Gardening
2024 Winning Flowers for Your Garden and Containers
Sweetheart Kisses verbena attracts pollinators and brings a vibrant mix of red, rose, pink, and a bit of white to gardens or containers.
Photo courtesy of All-America Selections
Make some room in your garden or containers for the new All-America Selections 2024 National award-winning plants. These winning varieties are tested in trial gardens across the United States and Canada. Volunteer judges rate entries based on their improved performance, flavor, disease resistance, and other unique qualities related to their performance in gardens and containers.
Celosia burning embers was selected for its bronze foliage with dark pink veins that contrasts with its vibrant pink flowers. Like other celosias, this variety is heat, humidity, and drought tolerant. Grow it in a container or garden bed in a sunny location. Grow plenty as you will want to pick a few to add to summer bouquets and dried arrangements.
Siam Gold marigold is another season-long bloomer that thrives in full sun and tolerates heat and drought. The three-to-four-inch double flowers top 18 to 20" tall plants that do not need staking. Purchase transplants or extend your planting budget by starting these seeds right in the garden.
Interspecific Solarscape® XL Pink Jewel impatiens offers a tropical look and feel to full and partly sunny locations. You'll enjoy flowers all season long as well as this plant's superior disease resistance, including resistance to downy mildew disease. Grow this in mass in garden beds and borders or in a few containers on your patio, deck, or balcony.
Sure ShotTM White Petunia can tolerate crazy weather conditions including heat, cold rain, and sunshine. This petunia hybrid grows eight to ten inches tall and works well in containers, hanging baskets, and garden beds. You'll enjoy the lightly fragrant flowers that help attract bees and other pollinators to your gardens.
EnVivaTM Pink petchoa is a cultivar of a petunia and calibrachoa hybrid. This variety wowed the judges with its mounded habit that persisted throughout the growing season. The bright pink flowers with yellow throat held up through heat and rain. Grow these in containers, hanging baskets, and garden beds.
Sweetheart Kisses verbena adds a vibrant mix of red, rose, pink, and a bit of white to full and partly sunny spots in your landscape. The airy foliage creates a nice backdrop for the flowers. Use it as an annual groundcover, edger in a flower bed or mixed border, or in a container alone or mixed with other annuals. Then watch for the butterflies and bees stopping by the flowers.
Big EEZE Pink Batik geranium's unique pink and white mosaic blooms perform as well as other members of the Big EEZE series. The plant produces an abundance of flowers of equal size and coloration. It performed well in full to part sun in containers and garden beds.
Combine these winners with your other favorite flowers to create a stunning landscape and eye-catching containers this growing season.
Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including The Midwest Gardener's Handbook, 2nd Edition and Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses "How to Grow Anything" DVD series and the nationally-syndicated Melinda's Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine. Her web site is www.MelindaMyers.com.
Antiques
Upcoming Antique Shows
Photo courtesy of Wayne Tuiskula
Believe it or not, spring is officially here. For antique collectors, that means it's time to start thinking about getting outside and spending time at antique shows and flea markets.
The biggest show in the area takes place next month: the Brimfield Antique Flea Market. The first of the three Brimfield shows begins on Tuesday, May 14th and will run through Sunday, May 19th. Brimfield offers 16 fields stretched along Route 20 with the first fields opening at dusk on Tuesday. Serious collectors will be out with flashlights as daylight breaks and looking through dealer tents for items they collect. Other fields stagger their opening dates through the rest of the week. New England Motel Antique Shows has a 6 a.m. Wednesday start. Heart of the Mart opens at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. Hertan's Antique Shows offers two one-day shows that both begin at noon on Wednesday and Saturday. May's Antique Mart opens at 9 a.m. on Thursday. Brimfield Auction Acres (formerly J & J) opens Friday at 9 a.m. If you can't make it to the May show, the other two dates for the Brimfield Antique Flea Markets are July 9th through 14th and September 3rd through 8th.
"The Sturbridge Show" will take place May 13th, July 8th, and September 2nd. The show is known for vintage clothing and linen and takes place the Monday before each of the Brimfield sessions. Their website www.thesturbridgeshow.com offers more information.
The Greater Boston Antique Toy & Collectible Show and Sale will be taking place on April 14th. The show will be held in Dedham, MA from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. See www.facebook.com/bostontoyshow for further details.
Prior to Brimfield, there's an antique show taking place in Ellington, CT. The Ellington Historical Society's Vintage and Antique Market will be held at the Nellie McKnight Museum on Saturday, May 4th from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is free and more information can be found at ellingtonhistsoc.org.
If your travels take you to Cape Cod, the Sandwich Weekly Antiques & Collectibles Show.
is running now through October 30th and is open from 6 a.m. to noon on Wednesdays and from 7 a.m. to noon on Sundays. Their website is www.thesandwichbazaar.com.
If you are heading further onto the Cape, the Brewster Historical Society will be holding their 51st Annual Outdoor Antiques Fair on Saturday, June 29th, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. See www.brewsterhistoricalsociety.org/antiques-fair for more details.
Closer to home, Walker Homestead's Antiques & Primitive Goods Show takes place in Brookfield, MA on Saturday, June 15th from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. See www.walkerhomestead.com for more information.
The Boxborough Antique Show on Sunday, October 20th is one of many shows by Gurley Antique Shows. Details can be found at www.gurleyantiqueshows.com. Hopefully by then you'll be ready to spend your winter with a house full of treasures you acquired at spring and summer antique shows.
Our comic books and sports memorabilia auction will run next month. There is still time to consign gold jewelry, sterling silverware, art, coins, and other antiques and collectibles for our summer auction. I'll be at the Holden Senior Center on April 22nd presenting "what's hot and what's not" with antiques and collectibles. I'll also be discussing downsizing at a Learning in Retirement event in Danielson, Connecticut on May 6th. Please visit our website https://centralmassauctions.com for links to other upcoming events.
Contact us at: Wayne Tuiskula Auctioneer/Appraiser Central Mass Auctions for Antique, Collectibles Auctions and Appraisal Services www.centralmassauctions.com (508-612- 6111).