NOTES FROM THE GARDEN CLUB

BY DAVE TOMS

ot a free plant to take home from the garden club in March. Cool! Estelle Laporte from Laporte Flowers and Nursery gave us a tour of some of the best new hybrid annuals they'll have available this year, and brought some of them along to give away. By mid-April, she'll have about 400 kinds of annuals ready for sale.

Laporte's, started 40 years ago, is a 40-acre nursery located in Cumberland, just over the border from Orleans. While they carry a full range of perennials, shrubs, trees and garden supplies, Estelle focussed on some new and improved annuals for beds and containers - hybrids that are self-cleaning, or mildew resistant, or in new colours.

Surfinia petunia is a good example. Out-performing the purple or pink wave petunias, new a few years back, one Surfinia plant will spread to fill a 3' x3' space and require no dead-heading. Perhaps even better in containers because of its greater drought resistance, Calibracoa 'Million Bells' is also a hybrid petunia with a range of colour from terra cotta and yellow through the more usual petunia pinks and purples.

Some other new container suggestions include Temari Verbena, cascading with flowers the size of a baseball, Helichrysum Baby Gold, with yellow button flowers, various colours of Lantana, and variegated Lysimachia. The popular container vine, Bacopa, has a new red-flowered variety this year.

Estelle made a few general recommendations for planting containers. Consider the exposure when choosing the plants. Mix the contents rather than using only one kind of plant. Be careful not to put a very aggressive variety in with plants that are better behaved, and don't over-cram. For fertilizing, add a slow release fertilizer to the soil if you don't expect to have time to fertilize through the summer. Otherwise, use a fertilizer with a formula close to 8-10-12 several times during the season. Unlike perennials, which should not be fertilized after August 1, annuals can be fertilized until fall.

Free plants don't come with every meeting of the Garden Club. However, the next best thing is the Garden Club's Perennial Exchange, happening this year Saturday May 13 at 9.30 at Brewer Park. For every plant you bring, you can choose one in exchange. Extra plants can be bought for $1. But don't be late! Like shortbread at a bake sale, the stuff goes fast!

April 11 meeting: New Perennials, with the Patrys from Whitehouse Perennials, Almonte - 7 pm at the Firehall.