Texas Gardening: My flower Bed!, 1 by txflower

txflower wrote:
Ok well the organic end is over me head! LOL I like the idea and just thought that the organic soil would have more good stuff in it then cheap soil does.

No I did not till (sp I think) up the dirt that was already there. I just poured in 1 bag of top soil (which I thought was the layer of dirt that naturally was there), and racked it in and spread it around. Then I added 1 bag of the potting soil on top and racked in and spread it as well. Then I repeated that on the other half of the bed.

I thought that was good enough, and I did not have a tiller or one of those claw things that your twist to till. AWW I guess I shot myself in the foot there!

Ok so to correct it I need to add surfactant. What is that and what does it do? Same question for the dish soap?

I did all of this in May, and it still looks almost exactly the same! I have lost 1 or 2 Dahlias and 2 Celosias, but I think that is it. I might still loose on of the Hawaiian Royals! :((

I do have to say that I water at night until there is a small amount of standing water. But last night after deadheading I watered for about 5 to 10 minutes (until I could see that it was "wet" and starting to have the beginnings of standing water) and let it soak in a few minutes as I watered other things.

Then I used a watering can that has a soft pour flow or rain shower end and added Miracle-Gro to it. Then I screwed the hose to the Miracle-Gro sprayer and watered with that.

I looked this morning about 10 or 11 and it still looked wet/muddy so I did not water any this morning which I decided I needed to do everyday to make sure it did not dry out and would keep the organic soil from getting to hot!

So anyway I hope I helped it and did not do more damage!! LOL

I am SOO impressed with Miracle-Grow! I used to faithfully give it to my house plants and they look awesome!!

I have been giving it to my Bougainvilla every week for just two weeks and it bloomed!!!! I have had it for about 4 years and it has NEVER bloomed other then when I first got it!! I am SOOO excited!! I do move it inside in the winter and leave it on my north facing porch all summer!!

Here is a pic of it! I know others look better but I am SO excited!! I was giving up after this year it just looked like a vine! LOL There is a little of my Hibiscus tree in the pic, but you can see the whole Boug! LOL

I am also going to take new (today) pics of the bed, so you know what it looks like now!!

Thank you all so much! Now I need to start figuring out what to do to it and plant in it in the fall/winter! After all here in the Panhandle we get the good old West Texas wind and snow! LOL