As some of you already know, I'm very new to gardening. I joined this website shortly after I started my first garden, and I've wished numerous times that I'd found this place before I started. I planted just a few things in the ground, but when the heat of summer hit...well, lets just say that I'm not really happy with how my first garden attempt started out. Fall planting is not possible, so I'm hoping for a better garden next year. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
On the other hand, my house plants are dong great. I guess that's a positive thing.
Maybe This Will Help
Where I live we say that plants that ''like full sun'' have never tried Utah's sun.
Here's some things I've had good luck with in full sunshine:
Russian Sage - Perovskia
Hollyhock
Maximillium Sunflower - helianthus maximillium
Salvias - Victoria, Autumn, Pineapple
Artemesia - Wormwood(absinthium) and Powis Castle
Oregano, Chives, Garden Sage(mine's 6ft across), 4o'clocks
And I've killed every houseplant I ever had except one cactusy thing that managed to survive for years on total neglect. ]:>)
Was it just the heat that beat you or keeping up with watering?
Why is fall planting not possible? That is really the best time of year for planting most things in Texas. That is one of the things that is different here. You plant in the fall to give them time to establish before the sun and heat hits. Planting in spring doesn't always give them the time they need to be able to survive the summer.
Fall planting isn't possible this year for financial reasons, but you may have just told me why my garden didn't do that well. Maybe planting in the spring was the mistake. It just happened to be spring when I got interested in gardening.
Blooms, I have lots of heat, but also lots of shade. My house faces the north and is shaded by a huge oak in the front. I haven't planted in the backyard yet, because we have a huge poison ivy problem back there, and I'm very allergic. My dh and bil are supposed to try to tackle the pi, but they haven't had a chance.
Maybe I'm just impatient. I walk through the neighborhood and see so many pretty yards. My husband says they are mature gardens, and that ours will look like that someday. We planted two camellia shrubs, which are doing very well. Double impatiens, which did well, but I guess they are past their good season. My hostas, which I was so proud of, looked great for a time, but I guess bugs got to them. I'm afraid of poisons, because we have so many stray cats, and I don't want to do anything to put them in danger. I've heard over and over not to water too much, so maybe I didn't water enough. I guess I get discouraged, because I want to transform the whole look outside, but finances will only allow little at a time improvements...then I look in the garden forum, and see everyones gorgeous yards...I guess I just feel like I don't quite measure up. I know nothing about compost and all the important things I should know before calling myself a gardener. I've checked out library books, but it seems that they are so detailed that I get overwelmed with terms and rules that I don't know. That is why I spend most of my time in the Pets, Prayer Requests, and Houseplant forums. I'm at least a bit familiar with those things.
Sorry if I sound whiney,
Jennifer
Jdee, we all want to wave a magic feather and have it look like our visions.... if I had one. If I didn't have trees to plant under I wouldn't have most of my happiest plants.
Sappponaria (pink soapwort) has become a ground cover for me because it is protected from summers heat after the spring sun brings it to bloom. My Veronica pink spires is much happier where it gets more shade too. Even my Geranium sanguineum is happy there.
Question for some native Texican - Isn't Oak one of those trees it's real difficult to grow some plants under altho others don't mind?
DON't get discouraged. Yes, Fall is my favorite time to plant. I agree that the plants get a better chance to get their roots deeper, before the heat sets in! AND the plants are all on sale! Grab everything you can afford, and stick it in the ground.
First, you should spend your time ammending the soil, if it's not ready! Weed it by hand, get your borders in place, get the grass out... and load up on compost. Buy or load up local free compost, but you can't add too much, really. I would say 4-6" on top of all areas, then lightly turn it over in the existing soil. Then if you aren't ready to plant, cover this with mulch, or at the very least, put a thick layer of newspaper down to keep the soil moist, shaded and decompose for when you are ready to plant. There is plenty that you can do!
And don't lay out straight lines and corners. Not fun to mow around... make sweeping curves. Now get out there and plan it out, so that when you get the plants, you are ready to give them a good home. (Like preparing for a new baby... huh?)
Don't feel bad Jennifer. We all when though all of those things when we started. Your DH is right about the mature gardens though. Unfortunatlly they don't happen over night. One of my biggest frustrations are builders that landscape (and I use the term losely) new houses. They though in a bunch of fast growing invasives and annuals and cheap burmuda grass so the house looks good....at first. Anyway, don't even get me started on that because I will never quit...LOL. Look at it this way.....every little thing you do is an accomplishment and experience in gardening. Here is a plan you might want to consider for next year. Focus on everything BUT planting. Put a couple of good books on gardening (gardening...not plants) on your Christmas wish list. One I really like is called Let's Get Growing. I added it to the bookworm so you can find the specifics on it there. It starts with a really thorough but easy to follow section on growing your soil and it is not filled with a bunch of high tech terms. When you are building a garden, planting is way down the road in the list of things to do. Focus your efforts and finances next year on amending your soil, planning garden spaces, edging, removing that poison Ivy and anything else you need to be rid of. If you do those things first, by the time you are ready and able to plant the rewards of your efforts will be tenfold. Also, keep an eye on the Dirt Cheap forum. There are lots of ways to improve your soil, other bed preparation, fertilizing, etc. that don't require that you pay retail to buy everything from a nursery.
Thank you all for the encouraging words. I bought a book at Half Price Books called "Don't Throw In The Trowel." Down below that it says "Tips and Quips on GArdening." As you can tell from my last post, I haven't read it yet. lol
Hi jdee,
Don't get discouraged, we all have to start somewhere and you'll get there just take it slowly. Remember the old one? 'How do you eat an elephant?" Answer " One bite at a time" Gardens are like that too. There are lots of inexpensive things you can do to start you off. One of which is beg cuttings or splits of things you like from your neighbours and friends. Most garden folk love to give bits of this and that so they won't mind. And its free!
Carol
Carol, my niece, Joy Hill, and her family lives in Keller. They just moved there recently from Irving. Small world.
It is a very small world isn't it! If your over this way visiting your neice you should drop in and have a chat, being retired we are around most of the time.
Hey, jdee! Glad to see you made your way over here. I'm sure you will get off to a good gardening start with the advice you will get from fellow Texans. Having learned the hard way, I too, think fall planting is better than the spring (cheaper too). In fact there are a few things I will plant this winter (azalias, blackberries) just to make sure they have a better chance at surviving that first year.
John
Oh........the blackberries..............they are ALL OVER my yard and I can't get rid of them. Wonderful to eat, but not in my flowerbed and the entire yard. Sorry John, you might want to contain them somehow. I really think it's the birds "helping". Between the blackberries, poison ivy and the bermuda grass, I have a long hard fight on my hands for the next few years.
I have a lot of "hackberries" and poison ivy/oak too. And, the bermuda? I don't even want to think about that awfull weed! A constant battle with those three. The blackberries I want (can't remember the variety right now) are thornless and supposedly managable. I'll make sure I got that right before I buy. Don't need more nasty weeds!
Now that wouldn't be so bad, even if they were in the middle of the yard, it's the stickers that get me.
As for the Bermuda..............my husband's fault. I complained when he did it and he said, "if you want a yard at all this year, we'll have to plant bermuda".(We just moved into this field last fall and dh had to re-grade it, which we found out when the rains came, wasn't done right) Grrrrrrr I should have told him I would rather have dirt blowing around, which is the truth.
The Poison Ivy is about 30 feet high in several trees, thankfully only on one side of the yard, but trying to spread underground.
are you sure they are blackberries?....most blackberries propogate from cane divsion rather than seed. They could be hackberries or brazos berries which are close cousins but are invasive while blackberries are not.. Most of the varieties of blackberries grown today are thornless.
Actually, no....I'm not sure. Dh is home from work now and he says that my dad says they are dewberries. Now I've known my dad to be wrong on occasion, but I do know they are probably native and have been here for centuries if not longer. We do have a lot of blackberries in the area and I just assumed that's what they were......and those blackberries have plenty of thorns. In fact, we mowed down a blackberry patch at the other end of the yard....which is another reason I assumed they were blackberries. That's what I get for assuming. LOL (and I do know those were blackberries, dh confirmed it, not that he knows everything either, lol)
Roundup is probably the best bet against poison ivy/oak. As chemicals go its one of the least offensive I think. Don't like herbicides much but, I won't tolerate poisonous snakes or ivy on my property. Off my property its none of my business. :-)
yep...dewberries are another good possibility.
Well, at first I wasn't getting it strong enough because I didn't want to use too much, and then when I finally did get it strong enough, it rained. Go figure. I need to get back out there and do it again before they go dormant. I saw an interesting talk on TV a couple of months ago, the guy was saying that the best time of year to use roundup and other pesticides like that is in the fall when the sugars in the plants are being pulled back into the plant, just like the trees do. But it keeps raining. Arrrg! And if it doesn't rain, I either forget or don't have time.
I believe my dad is right on those Dewberries. I just found this and it sounds just like them. The plant on the bottom of the page. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/4986/wild02.htm Well, I didn't realize they wouldn't cane up, I was working so hard to keep them under control, but they certainly love to send runners out. I guess that's why, when I don't mow them for awhile (waiting for a time that I can spray them), they never get over a foot high.
I'm going to bed, y'all. Talk to you later. :-)
Sherri
I know whatcha mean Sherri (well except for the rain) I get nervous even using Round Up that it well get on something I don't want it to. So I end up only using it on weeds that come up from time to time in the spaces between the patio and its edging or the driveway or sidewalk. It's especially hard with runner plants or ground covers or vines (which is mostly the invasives I have). I've been fighting morning gories and vinca ever since we moved here. But they are just to close and wrap themselves around all the stuff I want to keep.(including my blackberries...LOL).
Jennifer, don't be so hard on yourself. Really, I'm saying this from experience. I was the same way, felt like I was the problem, but it's just that we are impatient. We bought a new house, my parents immediately said "we have to yank out those shrubs", and that started my new life. But when they said things start to look better the 2nd year, I thought I could NEVER wait THAT long! It started to go by so fast, and now after the 3rd year, I understand. I'm a fact person (thus konkrete) and I loved reading and learning. If you can get 820am on Sunday's you can listen to Howard Garrett. Even if you don't agree with everything or do everything, you can learn a lot from that show. I bought a Southern Living Garden Book at Sam's and spent probably an entire winter just reading about every plant. I took it with me to buy plants. I mean, who knew that you had to have the right kind of dirt, sun and temp just for a plant?? Asking questions is the BEST way to learn from people who have already tried it. Is this the only time in our lives we take advice from others? lol Let me suggest you start with a flower that will give you immediate satisfaction, quick blooms, easy reseeder, the ZINNIA. They have quickly become my favorite because they do not take a long time to establish and entertain me daily. I have plenty of seeds if you would like some!!
Will Zinnias grow in the Shade? I have very little sun to offer them.
They can take a little shade but probably would do well without some full sun at least a good part of the day. That is something something else you might want to consider for down the road jdee. Are there some trees are shrubs you might want to prune to allow more sun? Or maybe start a new bed somewhere where there isn't one now (like in the middle of the lawn) in area that does get sun.
Jdee, You can protect your Hostas from slugs and snails with a ring of sharp small gravel. They hate crawling across it, presumably it hurts. I love hostas too and had loads in the UK. I couldn't use slug bait because I also bred Golden Retrievers, and they eat everything thats edible and a lot that isn't!
Just make sure that if you have other plants that overhang or touch the hostas they are included in the ring too or the b'd slugs will use them as a bridge! Its not a total solution but it reduces the problem to manageable proportions. I'm pretty sure yours will be back in the spring. I was always amazed by how chewed up they could get and still survive.
Best dog I ever had was a golden. They have this theory though.....eat it now and decide if it is edible later. Sampson would always sit in the kitchen doorway when I was cooking, hoping I would drop something.....anything. He was very well trained but he figured anything that hit the floor was fair game. One time I was slicing fresh cayenne peppers and accidentally knocked a couple of whole ones off the cutting board onto the floor. He snatched them in a single gulp. You should have seen the look on his face about 15 seconds later! He ran through the house rubbing his jaw on the carpet trying to put out the fire. I grabbed a big pot and filled it with water and put it down for him. He didn't even try to drink...he just stuck his whole head in the pot. Did he learn a lesson? Absolutely not. A few days later he did the same thing this time with eggshells.
Zinnias are so cheap and easy that it's worth a try. I've got them growing in full sun and shade. They all get plenty of heat.
I'll second that about hostas. I had it in my mind they were sensitive for some reason. But my Great Dane and Pitbull managed to stomp them into oblivion. Well, after a bunch of yelling, not letting them outside alone, and good use of the water hose, they pretty much stay out of my flowerbeds. I am getting an Invisible Fence (God willing) so they can stay out without me being there. Anyway, I noticed after a couple of weeks of this that the hosta sent up a few leaves. Then I decided I didn't like where they were, so I moved them.... in the middle of August! A big no-no and I was sure they wouldn't make it, but they did. Every day they have a new leaf unrolling.
Jdee there are so many shade plants you could do! I have 2 live oaks and a magnolia so you can imagine the shade! The only sun I have is in the front yard and on one side of the back yard (small area). I did have my trees pruned back and the canopy thinned (see my post on the shade garden thread). This did help. But now I think if I had to choose, I prefer shade gardens. Just take your time and don't be so hard on yourself. I know the feeling! I agree about focusing on getting your beds planned and soil amended first. While I was suffering through that phase I just planted a few containers and cleared/prepared one flowerbed area off the front porch. That gave me my "plant fix" while I worked on the rest of my gardens. My first full planting season started this past spring. From about March 2004 through right now I have probably spent over $1000 on plants and garden related products... had to make sure DH wasn't reading over my shoulder... he would DIE if he saw that! :)
Jamie
Just to give you a better idea of how things are, I took some photos today. first, here is a link to a photo I took back when I was proud of my garden...
http://davesgarden.com/forums/fp.php?pid=947290
Now here is a shot of my hostas today...
On a more positive note, I did find one that had some newer leaves.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I can show you my camelias, which I'm very proud of...
Taking a closer look, I noticed tons of buds...
This one looks to me like it may be getting ready to bloom....
They are all just lovely jdee. It does look like something (possibly cutworms?) are getting to the hostas. I also noticed some brown spots on some of the leaves? Possible fungus?
What do you think could cause a fungus. I was so careful not to over water, that I may have under watered. The reason it looks so wet in the pic is because it's been raining quite a bit over the weekend.
Thank you for the compliment. Does it look to you like my camelias are about to bloom. When do they usually bloom?
Camellias are cool weather bloomers (at least in our area) so yes, I would say they are getting ready to bloom. It looks from the picture like they are fairly sheltered which is good. You might want to temporarily cover them during and frosts this winter or from any strong winds while they are blooming. Please take some more pics when the buds start to open. I think it is going to be just spectacular when it is in bloom. The plant and the buds look great!
I think the fungus on the hostas are probably a secondary infection from stress of pest nibbling and possibly not enough water (they are water hogs) or nitrogen during the summer. Some varieties of hostas are just genetically prone to fungal brown spot. The good new is that most secondary fungus in the form or brown spots are not lethal nor do they spread to new foliage from the fugus infected foliage. So unless you start to see a severe progression of the brown spots, I wouldn't worry about it too much for this year. In the spring though I would watch them carefully for any pest infestation (particularly cutworms and aphids) and use an appropriate pesticide immediately or fashion a cutworm barrier as I believe somebody suggested above. Fertilize them with fairly high nitrogen in the spring and throughout the summer. Water deeply but let them almost dry out between watering in the spring and summer.
Ok, thank you for the advice. I'm hoping they'll come back next year, and I plan to be a lot more diligent in my pest proofing. I'll do the graven ring, and I also have some diatamacious earth that I'll spread out. I paid a lot more attention to the houseplants on my porch than I did to the garden, but I won't make that mistake next year.
My 2 camelia shrubs are on each side of my raised bed. They are pretty sheltered. I wanted to use them as a sort of outline. I don't know if I'm making any sence at all. I'll try to find the photo I took of my house so you can see more what I'm talking about...
Here is the link to the photo I took of my house.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/fp.php?pid=947287
Would it bore you to pieces if I took pictures of the area I plan to work on next. Maybe I could get some ideas.
This message was edited Nov 1, 2004 8:57 PM
Yes I understand. And it sounds like a good arrangement. The only thing that might be of concern is that camellias can get pretty big as they mature but as long as they have the space without being too crowded or overcrowding something else they should be fine. From the first photo of it, it looked like that one my be right next to a door stoop? If so, as it grows it could end up blocking the doorway.
I'll take a picture a little farther over, and post it here. It's not really close to the door, but it's close to a concrete area just below the steps. I'll get some more shots tomorrow, so you can see what I mean.