including Rockin'® 'Golden Delicious' pineapple sage, Salvia elegans, purple alternanthera Plum Dandy, and Amazel® basil. This is my second year to grow it, and I've found it to be a wonderful garden addition. Amazel Basil® isn't just for the vegetable garden. It would also look great with other tropical plants in the summer ornamental garden. Sometimes, in my Oklahoma wind, Amazel Basil® does need a little support to keep...

After my last post on pelargoniums, several people asked me how to take stem cuttings of favorite plants for the greenhouse or to grow indoors. First you need good light. Well, dear readers, I always endeavor to help so this is how I take stem cuttings from plants I want to overwinter in my greenhouse. I don't think you'll have enough light to just grow cuttings in a window, but you could grow them under lights indoors. Here is how you grow your own transplants from seed which is similar to growing root cuttings under lights. Fresh cuttings in the greenhouse next to the pelargoniums. Soft stem cuttings versus other types of cuttings. You can grow transplants from other kinds of cuttings besides using soft stem cuttings. In fact, there are leaf cuttings, root cuttings, single-node cuttings, and stem cuttings. I have the most success with stem cuttings and root...

Greenhouse gardening begins! Moving my jasmine into the greenhouse. I don't water these plants for a few days to make them easier to move. They are lighter weight. The pelargoniums and my other plants are on the move into the greenhouse. I thought I would share my process with you as I move plants back indoors. Scented geraniums (pelargoniums) are fun to collect. This nutmeg-scented pelargonium (geranium) has such nice blue foliage that seems impervious to heat. It's a really easy scented geranium to grow. While scented geraniums and zonal geraniums are fun to collect, they are tropical plants meaning they require overwintering somewhere that is warm. Pelargoniums fit into the classes of zonal, regal, angel, and ivy-leaved types. Then, there are the scented ones. Pelargonium types Zonal pelargoniums are the regular ones with the big flowers, the ones your grandmother or mother grew. I like to grow them too,...

Gaillardia, blackeyed Susan and coreopsis all bloom together now. Last weekend, Bill and I went to Tulsa for the Audubon Society's fall garden tour that featured native plants. There were also four native plant vendors, so while we were there, I bought more native plants for the meadow. These included: Veronicastrum virginicum, culver root, Ratibida pinnata, gray-headed Coneflower, and Liatris elegans, elegant liatris. Rudbeckia subtomentosa 'Henry Eilers' is a plant I'm going to transplant to the upper pasture. i'll keep it in the bed facing the street too, but I want this tall drink of water to tower over other plants in the upper pasture. Speaking of the meadow, my presence up there spreading seed and planting is a huge source of curiosity for my neighbors. I've been approached a couple of times and asked if I was okay. When I told the first woman I was photographing native flowers,...