Beginner Gardening: Newbie Blackthumb in Georgia, 0 by luvschocolates

luvschocolates wrote:
Hello everyone!

I'm Karen from South Georgia and I need some help with my black thumbs. I have desperately tried to grow some flowers in my garden the past 3 years and I always manage to kill them or they just don't thrive. I know the heat and humidity down here can be a factor (so maybe it's not all my fault), but that being said, perhaps I have a tendency to overwater with it being so hot.
Last year I planted Livingstone Daisies (Ice plant) for the umpteenth time and they sprouted fine, and grew nicely for about 2 months, they looked really healthy during this time and then they got rather "leggy" looking, the roots never seem to go very deep and then shortly after they started to die off. I know now that I did overwater them which caused them to rot, but I don't understand why the roots don't grow deeper. Does anyone have any pointers?
I just sowed some new ones today and I'm hoping that this year maybe I'll get it right.

I also planted some angel trumpets (datura) last summer and I saw one bloom the entire season and then the pods that form after the bloom dies off, never really matured. I can't figure that out either because in previous years we've had an abundance of blooms and pods on very healthy plants.

I tried to grow a beautiful flower called Malope and it didn't bloom either. I'm not sure but I think it has survived the winter because there are some happy little plants in the pots near where I grew those but without having seen a bloom I'm not familiar with whether it's Malope or Malva - they grew near each other and neither plant did anything but produce a few leaves.

What am I doing wrong? I was told by a greenhouse expert near here that planting the seeds in Miracle Gro or similar potting mixes causes fertilizer toxicity, so I used ordinary top soil with nothing added to it except some vermiculite to promote drainage and once the plants were about 2-3 inches tall, I added some root starter from Ferti-loam. I thought that would be a good thing but again, it didn't seem to help much.
Oh yeah - we also have a terrific experimental weed garden as well - can't seem to get rid of them which doesn't help matters when they are choking out the plants we actually want. I do spend a lot of time weeding by hand but there is so much of it that I just can't keep up. We're hesitant to use weedkillers like Round-Up and whatnot, because we don't want to hurt exisiting shrubbery and wildlife. I tried boiling water and vinegar (not together) but that didn't do anything at all (maybe that was stupid but someone told me to try that) and now I'm not sure what to do.

Anything you have to offer as far as what I'm doing wrong or just solid advice would be appreciated. I just want to see a healthy and beautiful garden this year and I'm determined to try my best to make that happen.

PS - the photo I've included is how our angel trumpets looked 3 years ago. Can't seem to get that back.