Hi from Minnesota

My name is Val, I am a somewhat of new gardner. I have a new house so we have baby trees in our yard (no shade). I like to have hang flower bags from the post by my front door and put flowers in ceramic pots lining my sidewalk every year. I have no luck keeping the flowers "alive" unless I water them twice daily. I can water them that often but if I dont get to it after a day they are dead and it takes about a week to revive them. I am trying to find out the best flowers for me to put in the bags and pots that will withstand the heat with no shade. If anyone can help me that would be great! I dont know much about flowers so bear with me please. I look forward to hearing your suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Welcome from Ohio! I think our growing season is short, but then I remember there's folks who live in even colder climates! I bet your front doorway looks really pretty in their glory - I know what you mean about them being hard to keep alive. One flower that might do well for you is alyssum: http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=alyssum Petunias might be happy in there, too.

One thing that will help a lot is using polymer watering crystals in your soil mix. They absorb hundreds of times their weight in water, retaining it until the soil around them gets dry. When the soil gets dry, the crystals release their store of water. They're wonderful for container gardening!

See this: http://www.watercrystals.com/ This is one source, but they're sold under all kind of names both online and in most stores' garden centers. I bought "Soil Moist" brand, I think at Wal-Mart.

Welcome from the NC mountains! I don't know enough about flowers to recommend any that tolerate heat/sun in pots. You might get better results if you post your query in the Container Gardening Forum.

Even with overall abundant rain this year, I've had problems with plants in pots drying out. Finally I re-potted them and included some of the water absorbing crystals gardenwife mentioned above. They still dry out when I don't pay attention to watering for a couple of days, but not as quickly, and I haven't lost any.

One of our members, poppysue, posted a couple of years ago that she uses part of the disposable diapers that have the crystals.

Welcome, Marinaalexis. Enjoy the garden!

Marinaalexis, just stopping by to say hello and to give you a warm welcome from the Coast of Texas.........I'm sure with all the wonderful gardeners here at Dave's you will find the information you need.......Hope your gardening experience with us is GREAT......Welcome aboard.. :o)

Welcome Val. You don't say where you live and that would be nice to know. You can add that information by clicking on Preferences under About You. I hope all your container plants survive. I also need some of those water retaining crystals for my pots, the sun here in eastern Oregon is very intense plus we have a lot of wind that just sucks the moisture out of everything. Is your climate similiar?

Thank you all for the information. I hope everything will work out next year. I am in Hugo, MN which is about 20 miles north of St. Paul. We have days that go from 55 degrees in the morning to 90 in the afternoon! We have the worst, unpredictable weather. My flowers look beautiful when the are in full bloom and healthy. Thanks again for the information I'll have to try polymer watering crystals.

A warm South Louisiana welcome to you, marinaalexis!

Cheri'

Welcome to Dave's Garden. You'll love it here.

Go to Watersorb.com for a really good price on those water crystals. I just bought 5# a couple weeks ago. That will last me, a friend and my daughter for some time I think. Tell you a funny on me. I put quite a few of the already soaked crystals into a pot I have a baby hosta in. When we got the 7" of rain last week the crystals absorbed so much more water that the top of the soil and the hosta are now about 2" above the top of the pot. Yes it has lots of drainage hole. The crystals just absorbed that much more water. It will be a LONG time before I need to water that hosta again.!

A big welcome from me to you.....(Ü)

Welcome from a very dry Arizona....You will love it here. jo