This year, upon considering that the word “Dixie” has a little too much “ick” for The Independent’s tastes, we changed our series’ title from “Dixie Gardening” to “Southern Utah Gardening.” Our longtime gardening writer Charlotte West retired from the Indy, and we welcomed aboard horticulturist Angela Quayle. Between the two of them, West and Quayle taught us how to grow everything from garden mainstays like kale and beets to more exotic varieties such as pomegranates. Readers clearly loved learning how to grow both ornamental and culinary plants. Here are our top ten gardening articles from 2015 in our Southern Utah Gardening feature series in order of views from most to fewest.
Dixie Gardening: The stunning, soil-improving sunflower
Sunflowers, in all their varieties, catch our eye with their beauty. They also can improve soil when planted in moderation with crops.
Dixie Gardening: Consider the lovely yucca
In Spanish, the chaparral yucca has the loveliest of names: candelabra de dios, or candles of the Lord. This yucca, with its outstanding creamy bell florets appearing on almost wooden stalks that can grow up to ten feet tall, is a show stopper.
Dixie Gardening: How to plant daffodils in southern Utah for easy spring flowers
Daffodils are an excellent way to add springtime color to your southern Utah garden with minimal effort. Sounds great, right? Well, it is.
Southern Utah Gardening: Plant beets in winter for early spring delights
Plant beets in winter! Yes, beets—so delicious and nutritious and very easy to grow. The mild winter we enjoy in St. George is perfect for growing beets.
Dixie Gardening: When can you plant pansies?
Pansies are one of my favorite annual flowers, and deservedly so. They are anything but weak and wimpy. They are made of tough stuff! Pansies love cool weather and even tolerate some pretty frigid temperatures.
Dixie Gardening: The prominent pomegranate
Naturally, the pomegranate grows 15-20 feet tall and broad but can be pruned back to about 10 feet. It is rather showy in the spring, with its red flowers at the tips of its branches. It yields sweet, tart, juicy fruits, and as an added bonus, it’s self-pollinating.
Southern Utah Gardening: Perennial ornamental grasses
Grasses add vertical interest to pots and gardens that can be difficult to achieve with other flowers and ornamentals. Many of the fall blooming ornamental grasses that grow in southern Utah are perennial,so you only need to plant them once to enjoy them year after year!
Dixie Gardening: Earwigs, mealybugs, slugs, and snails
Earwigs are not all bad, as they prey on aphids. But, on the negative side, they can destroy plants very quickly, causing damage to seedlings and damaging flower petals, some soft fruits, and corn silks.
Dixie Gardening: Growing kale in St. George
Do you eat kale? If you are a green-vegetable-eating maniac like me, you surely do. I eat it raw in salads and smoothies, sauteed, wilted, braised, and added to soups.
Dixie Gardening: Fertilizer for those hungry trees, shrubs, & other plants
We’ve all been watering our landscapes during the long hot summer, and while our plants need this supplemental water, it has leached some important nutrients from the root zones of our trees, shrubs, and gardens. The way we can replenish this “food” is by fertilizing, and now is the time to do it.
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