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Gardening Questions
Hi All! I very recently moved into the home that my future husband and I will be sharing after we get married! I am so excited to live in a house without random roommates. The place I have found has some really nice flower gardens. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO TAKE CARE OF FLOWERS/PLANTS. Any poor unlucky house plant I have been gifted with in the past 8 years has died a slow and tragic death. I haven't had a place with landscaping that I am responsible for in quite a long time. But right now, I am feeling pretty inspired. Anybody have any resources on gardening they would like to share? I know there is a ton online, but I was getting overwhelmed by looking. I know there must be some fantastic green thumbs on this site somewhere 🙂
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13 Replies
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I am probably the worst person to answer this, because I am the same way…I kill plants. My thumbs are about as black as they can get, LOL.
What I do is plant perennials, make sure you have varieties that will be in bloom throughout the season, and they come back year after year without much work or expense. All you have to do is pull the weeds. 🙂
Here are some of what I have: tulips and daffodils come up early in the spring, violets are not far behind. Hostas fill up large spaces (and get bigger every year) and have flowers that bloom in the summer. Tiger lillies are another one that spread, they have big orange flowers in the summer. Snow in Summer is a low lying plant with small white flowers that blooms throughout the season.
I also have a bunch that I don't know what they are called…my favorite has small pink and purple flowers that bloom in early summer, but the leaves are pretty all summer long, they are green with whitish polka dots. It's another one that spreads.
Rose bushes are pretty hardy too, I nearly killed mine last year when I was weeding. I grabbed a handful of it by mistake (the weeds were so big it was buried), thought it was dead for sure but what do you know, it decided to come back this year. It's pretty weak and small, I don't think it will bloom this year, but it has lots of new growth so hopefully next year…as long as I don't ruin it again. LOL
Just make sure you check where you are planting them, does it get full-sun, mostly shade, does the ground stay wet or is it fairly dry. Usually the tags on the plants, or info on seed packages will tell you how much sunlight they need, when they bloom, how much to water, etc.
Oh, one more tip about perennials, especially the kinds that spread. I've gotten nearly all of mine for free from family and neighbours. You can also get them cheap at yard sales too as people are always trying to cut them back!
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Cool, thanks for the info! ooo I forgot about daffodils! I love those! There are a ton of rose bushes in my yard. Probably around 15 bushes, in varying states of establishment. I think the renters prior to me were not much for yard work. I noticed that a lot of the plants don't appear to have been taken care of to ensure blooming, etc. I even have a cherry, peach, apple, and pear trees! I really want to get some fruits from these if I can!
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Gladiolus are also very easy care plants and are beautiful when they bloom. I am also a fan of zinnias but have never planted any.
I will say though that deer tend to love hostas and tulips so if you have wildlife I would stay away from them unless you do not mind putting money out to replace them.
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When I bought my first house a few years ago, I started buying (and killing) plants right away! I have slowly learned two great tricks, in order of helpfulness. 1. Plant natives; they are meant to be there and will thrive. They also benefit local insects and wildlife. You can find nurseries that specialize in plants native to your area. 2. For non native plants, look for those labeled with words like tolerant, resistant, and hardy and avoid those labeled with complicated requirements or mention ph levels. Pay attention to water requirements as well.
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Check out http://www.gardenweb.com It's an awesome gardening forum. Someone on there has an answer for just about any question you've got. I also like http://www.davesgarden.com – it's another good gardening forum, and it has a fairly helpful guide to online nurseries.
@ dustbunny – I think the plant that you're referring to with the pink and purple flowers and spotted leaves is Pulmonaria. It's one of my favorites too, partly because it's so hardy (important to those of us up here in northern MN) and grows anywhere sun or shade. And the flowers are gorgeous!
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I don't know what kind of perennials you have- find out what growing zone you are in and that will help you a lot- but there really are just a few key tips to get you started:
1. Feed the soil in the spring and fall. It's either spend all season trying to feed the plants, or just feed the soil and let it feed the plants. You can get soil test kits that telly you about the condition of your soil, and then it's just about looking up what kinds of plants you have to see what levels they want. If something is "off," you can feed the one deficiency directly. Too much fertilizers will burn your plants so check your levels. Most areas will have a farm bureau/agricultural office/local state government gardening techs. If you look them up you can often get all kinds of information and even free soil test kits because they promote gardening!
2. Water periodically. The surface soil doesn't have to be wet all the time. What you want to do is dig your fingers into the earth. If there's moisture below the first inch or two, you don't have to oversoak. If it's dry and crumbly all the way down, give it a good soak. That means you water until it starts to pool up a little, then move to the next area. In hot summers (90+) you may have to do this two or three times a week if it's not raining. It really helps to get a good rain gauge to have in your garden. If you look up your plants it will tell you how much rainfall they like to have, so if you have a rain gauge you can just do the math to see if you need more water! If your area lets you install a rain barrel, I highly suggest you do to conserve water and cut your water bills. They are gravity fed with a hose at the bottom so you can siphon the water out.
3. Trimming encourages blooming in perennials if done correctly. Again look up the plants to see when and how much to trim. Generally speaking you want to cut some things back in the fall when they start to whither. You also will want to get some kind of mulch to cover your garden in the fall to protect it. You can save some money here – towards the end of the season if you let your grass get real long for two grows in a row you can get a big heap of tall, thick grass clippings and mound it around the bases of the plants. Under the snow during the winter it will keep the roots of the plant from freezing solid because the decomposing organic material creates warmth as it rots. In the spring when the snow melts, that organic matter is already mostly decomposed into rich black earth that will feed it in the spring. Not all perennials need this, so google your plants!
4. Weeds. Dun dun dun. In the spring some of your new growth can look like weeds. I know I've said it a million times but do google your plants, You'll get pictures of what the new growth looks like so you know what is weed and what is garden plant! If you have some open areas that are weeding concerns, I suggest planting a native breed of a hearty day lily that bushes, or something like iris. They will spread themselves so voraciously that at some point you will probably have to pull some of the bulbs or they will take over! The advantage is that they choke out the weeds. Wherever you have a thick patch of day lily or iris, you probably won't have to weed. Another fun idea for your back garden patches if this is your permanent home is to plant perennial foods that will keep providing for you. Two great ones for this are asparagus and rhubarb. Both take about three years to grow before they are ready to be harvested to eat, but once they establish themselves you will have plenty of both. Both like to be in the sun. The asparagus comes in during the mild spring and early summer. The rhubarb is good all year – note that the leaves are poisonous, you just eat the thick red stems. Chopped up and simmered with a bit of sugar and gelatin it makes an incredible topping for ice cream. Or mix it with cut strawberries and some gelatin for an OMGamazing strawberry-rhubarb pie, one of the best things there is. You can also just chop it up and freeze it wrapped tightly in bags and put it up for later use in pies and etc. Yummo.
5. Pests! Bleh! Some varieties of plant are very susceptible to diseases and pests, like soil molds that get hollyhocks and tomatos and potato beetles! There are organic and inorganic ways to address this. Unfortunately if you get soil molds, it's usually all but impossible to get rid of, and you have to just tear out the diseased plants *burn them don't turn them under you'll make it worse!!* and put in something different that's resistant. This is where your soil test kits can really help!!!
—> I'll make one safety note here…not all fertilizers and soil-feeds or treatments are appropriate for edible plants. If you want to eat from your garden, you have to adjust what you are putting in it and how you address pests. But that's all easily look-uppable.
My grandma taught me everything she knows and I'm known as a bit of a green thumb. Any veeners can always feel free to message me with gardening questions, edible plants or no! But truth be told, if you know the basics of the five tips I just gave you and are willing to go to the agricultural office folks and/or the internet when you have a problem, you should be right as rain. As a last piece of advice, MOST community colleges will have a basic gardening course, which I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY suggest you take. They are almost always taught by a master gardener who will give you all kinds of INVALUABLE information about your local growing conditions and who stays current on all the latest agricultural and farm tech progress. Find the master gardeners in your area and you will never run out of answers!
Above all…enjoy it. Gardening allowed me to connect to my grandmother in a way that makes my connection to her spirit inseparable even after her death. She is still with me – in every patch of earth and every bloom. I ate the food she grew. She is in my blood and bones. Recently her house was sold to people who grew up in the area and remember driving past her beautiful gardens. Gardening connects you to people. Take advantage of that and a new beautiful world will open up to you, where the goodness of people shows through. It's a beautiful and life enriching hobby that has added to my life beyond measure.
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Holy shit sorry that was so long. You inadvertently stumbled on one of my greatest passions. <3
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Ladies thanks so much for the advice! I am only renting, so I will probably keep with what they have, but believe me, it will keep me busy.
Haha buying and killing plants. That’s definitely been my MO.
Mostly it’s figuring out watering and how to care for the perennials year round. I do not have much experience but am kind of excited to learn. Community classes sound like an awesome idea.
And PDR, I love your passion for gardening! My mother and grandmother are pretty avid gardeners. I should definitely pick their brains a bit more, as well. Though my mom’s focus on gardening is a lot more with edibles. And you touched on one of my passions, rhubarb! I seriously had rhubarb withdrawals when I lived in Hawaii. Almost paralyzing.
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Chem, not sure about the pests but tonight on my way home I saw a bunny hopping across the road, so there’s that. Not too sure about deer, I guess I shall see!
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Chem, not sure about the pests but tonight on my way home I saw a bunny hopping across the road, so there’s that. Not too sure about deer, I guess I shall see!
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Rabbits and deer can be kept out by taking bars of Irish spring soap, cutting them into chunks and tying them into a a hunk of onion bag, that plastic netting, and tying the little bag of soap to a stake which goes right next to the plants. If it gets really bad you can actually dissolve some of the soap in water and put it in a sprayer and spray that directly on the plants getting chewed on. They hate the smell and taste.
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Another thing that sometimes works to keep animals out of gardens (if there's not a real overpopulation causing them to compete for food) is planing plants they hate intermixed with the ones they love. I mix in things like allium (which is a member of the onion family that has really cool flowers in mid-spring) mondara (also called bee balm, mint family, also very pretty flowers) aconitim (also called monkshood, wolf's bane, POISONOUS – don't use if you have dogs or kids that like to chew on plants, pretty blue-purple flowers).
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Yeah, see at my old house they had taken over all of the surrounding woods to build developments that are now sitting vacant. The deer had no where to go so they moved into the neighborhoods. I had to put up over 6 foot fences just to keep them out of my garden. The hostas and tulips they dug up usually in the spring just as they started to come up. These deer were so desperate they even ate my tiger lilies and the evergreens between my house and the neighbors house. NOTHING was keeping these things away. I only have to worry about turtles and snakes now.
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