Gulf Hills Garden Club Christmas Lagniappe in Ocean Springs,Mississippi

Here's a Christmas wish from the Gulf Hills Garden Club to you and your family.

We wish you joy all through the Holidays.

We wish you good luck that forever stays.

We wish you the love of family and friends.

We wish you happy days the never end and a  Merry Christmas to you all.

Here we present a few pictures from our Club Christmas party.  I hope you enjoy them.  

  

It was very festive with 21 attending the party at the Lagniappe Restaurant in downtown Ocean Springs.  We, also, held our annual silent auction that benefits the many projects of our Club.  Thank you to all that contributed wonderful items and to those that purchased them.

Our club members Julie, Mary Ann and Michael created the display of the many silent auction items.  Thank you all for a great job.

 Molly was awarded a beautiful "Happy Holidays" work of yard art, for her work at the Memorial Garden for the Christmas tree lighting this year. The award was hand crafted by our own Pat!

Patsy, the owner of  "Lagniappe", was also recognized for her outstanding work  preparing the evening's food, drink and decor!

The Gulf Hills Garden Club's September Meeting

Our September club meeting was held at the MS Coastal Plain Land Trust facility in Ocean Springs, Known as Twelve Oaks. In the photo below we have seated, our hostess Julia Hartridge with guest artist Spencer Kellum, Artist in residence at Twelve Oaks, left, and MS Coastal Plain Land Trust Fund Development Officer Becky Ginn, on the right. A wonderful luncheon was provided by Lola Fleur (Visit on FaceBook), of Ocean Springs with wine pairing by our hostess' husband, Andrew Hartridge . We all had a  delightful day,  in a most beautiful and artistic setting. We would really like to thank our host member and her special guest for such a memorable meeting!
Please take note that our next scheduled meeting will be October 15.

 

The Hummingbirds Have Arrived in Gulf Hills and Ocean Springs, Mississippi

In mid-August the humming birds arrived once more in the Gulf Hills Garden Club area!  What a joy to watch them darting and tumbling through our late summer gardens!  If you love "hummers" as much as we do you can do a number of things to attract them to your garden and make their fast lives a little less hectic.  I have put in a number of links that will take you to fact-filled sites about hummingbirds, so please use them.

 

  

As gardeners we can plant many different plants in our gardens that will appeal not only to our own visual senses and also fulfill the needs of the hummingbird.  Here are two different websites with helpful lists of hummingbird friendly flowers  The Best 18 Plant Families for Natural Nectar and Planting a Hummingbird Garden

Keep in mind that hummingbirds also need a good supply of clean fresh water. it can be anything from a sprinkler for them to fly through to a very shallow bird bath.   Here is a very good article on providing water for hummingbirds.  Providing Water for Hummingbird

 

Hanging hummingbird feeders are the most common way for us to provide food for these high powered birds.  Here is a link to information about humming bird feeding.  

Debbie's Tips for Attracting and Feeding Hummingbirds

It has been noticed that some humming birds are staying along the gulf Coast during the winter months.  Winter hummingbirds in the Gulf   Please help "Make a Home for Hummingbirds" along with the National Wildlife Federation.

Here's a fact-filled PDF article that you may download about the Ruby-throated hummingbird

Remember that hummingbirds can be one of the most delightful ornaments that we can have in our modern gardens.  Take a few minutes out of your life to enjoy the birds and the flowers.  

I'd like to thanks photographer Larry Keller for allowing us the use of his spectacular hummingbird photos on our gulf Hills Garden Club blog.  Clicking on the Hummingbird pictures above will take you to full size images of each photograph. If you click HERE you can enjoy his full gallery of amazing wildlife photography.

The Gulf Hills Garden Club and Miss Lena Horne Present... Magnolia macrophylla

I remember, a very long time ago, seeing the movie "Cabin in the Sky, 1943".  In one of the scenes Lena Horne came out of her house and picked a giant magnolia off a tree and it was so big that she was able to wear it as a hat. I laughed and said to myself what a joke, whoever saw a magnolia that big.

Lena Horne, Cabin in the Sky, 1943

Well, a while back a friend of the GHGC was out and about town here in the Ocean Springs area and came across a fairly scarce and totally wonderful plant find. He discovered a Magnolia macrophylla,or Bigleaf Magnolia, in bloom. It was right along the road in a persons yard. What a treat to find one in the area. He took an image for us to post, and here it is!

 

Magnolia macrophylla

 What a stunning thing to see. Since then I have been informed that there is one at the Walter Anderson Museum here in downtown Ocean Springs.

This Mid-size deciduous tree reaches a height of approximately 40 to 60 feet. Bigleaf magnolias have huge leaves that are 12 to 36 inches long. The flowers are creamy ivory white and can be up to a foot across. Blooms are in summer and have a pleasant fragrance.  This tree can be grown in full sun or part shade. Preferring well-drained sand or loam and slightly alkaline to acidic soil. Hardy in USDA zones 5B-8.


For more information on the Magnolia macrophylla or Bigleaf Magnolia check out;

Missouri Botanical Garden.org  Plant Finder

University of Kentucky, College of Agriculture, Food and Environment

U.S. Forestry Service, FactSheet, PDF to Download

It's Daylily Time for the Gulf Hills Garden Club in Ocean Springs, MS!

Gulf Hills Garden Club member, Sue Manley and the Memorial Garden Committee have been working ever so hard getting the Triangle on the hill above the Memorial Garden on Shore Drive in Gulf Hills ready for planting.

Lots of clean up was involved, to include, Trimming the Azaleas, weeding, placing under mulch plastic down, mulching with a heavy layer of oak leaves, and getting the new beds ready for the planting.

The Daylilies having been chosen, purchased and are ready to be planted in the triangle. 

 

Sue even got the kind people at the volunteer fire department to supply needed water in preparation for the plants.  

The planting will occur on November 9.  

We need as many club members as can make it to the planting area to respond and help with the daylily planting!

Gulf Hills Garden Club..Hibiscus Mutabilis, Confederate Rose, Cotton Rose, In Bloom in Ocean Springs MS

Here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast The end of September beginning of October brings the large showy flowers of the Hibiscus Mutabilis, AKA The Confederate Rose, or the older name of Cotton Rose.

This elegant heirloom plant has been grown all along the Gulf Coast for literally centuries. It originated in Southeastern China and traveled with the sea trade to the Gulf Coast very early on. The Cotton Rose is one plant that should always be included in any traditional South Coast historical garden recreation or restoration.

The one that most people in our area think of as the Confederate Rose is the fully double flowering one, which is the magical one that starts out as a pure white double bloom and then turns a medium pink followed by a deep red as the flower matures.
This is the type of plant that really stands out in a garden and always gives a bit of the old wow effect to any garden.  

These plants form a beautiful medium to large bush and have very handsome leaves that have an almost tropical look. These plants are easy to grow and add such a wonderful touch to any zone 10-7 garden.

At the first frost they will loose their leaves and may be cut back, which allows for a thicker more compact plant the next year.

Easy to grow from seed and even easier to propagate from cuttings.  Cuttings may be produced in either a sandy soil medium or just placed in water where they will usually root rather quickly.

The Confederate rose was for many years neglected and fell totally out of fashion. I find that many gardeners seem not to realize that plants go in and out of style in our gardens, but they do. When a plant goes out of favor, many times they will become impossible to find commercially and may even become extinct, because of the folly of current garden tastes. Now due to ease of cultivation and being both drought and neglect resistant this truly Southern garden jewel is making a nice return to the forefront of many modern gardens.

Just like the proverbial little black dress that goes in and out of style, this very old fashioned flowering bush has been in and out of popular acceptance since way before the War Between the States. According to what I was always told this plant was called the Confederate Rose due to the fact that after the Civil War it was very common for Southerners to take these flowers to the cemeteries to place on them on the graves of Confederate soldiers. So it was very commonly considered a funeral flower(as later the Calla Lily) and because of this connotation fell out of favor as a garden plant.

But now it seems to be making a come back and for me this is a great thing to see.

Michael W. Moses
Member
Gulf Hills Garden Club, Ocean Springs, MS