Around Bent Tree and Big Canoe, people have an appreciation for the natural beauty of our surrounding landscape. We often work with clients that rather than changing the landscape around their home, simply want to add to its beauty with woodland landscaping techniques. One of our favorite ways to do this is by planting gardens of low maintenance flowers. The flowers we suggest are suited to our Georgia climates and will grow wild with little to no maintenance. These are Whispering Spring Nursery’s top picks for flowers to grow in Jasper, GA: 

• Obedient Plant
• Iris
• Canna
• Lilyturf
• Southern Shield Fern
• Black Eyed Susan
• Cast Iron Plant
• Phlox

Any of these flowers will make great additions to your garden. Although, if you historically have a problem with the deer feeding on your landscape, these might not be the best options. Instead, choose flowers that are deer resistant. (No plant can be called “deer proof.”) Or, come by our nursery today and talk to us about creating a landscape design for you that enhances your natural surroundings, but will not become dinner for your deer the day after it’s installed.

Whispering Springs Nursery specializes in deer resistant gardens, custom carpentry, water features, landscape design, landscape maintenance, as well as providing beautiful flowers, trees, and shrubs to our clients at our garden center in Jasper, Ga. Come by and see us today!

Img via Flickr.

It’s springtime here in the north Georgia mountains – finally! You are probably looking forward to spending time out in your garden curating your beautiful flowers, or simply sitting on your patio enjoying the great outdoors over a tall glass of sweet iced tea. Warm days and cool evenings make the perfect recipe for a wonderful, bug-free evening outdoors. To get your patio ready for spring, Whispering Springs Nursery offers 5 great ideas. 

1. Grow  a Tower Garden

While you’re busy preparing dinner for your outdoor table, don’t worry about the salad. All you have to do is bring out the bowls and let the guests pick their own ingredients off of your Tower Garden full of fresh veggies! 

2. Fill Your Planters

Planters full of vibrant blooms create an elegant atmosphere and add natural beauty to your sitting space, while inherently deterring the deer population from munching on your favorite plants. 

3. Build a Pergola

Make your outdoor sitting space comfortable day or night and build a pergola that will be the structure for a vine of confederate jasmine to grow and cast shade over your late afternoon retreat.

4. Create Seating Space

Whether you want to opt for store bought patio furniture, a custom bench, or building your own outdoor furniture, make sure that your guest have plenty of space to rest from a long day.

5. Keep the Bugs Away

Citronella candles do wonders for deterring unwanted flying guests at your dinner table. Simply light and place in the area where you’ll be spending your time. The scent and smoke helps keep bugs at bay.

Every landscape has a low spot or two. An area where the sun just never seems to shine, the ground is always wet, and nothing will seem to grow. This is quite common around the Big Canoe area, as most people have heavily wooded landscapes which leads to shady flower beds. Rather than leaving that corner of your yard to become your dog’s mud pit, Whispering Springs Nursery offers three alternatives for taking that corner of your yard from a “before” to an “after.”

Lay a Stone Patio

A great option to make a corner of your yard that was once useless, functional! It not only increases the visual appeal to your landscape, but also increases your livable space. Large, flat rocks look the best for Jasper, GA homes – they appear natural and blend into the beauty of nature’s landscape. You can fill in the spaces in between the rocks with either a grout/concrete mix, or with your favorite ground covers.

Shade Loving Ground Covers

This is one of your cheapest options for turning that ugly corner into a beautiful piece of property. Simply choose a ground cover that is deer-resistant, and plant away! You don’t have to pay for any construction expenses, and you still have a beautiful result.

Install a Pond

Rather than trying to fight to keep the moisture away from that low spot in your landscape, just give in and create a small pond or waterfall.

We look forward to hearing from you, and helping you create the landscape of your dreams!

March means that springtime is finally here! With warmer weather right around the corner, now is the time to start checking things off of your gardening todo list, so that when it comes time to plant, you can enjoy creating a beautiful landscape. Whispering Springs Nursery can help you get your Big Canoe landscape ready for spring.

• Get your vegetable seeds started in indoors. Start them now and they will be ready to set outdoors in April.
• Cut back and fertilize your roses now to promote a flush of growth. Remove dead canes, and cane that rub. You can cut back knockout roses severely, and as long as they are properly fertilized, they will grow back with a vigor and full of blooms later this spring.
• To encourage fruit production on your blueberry bushes, fertilize them with cotton seed meal.
• Clean up all of your fountains, ponds, decks, and fences. Now is a great time to call in a pressure washing company to spray away any built up mildew. You’ll also have the opportunity to inspect and replace wood rot, as needed.

Do you want to create a beautiful landscape, in less than half the time and effort? Whispering Springs Nursery offers landscape maintenance, landscape design, and installation services for customers in the surrounding areas of Big Canoe and Jasper, GA. Call today for a quote for your dream yard!

The winter has been harsh to us here in Georgia this year. With two snow storms and many nights well below freezing, we’ve had to deal with canceled school days, hours stuck in traffic, and damage to homes and cars. Your landscape is also taking a heavy beating this winter. Many people want to know if their plants are dead or damaged, and whether or not they should go ahead and removed their damaged areas. Whispering Springs Nursery in Jasper, GA has got some advice on how to deal with your cold damaged plants. 

Are They Alive?

It’s easy to tell if a plant is alive or dead. Simply try to bend one of its branches and if it bends easily – it’s alive – if it snaps easily – it’s probably dead. You can also scratch of a small area of the outer skin of the plant. If you can see a thin film of green underneath, your plant is thriving despite the weather.

To Prune or Not to Prune

Don’t prune just yet. Hopefully, your plants will shed their fried leaves and grow a full flush of greenery in the spring. Or, your plant might suffer either partial or full dieback. There’s no way to really know until the plant starts growing again this spring at which point you should prune away all of the damages areas.

Don’t worry too much – even if you have to prune your favorite bushes to the ground, if they were large plants they will have large root systems and they will grow back quickly. If you need help or advice on how to revive your landscape after the winter storms, just give us a call here at Whispering Springs Nursery in Jasper, GA!

We love fruit. Especially fresh fruit grown right in your own backyard. Choosing the right fruits to grow in your Jasper, GA yard here in north Georgia is relatively easy, and your selection is wide. Whispering Springs Nursery shares a few of our favorite and easiest to grow fruits for the north Georgia climate and soil. 

Blueberries

Blueberries are one of the easiest to grow fruits for our climate. You can just about plant them and forget them, although a little attention and fertilization with some cotton seed meal definitely wouldn’t hurt. They tend to grow slowly at first, so if you buy bigger bushes, you’ll get a bigger crop of fruit in your first year.

Peaches

Peaches are excellent growers in our zone, that’s why Georgia is known as the peach state! Plant your peaches in well drained, moderately fertile soil with full sun. Six weeks after planting, fertilize with one pound of nitrogen fertilizer.

Grapes

Unlike many fruits, most grapes are self-fertile. That means that you do not need to buy more than one plant for cross pollination. Plant bare root grapes in early spring and construct an arbor or trellis for them to climb on to limit their tendency for disease.

Strawberries

You can grow strawberries just about anywhere, but in our area you will probably get better results by planting them in containers. This way, you can keep the birds and other wildlife from stealing your fruit before you can get to it.

Are you considering planting fruit at your Big Canoe home this spring? Let us know what you’re thinking about planting!

Img via Flickr. 

Growing vegetables doesn’t have to be utilitarian. You can grow your veggies in beautiful containers that look like unique flower arrangements! Whispering Springs has 5 ideas for ways that you can take your edible garden from simply growing to gorgeous this spring. 

1. Make it Colorful 

Not only with the various veggies you can grow, but plant them in colorful pots too! If you’re going to grow veggies in containers all summer, at least plant them in something you want to see sitting on your front porch!

2. Be Creative

Just as you can add some color with your planters, you can add some creativity too! Pick up containers that wouldn’t normally hold plants and use them to make interesting pots. A couple of great ideas include wine crates, old tins, and watering cans.

3. Think Up

If you’re short on floor space, think about ceiling space. Some plants actually grow better when they are grown in hanging containers and allowed to drape off the sides of their container as they grow. Tomatoes and strawberries do especially well when they are hung from above.

4. Window Herbs

Create a window box for whatever window is nearest your kitchen and grow all of your fresh herbs there. They will be close at hand for you to pick and throw right in whatever dishes you are cooking.

5. Provide Support

If you prefer to plant in pots and want to plan vines such as cucumbers or beans, use a trellis and train them to grow upwards. Just because you’re planting veggies doesn’t mean you have to use those plain wire vegetable stands!

What are you planning on planting in your edible garden this spring?

Img via Flickr. 

Arbors are beautiful additions to your landscape. They provide not only a beautiful piece of art, but also serve a functional purpose. These are 3 reasons that you should add a custom arbor to your Big Canoe landscape. 

1. Creating Shade

Does your landscape get so much sun that you can’t sit outdoors to enjoy your yard in the heat of the summer? An arbor will create a space that is cool and comfortable for you and your family to sit and enjoy the outdoors.

2. Creating a Place for Plants

The romantic image of a climbing rose draping off the roof of a wood arbor is iconic. Get this picturesque view right in your own back yard by planting a climbing rose or other favorite vine on your arbor. Come spring time, your custom arbor will be covered with your favorite blooms.

3. A Centerpiece for Design

If you’re looking to redesign your landscape this spring, a custom arbor is the perfect place to start. Whether you want your arbor over a bench or seating area, or built as a gate into your yard, a custom arbor is the perfect center piece to a classic and stylish landscape design.

Whispering Springs Nursery is lucky to have the expertise of James Grno working for our garden center and landscape design team. He is an excellent carpenter that has been creating custom landscape elements for clients for over 13 years. Call us today to schedule a meeting with James so that he can design the perfect arbor or other carpentry creation for your Jasper, GA landscape. 

Black mondo grass, (Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’), bishop’s weed (Aegopodium podagraria var. variegatum) and pink oxalis (Oxalis crassipes).

In Jasper, GA and the surrounding areas of Big Canoe and Bent Tree, many avid gardeners tend to plant their favorite plants and shrubs in containers so that they can keep them close to their house, away from our hungry deer population. But, if you opt to go with container gardening, that comes with its own set of challenges including keeping your plants alive during the frigid winter temperatures. Whispering Springs Nursery can help you make sure that your plants make it through our tough winters to thrive again come spring.

Tips for Overwintering Containers

• Plant your selections in larger containers to provide more insulation. The more soil between the root ball system and the side of the pot, the more insulation those roots will have.
• New roots grow on the outside of the root ball which leaves them susceptible to cold weather damage. Using thicker pots or lining your pots with an inch of foam will help protect those vulnerable roots.
• Wrap the pots with bubble wrap, blankets, burlap, or geotextile blankets to shield them from the cold. It’s not the top of the plant that needs protecting so you can leave those unwrapped.
• Select plants that are cold hardy to 2 zones cooler than yours.
• Put plants in the right area – next to a wall or behind a shelter made of straw bales, and group them together. Put the hardier plants on the outside of the group.

Do you have your own favorite tips for making sure that your potted plants make it through the winter healthy and ready to bloom in spring? share them with us in the comments below!

Now is about the time of year that you see “landscapers” attacking crape myrtles with their pruning shears like the trees might attack them if they left even the tiniest of branches. The practice is called “topping” and its has taken over good landscape practices and replaced them with this cruel joke of pruning. Whispering Springs Nursery is going to let you in on the secret to good pruning practices for crape myrtles.

Why People Top

Topping crape myrtles has become so common place that it may be more out of place to see a crape myrtle that has been properly pruned! Many people top because they have come to believe the myth that it encourages blooming, the tree has grown too large for its space, or they simply see their neighbors doing it and feel that they should follow suit. None of these are good reasons to top your crape myrtles.

Proper Plant Selection

Crape myrtles come in a wide variety of cultivars. From dwarfs to giants, this versatile plant is used in most southern landscapes for its year round beauty – beautiful blooms all summer and peeling bark and elegant form through winter. There have been cultivars of crape myrtles that will fit in just about any space. They come is both bush and tree sizes. Making sure that you are planting the right cultivar for the area you have is the essential first step in good pruning practices.

Good Pruning

Crape myrtles typically only need a light pruning – not the heavy pruning of the topping practice.  Remove defective or dead branches as soon as you see them. You can also remove lateral branches, small twigs, or branches in the center of the plant to create more open space for sun and air movement during the plant’s dormant time, late winter and early spring. Also, as a young plant is maturing, you can prune away all but the three to five strongest limbs growing from ground level. As it develops into a tree, you can remove the lower limbs to encourage the plant to grow upwards instead of outwards.

Img via Flickr.