Garden Help!

I have a new home with a completley barren front yard. I live in Houston, TX and I was curious if anyone had an ideas for "not-so-common" plants that I could plant in my front yard.

Which direction does your yard face (so we will know what kind of sun it gets)? Also, are you interested in everything; i.e., trees, shrubs, flowers, etc.? If you could post a picture of your yard it would be real helpful too so we can see how much space you have.

Also an idea of what style you're going for would help--there are lots of unusual plants out there so it would help to know if you want a tropical jungle look, an English cottage garden, an herb garden, a woodland forest, etc.

Welcome from another Houstonian! :-) You have many many choices of plants here, so it does depend on the "look" you are going for, and how much sun you have. You will probably want to build some raised beds. The dirt here in Houston is usually very clay-y (is that a word??), and it causes trouble. Raised beds deal better with our weird weather patterns. You can mulch to hold moisture in during our dry times, and when it pours down rain for hours, raised beds provide better drainage than the clay. Very few plants like sitting in standing water, so good drainage is essential.

Other than those basics... Do you want to lean towards native plants? Here is a good website for information about a lot of Texas natives: http://www.npot.org/ You can also do tropical easily here... With our mild winters, you may have to cover up some of the most tender plants, but you won't have to haul them inside like people do farther north of us. Desert also works, although you have to pay particular attention to drainage for those plants. You can do a cottage garden, too. Some of the plants that grow in a traditional English cottage garden do not thrive here, but there are almost always alternatives that give you the same feel. :-)

Thank you guys so much!! WOW! I don't even know where to begin. I'm not sure what type I'd like...I've bought a few plants...mostly...just what I thought looked cool.

I bought a Fairy Duster, some Pinta's, a shrimp plant (not sure of the scientific name), I've got a TALL ginger plant (that I can seem to find anything on the net about as far as wether it takes sun or not. I have a plant called "Party Time", I HAD a batface - but apparently it doesn't like it at my house and died.

I also have an unidentified plant that's on the verge of passing...I don't know what it is so I can't figure out how to save it. It ALMOST looks like a chinese lantern, but it has a red/yellow bloom. It blooms red and then from the red flower it blooms yellow. The place I bought it from called it a Candy Corn - but I've seen pics of the candy corn vine and it doesn't look like it. I'm not sure what it is.

Anyway, I'm rambling I will get pictures of the house when I get home...but as far as sun goes I don't get to much...there is a GIANT tree smack dab in the middle of the yard that blocks most sun.

I also thought about just buying seeds on ebay and growing them from the beginning, but I'm sure there is more to it than just putting a seed in dirt...and I don't know that much about that either.

If you want to raise plants from seed, it's probably too late this year but winter sowing would be a good way to go. Like all of us, you will probably plant some things you later regret or that don't end up being exactly the look you were after but you will thoroughly enjoy the process, learn a lot, and enjoy the finished product. But then if you're like most of us, you'll never really be finished--we can always find an excuse to buy more plants, LOL! You've come to a good place for help in getting started--we love to help beginners. If you can, post some pictures of your progress.

Does this look like your red Chinese-lantern like plant with the yellow coming out? http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/64127/

OMG Ecrane!! Yes that is it exactly!! YOU ARE SO AWESOME!! Now I can maybe figure out how to nurse it back!

I'm thinking I just gave it to much water, when it started getting sickly...I moved it out of the sun...apparently it loves the sun.

This message was edited Jun 25, 2008 10:29 AM

Ummm...where are you seeing that it likes sun? The Plant Files listing says light shade, and in your TX summers some full sun plants even appreciate some afternoon shade, so I think if you give this guy too much sun in your climate you're going to fry it. I'd put it somewhere that it gets dappled shade, or if it gets some sun make sure it's a few hours in the morning only. There's a decent chance part of the reason it was looking sickly before is that it was in too much sun.

Oh, I was looking it up on some other sites too see if I could get more info on it. Well, maybe it will get better after being in the shade. I'm jsut really glad I know what it is now. I'll try it out in a different spot.