Red in the garden for Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2020

I’m all heart-eyes for the garden today as it shows off beautiful Valentine’s Day reds. Here’s native possumhaw holly (Ilex decidua) sporting clusters of tiny red berries. Soon the mockingbirds and cedar waxwings will polish these off, so I’m enjoying them while I can.

And thanks to our mild winter, round-leaf firecracker fern (Russelia rotundifolia) continues to light up a shady bed with fiery color, overlooked by a wriggly-armed squid agave (Agave bracteosa) in a fluted pot.

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Digging Deeper

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10 responses to “Red in the garden for Valentine’s Day”

  1. I think I need to add this one to my garden! Love the pops of color in the winter landscape.

    • Pam/Digging says:

      Which one? Possumhaw or firecracker fern? I think possumhaw is native to your home state of Georgia too, so it would be a great choice.

  2. Renee says:

    Oh, that firecracker fern is nice! And the red very on theme for February…

  3. Lisa at Greenbow says:

    You should have seen everyone dressed with red when we were out to dinner last night. None as pretty as your garden. Happy day…

  4. Maggie C says:

    At first glance, I thought that Possumhaw was a redbud and wondered where you’d found one that was actually red! I love both it and the firecracker fern, but that squid agave really caught my eye – it’s beautiful in that fluted pot. Do you have to remove pups to get the solo version?

    • Pam/Digging says:

      I do have to pull out pups from time to time, but it’s not as bad as some agaves, and of course it’s a lot less spiny.

  5. Pam Duffy says:

    I’m thinking of putting another Possum Haw in my front yard and I see you have a fence around it. Guess I’d better prepare.
    P.S. I’m not seeing this post on your Digging blog, but brought it up from Jenny’s. Are you just going to put these on Facebook, now?

    • Pam/Digging says:

      I put a wire cage around it from late September through March to protect it from deer browsing and antlering. As for the blog post, it’s right here on the blog as normal. I’m not sure what you mean, Pam. Maybe you mean the email subscription for Digging? Sometimes it can take up to 24 hours for a blog post to get sent out via email.