Order flowers online, pick 'em up at garden show

VIRGINIA BEACH

With the new year, the Junior Virginia Beach Garden Club is going high tech.

Club members won’t pass out paper order blanks for their annual Spring Flower Sale. In the past, to place an order, the form had to be filled out and returned to a club member.

This year, instead of ordering flowers with a pencil, it will be as easy as going online anytime from Tuesday through Feb. 18.

You’ll be able to choose from an assortment of perennials and annuals, all pictured with descriptions at www.jvbgc.com.

Flowers will be ready for pickup at the club’s Spring Flower Sale from 10 a.m. to 3 pm. April 18 at Galilee Episcopal Church on Pacific Avenue in Virginia Beach.

Traditionally, the flower sale has been held at the Virginia Beach Convention Center, and if you didn’t order ahead, you usually could find perennials and annuals on the day of the sale.

But this year, the sale will be at Galilee. Because the church is a much smaller venue than the convention center, the club won’t offer any perennials and only a small group of annuals on the actual sale day.

That means it’s important to pre-order your flowers on the website, said Jennie Ware, who is co-chairing the sale. Along with annuals, the club will offer 15 perennial selections, including Amsonia Blue Star.

Amsonia is a Virginia native and was the Perennial Plant Association’s 2011 Perennial Plant of the Year. Sometimes called Arkansas blue star, Amsonia lives up to its name with clusters of blue star-shaped flowers that bloom at the top of 36-inch- tall spiky stems in the spring.

Amsonia’s green fern-like foliage stays pretty all summer. Then, completing a three-season show, the leaves turn golden yellow in autumn.

Besides being a garden workhorse, Amsonia is hardy. Typical of native plants, it is immune to insects and diseases. Even deer don’t like it. Tolerant of sun or partial shade, Amsonia also can handle drier conditions once established.

“I have it in my yard,’ Ware said. “It’s very unique. It grows upright and stays pretty through the summer and into the fall.”

Other perennials native to the Southeast also are part of the club’s online offerings. Members want to stress the importance of growing natives in the landscape, Ware said. Natives are hardy, resistant to disease and pests, and don’t require much water or fertilizer.

Two other native offerings are colorful spring-blooming vines. One, Bignonia Tangerine Beauty, also known as crossvine, is orangey-yellow. The other, Gelsemium Margarita, is the wonderful yellow Carolina Jessamine that you see heralding the spring in local woods.

In addition, the 2012 Perennial Plant of the Year, Brunnera Marcrophylla Jack Frost, is on the order list, along with several other perennials, including Pink Muhly grass and a Pennisetum grass.

Annuals on the order list include coleus, geraniums, impatiens, vincas, begonias and petunias. One new petunia called Pretty Picasso has a bright pink center with a fresh green edge.

On a chilly January day, checking out the garden club’s website is a high-tech activity that leads to dreams of spring planting – about as low tech as you can get.

Mary Reid Barrow, barrow1@cox.net