Accessible Gardening: My garden's a tight space..., 1 by carrielamont

carrielamont wrote:
So Dorothie, I've been meaning to ask you who know so much more than I do, what determines which direction a bulb's flower will face? Actually I guess I mean more than just bulbs, I mean flowers, too. The dayliles in the row separating the lawn from the street face both directions, I think, and with them, because we have so many and they don't really have a front or a back, it doesn't matter so much. But the brand new Hollyhocks in the back never seem to be facing me. I guess that garden is meant to be viewed from the west, i.e. when I come out of the house, I'm to the west of the garden. I want everyone to be facing me. The short stuff is at my feet (or wheels, as the case may be) and the tall stuff is in the back, in the east. At least that's the way it's meant to be! I think I planted Foxgloves but I haven't seen them yet. (Did you see this woman's Foxgloves? Out-blinking-rageous!http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/619922/#new 7-28 at 1:56 And this is her summer house! Anyway, it is a disappointment to me that my flowers all seem to be looking away from me. Especially the gladiolus! They actually ARE winter hardy, they had a little trouble supporting their own weight, but we planted them in the fall and they came up in the summer. But some are facing north and some are facing south but not one is facing me, i.e. west.

I'm going to dig everything up anyway and rearrange it as best as Tanya and I can. Ray suffers from male delusions of straight lines and spacing, i.e. if the north and south edges are 15 ft apart, and he has 3 plants, all 24" high, so all should be equally west-east, he'll put one at the 12ft line, one at the 3ft line, and one at the 8ft line. Sigh. And he thinks of me as the earth mother. He also buys 'mixed bouquets'! If one is going to buy 'mixed bouquets', one ought to buy three of them!

Digging up daylilies, will we find bulblets and such? There's no way to make them face a certain way, is there?

Ahh. Well, I have many questions to ask on many forums, so I'll dig you later, 'gator.

xxxxxxxx, Carrie

P.S. I'm sending along a pic of my double impatiens, I forget the name of the color, something like 'hot coral'.