Signs of spring about to bloom at Outdoor Living & Landscape Show

Can gardening — of all things — get more natural? Yes, it can.

It’s one of the trends in growing that is growing, along with the popularity of edibles, container gardening and plants that give the most bang for their buck, doing the double duty of looking pretty and tasting good.

The trends are being seen locally and nationally, echoed from the county extension agent to garden personality P. Allen Smith, who will be in Wichita next week to speak at the Outdoor Living & Landscape Show.

“Interest in gardening has never been stronger,” Smith said this week from his farm outside Little Rock, right before the latest winter storm was about to hit. He and his farmhands were scurrying to make preparations, while Smith also was preparing for the onslaught of spring just waiting in the wings.

“What I find is that edibles have moved to the front of the pack,” Smith continued. “Container gardening remains at the top. Growing some of your food in containers combines the two top trends.”

Smith, who hosts three gardening shows on TV along with authoring garden books and giving workshops at his farm and appearing around the country, will give a slide presentation at the Outdoor Living & Landscape Show at 10:30 a.m. on March 7. The show starts March 6 and runs through March 8 in Century II’s Expo Hall, coinciding with the start of daylight saving time for a double dose of warm-weather hope.

Smith remembers being in Wichita in 2004 at the old Wichita Garden Show, and he is the first national speaker to appear at the new incarnation of the show, the smaller Outdoor Living & Landscape Show.

“This will be our fourth show, and this will be the first time we’ve brought in somebody,” said Brad Horning of Entercom radio, the show’s sponsor. It will feature more than 130 vendors of garden and outdoor-living products and services, local garden-club representatives, display gardens and seminars. The giveaway of a $4,000 backyard makeover has increased to $5,000 this year; register at the show office at the north end of Expo Hall for a chance to win.

The Extension Service and its master gardeners will be sponsoring the seminars, which will hit some of the garden hot buttons, including drought, new varieties of flowers, garden design, bees, and containers. Smith will be speaking in the same area of the hall where the seminars are. (He’ll also be the guest of honor at a cocktail party at Botanica the night before; tickets are $125, which include a copy of his latest book, a photo with him, a ticket to the outdoor show and a donation to Botanica.)

Bees and butterflies

“Bees and butterflies and protecting the monarchs” are among the areas of gardening interest that extension agent Bob Neier sees, and Smith agrees.

“People are more sensitive to the ecology of their own backyard, and probably the hallmark is the interest in beneficial insects and butterflies and attracting birds and the honeybee.”

The Kansas Native Plant Society last week announced that its Wildflower of the Year for 2015 is spider milkweed (Asclepias viridis), chosen in part because it is beneficial to monarch butterflies.

It’s one of the milkweeds that blooms at the Great Plains Nature Center in Wichita, recently registered as a monarch waystation by Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas.

“That’s really one of the most important ones,” Amanda Alessi, a naturalist at the center, said of spider milkweed, which flowers in clusters of pale green. “It’s one of the first ones we see blooming in the spring,” giving monarchs on their northward migration a place to lay their eggs.

“We are really pushing and seeing a lot of planting milkweed, one that’s native, so it’s a lot more hardy and needs less water and it’s also beneficial to monarchs and other pollinators.”

Spider milkweed is also known as green antelopehorn because its seedpods look like small antelope horns. It is shorter and has a less-weedy growth habit than common milkweed, which may make it more suitable for native landscaping, the native plant society says on its website. Roots and seeds are available, and, locally, Prairie Pride Plants, for one, expects to have plants for sale this summer.

Other trends

While eating well — both for health and flavor — is driving the popularity of growing edibles, a few trends accompany it: growing at least some of that food in containers, and growing edible plants that are also beautiful. At least some vegetables can sneak into the front yard that way.

So many vegetable plants “are just gorgeous,” Smith said. “I can’t imagine my garden without Ruby Red or Rainbow Swiss chard. It can compete with the finest of bloomers, in my opinion.” He likes to integrate flowers and herbs, and always plants marigolds among the tomatoes for cutting. “I love the fragrance.”

A favorite from last year’s garden: Tabasco pepper. “The peppers looked like little flowers. For the late garden, they’re just gorgeous.”

Wichitan Mike DeRee of Ball Seed Co. will speak at the outdoor show about new annual varieties at 7 p.m. on March 7. He said that kale “is off the charts.” People eat it, of course, and they also love the ornamental kind for fall decorating.

Smith noted another trend that shows people are trying to get away from the tech-dominated world and back to nature: urban farmsteading.

His Moss Mountain Farm, which is open for tours, has seen a huge interest in poultry workshops and beekeeping. He has a Heritage Poultry Conservancy of about 35 endangered breeds.

“People are raising a few laying hens in the backyard, keeping a vegetable garden, growing some herbs.”

Smith’s main passion right now: “local food communities and how we can work to amplify that.” He has had shows on TV for 15 years — “P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home” is on KPTS’s Create channel at 10 a.m. Sundays, and his “Garden to Table” airs at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and Thursdays on Create — and more than ever sees the need for garden education.

“There’s so much to share. And I’m jazzed by that. I like helping.”

This story was originally published February 27, 2015 at 10:06 AM with the headline "Signs of spring about to bloom at Outdoor Living & Landscape Show."