Georgia Magazine - March 2011 - (Page 50C)

Georgia Gold Medal Plant of the Month 2011 Native Plant Winner: Fringetree By CONNie COTTiNGHAm How are the plants selected? Plants are chosen by the Georgia Plant Selections Committee, a nonprofit organization comprised of professionals in the horticulture industry, including nurserymen, flower growers, garden center retailers, landscape professionals, botanical gardens workers, county extension agents and faculty from the University of Georgia. Organized in 1993, this volunteer committee reviews plants nominated in the categories of annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees and vines or groundcover. Once selections are made, promotional literature on each winning plant is distribute to growers, retailers, landscapers, extension agents and consumers. For more Georgia gardens, see page 40. T he Georgia Gold Medal Plant program is designed to help homeowners select ornamental plants that will thrive in their gardens, while offering many seasons of interest. Fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus) is native to every county in Georgia. It is a large shrub or small tree that matures at about 20 feet high and wide. Fine-textured creamy blooms cover the plant in early spring, and the whole plant shimmers in the slightest breeze. The bloom season can last up to six weeks before its lime-green leaves cover the plant. The leaves will mature to a darker green for summer. Fringetree is adaptable to a va- riety of light and soil conditions but blooms best in full sun. If you have fringetree in your garden, prune it right after it flowers, if it needs pruning at all. Take home a Gold Medal Plant and take home a winner! Visit www. georgiagoldmedalplants.org to read about all of the Georgia Gold Medal winners. Connie Cottingham is a garden writer and public relations specialist with the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens. Liberty notes Founding Fathers’ ideas on the right to bear arms By Jim Jess O ur Founding Fathers had strong opinions about the right to bear arms, both from a military and civilian perspective. Here are some of their thoughts: “Three millions [sic] of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.” —Patrick Henry, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech, March 23, 1775 “In our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our birthright, and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it—for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our fore-fathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up March 2011 arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before.” —Thomas Jefferson and Col. John Dickinson, “Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms,” July 6, 1775 “Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. —James Madison, “Federalist No. 46,” 1788 More online at www.georgiamagazine.org “A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined … And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others for essential, particularly for military supplies.” —President George Washington, First Annual Message to Congress, Jan. 8, 1790 “This declaration of rights, I take it, is intended to secure the people against mal-administration of the Government; if we could suppose that, in all cases, the rights of the people would be attended to, the occasion for guards of this kind would be removed.” —U.S. Rep. Elbridge Gerry, during House debate on the Second Amendment, Aug. 17, 1789 For more Liberty notes, see page 9. 50C http://www.georgiagoldmedalplants.org http://www.georgiagoldmedalplants.org http://www.georgiamagazine.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Georgia Magazine - March 2011

Georgia Magazine - March 2011
Contents
Viewpoint
Mailbox
Picture This?
Georgia News
Calendar
Currents
Georgia’s Energy Outlook
Special Energy Report
A Balancing Act
Right on Key
Around Georgia
Georgia@Home
My Georgia
Gardens
Georgia Cooks
Snapshot

Georgia Magazine - March 2011