Surprise Return Engagements

I love the surprises that emerge in the spring garden - those plants that I thought I'd said a last goodbye to with the first frost but nonetheless come peeking out of the ground in the spring. We had a weird winter here with too many freezing temps and lots of wind to stir that cold air up. My expectations for winter survivors were pretty low so I was shocked to see these emerge: angelonia augustifolia (maybe AngelMist Plum), a red penta, two acalypha wilkesiana, acalypha pendula, and a caladium. These are all "maybes" in Mt. Pleasant so after a mild winter I would have expected them to survive. But this year, not so much. All of them were in a very exposed, very windy corner of my yard with no overhead protection, no special mulching, no advantage working in their favor.

Being the obsessed gardener that I am, I'm now hovering over them and can't wait to see how quickly they grow. And I'm also on the lookout for other survivors. It is all part of what makes gardening so much fun, isn't it?

SunTolerant Caladiums

Sometimes things that seem too good to be true are, well, true! Thanks to a nudge and a shove from brilliant hybridizers, caladiums have finally come out from their shady hiding places and are happily flashing their colorful selves in sunny settings all over the South. The caladium in the picture above, Red Flash, sits in a corner of my yard that gets over 10 hours of sun a day in mid-summer and it still thrived without requiring any more irrigation than the surrounding plants. Some of the cultivars that experts claim do well in full sun are:

• Aaron
• Carolyn Whorton
  
• Festiva
• Florida Cardinal
• Florida Elise
• Florida Sweetheart
• Galaxy
• Gingerland
• Grey Ghost
• Pink Beauty
• Postman Joyner
• Red Ruffle
• Red Flash
• Rosalie
• Rosebud
• White Queen
• White Wing

Texas A&M has an extensive list on their website http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/newsletters/hortupdate/may05/Caladiums.htm which lists even more varieties as well as identifying which ones are the most sun-tolerant and which ones are the least. Several online vendors carry sun tolerant caladium but Caladium Bulbs 4 Less http://www.caladiumbulbs4less.com/servlet/StoreFront
makes it easy by listing sun-tolerant varieties as a category.

With cooler fall temperatures, my Red Flash isn't quite as stellar as it was even a month ago and in my zone 8B/9A garden its winter hardiness is marginal but I'll definitely order more next year for their easy care and super showy colors.