Plant selection tips for a delightful garden

Dear Roger: I am new to Fayetteville and need help deciding what to plant. I'd like some really special, delightful things to grow. Could you help? — Yankee Doodler, Red Springs.

Dear Yankee: Plant selection is nothing to doodle about.

It is the good gardener's job to weigh and judge plants, then act accordingly.

There is nothing wrong with being a plant connoisseur. You don't have to be a snob. In fact, being a connoisseur often costs less than accepting the ordinary, mundane and often unsuitable fare that is commonly offered.

Run-of-the-mill plants that outgrow their limits quickly, or fail to suit the purpose for which they are selected, can require later costly replacement.

The right plant — or the best plant — will provide the most beauty, require the least pruning, and will require a level of upkeep that the gardener finds acceptable.

The first thing you must do is attend the spring plant sale at the Cape Fear Botanical Garden April 20-21. The garden sale on April 20 will be for members only (you may join that day).

The April 21 sale from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. will be for all comers. The garden is at 536 N. Eastern Boulevard in Fayetteville.

I will be there to answer gardening questions and handing out free daylilies.

The plant selections for the sale are exceptional, featuring many plants new to the trade. This will help you more than anything to select the right plants for your garden.

Over the years, I've offered here many suggestions on plants that work well in Fayetteville-area gardens. Perhaps my best suggestions concern some older, once-common plants that have been overlooked in today's gardens but are still likely to be found in the gardens of our grandparents.

Here's a list:

• English wood hyacinth: This bulb-producing plant is in old gardens throughout the world. It naturalizes in shady spots and returns bigger and better year after year. Flowers are nodding bells in spikes of blue, pink or white. The flowers are not as showy as the modern hyacinths -- and not as fragrant — but they are more natural-looking and more lovely in their own right. The correct botanical name is (ital) Scilla hispanica, which tells you the plants originated in Spain, not England, as the common name suggests. The wood hyacinth blooms later than the Dutch hyacinth. It flowers with the early azaleas. And its subdued colors make a fine complement to the intensely bright hues of azaleas. Bulbs are planted in autumn and can be found at garden centers and in bulb catalogs.

• Meadow spirea: This is the 4- to 5-foot shrub found in landscapes of older homes throughout Fayetteville. It has the tiniest flowers of all spireas, but is just covered with white, sometimes as early as mid-February. The small leaves are apple green. They turn to yellow in autumn, then drop to reveal a mass of rich brown twiggy, weeping growth. The tiny, starlike flowers are slightly fragrant, and when in full bloom, the plant can waft its perfume for several yards around. The correct botanical name of this plant is (ital) Spiraea thunbergii.

• Bridal wreath: Also called Spiraea 'Van Houtte,' this shrub grows a bit taller and more upright than the above and has larger, darker green leaves. It produces later clusters of flowers in pure white that bloom during the peak of azaleas season.

The twigs are the same pretty shade of rich brown in winter as the meadow spiraea.

• Winter honeysuckle: This winter bloomer gets frequent mention here and deservedly so. It blooms from late December until April. Another name for it is sweet breath of spring. Mine still has a few flowers on it. And its perfume is among the finest of all flowering plants. Its botanical name is (ital)Lonicera fragrantissima. Winter honeysuckle makes a large shrub, up to 7 feet tall by 10 feet wide in an ideal spot. My wife, Maureen, calls it Lemon Pledge bush because of its lemony fragrance. But I don't think of furniture polish when I smell it. This plant is one of the true delights of winter in our area. Given plenty of sunlight, it may be cut back hard after flowering to produce a dense, symmetrical shrub.

• 'The Fairy' rose: Few roses are suitable for use as general landscape plants and few bloom as heavily and over as long a season as The Fairy. This rose has been in gardens of my family members for three generations now, and it still is unexcelled by any of the modern shrub or landscape roses for low care and high quality of performance. My specimens are never sprayed and are seldom even fertilized. They are watered regularly, usually twice a week. This rivals the newer Knockout roses for producing many flowers with little or no disease.

'The Fairy' produces large clusters of very double, light pink flowers with little or no fragrance. The plant is vigorous and gets only a little black spot in the heat of summer. Some years it shows no disease at all. It blooms from May until late November. I have had a few slightly frosted buds of this open as late as Christmas Day in mild season.

• Camellias: Some of the oldest and newest varieties are widely available at garden centers and online. Colors range from orange-red to blue-rose to candy pink to white. Many have white edges or stripes in contrasting colors or white. Camellias reach small-tree size in 10 years or so but may be kept to 6 feet or less with annual pruning. Blooms season ranges from fall (mostly sasanqua types) through winter into mid-spring (most other species). Camellia japonica and Camellia sasanqua are the types of camellias that are most adaptable to our area. Most camellias reach small-tree size You may always look at what is successful in neighbors' yards.

If you have suggestions about more plants that belong on this list, send them along and we'll expand on this topic in a later column.

• Azaleas: All azaleas are technically rhododendrons. The early, small, brightly colored and covered with bloom ones are called kurumes. Bigger-flowered, later blooming ones are referred to as Indicas. Neither name means anything botanically, since several species are interbred to produce most azaleas. The so-called Satsuki (fifth month) azaleas are drwarf but large-flowered. The are late blooming and are named for the month of May. They are beautiful in intimate space and along walkways in the foreground. They need protection from heat with good mulches and weekly watering in hot, dry spells, even after they are established. The best azaleas for our area are native azaleas. These include selected varieties of Rhododendron canescens, My favorite of these is one named ‘Camilla’s Blush.’ It has reached more than 12 feet tall and 8 feet wide and is in full bloom now in my back yard.

Send your questions and comments to Roger at orders@mercergarden.com or call (910) 424-4756. You may write to Roger at 6215 Maude St., Fayetteville, N.C. 28306.