Your Garden 2008!

[carnation]

Let's forget summer 2007 and the drought and heat that the Southeast had! What are you doing this year with your garden?

I just bought 3 Encore Azaleas to replace the 3 pierises that almost died in the heat. Supposedly, they thrive in full sun. If they don't make it, I guess I'll put sun-loving annuals in the front every year.

Lowe's has small fruits on sale this week and I'd love to put them in pots in the front. They won't fruit in the back, too much shade.

I'm about to have bluebonnets flowering in the front! For the first time, I've grown a plant from seed, yea!

[SWTXBelle]

Growing bluebonnets is no small feat!

My Encores did well in 3/4 sun. But I've sold my house, and don't know when I'm getting my new one, so no garden for me this year.

[aephi alum]

Here in the Northeast, the nightly low is still below freezing. It's going to be a while before the thought of spring planting crosses my mind.

On the up side, I have seeds, planters for my deck, and access to an inexpensive but quality nursery (plus an SUV for carrying my purchases back home).

On the down side, I have to contend with squirrels, rabbits, birds, feral cats, and deer.

[ThetaPrincess24]

We are still havign cold weather in Kentucky. However we are going to try again with our four varieties of grapes so hopefully this time we wont have a very late freeze and we'll have grapes this year! We are doing our usual tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeno's, habanero, anaheim, poblano, some other kind of pepper, cucumbers, squash, three varieties of lettuce, carrots, green beans, snow peas, and zucchini. I'm trying to talk husband into adding three sunflower plants to the mix this year. Our herb garden will consist of tarragon, spearmint, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary. Our lavendar plant survived the winter so we'll have that too (though I grow it because of it's fragrance).

Flowers wise I'm not sure what we are doing. We plant bulbs each year for spring but the squirrels and chipmunks around here like to dig those up and eat them. Impatients and Petunias seem to do well here but I'd like to find more places to plant roses

[bejazd]

Mr Bejazd brought home four pots of pink and red tulips on Valentine's Day. The flowers have bloomed, and it's going to get very hot here soon. What should I do with the bulbs? I'm a terrible plant person- my garden is all wildflowers. help!

[carnation]

Bejazd, keep them in the pot and water them sparingly until fall. Then put them in the refrigerator for 6 weeks, then plant them. They may or may not come up since they were forced before, but it's fun to try!

ThetaPrincess, we had critter problems with bulbs until I learned about making little cages that fit around them out of chicken wire. And finally--we had flowers!

[honeychile]

I visited my house the other day, and started tallying the damages (roof, fence, retaining wall, ceiling....) of the micro-burst that hit late last summer. When I come out of the sticker shock, I'd love to get two of those crape myrtles that grow furtherest north, have two bushes removed, rearrange my Rose of Sharons, and talk to a landscaper about defining the boundries of gardens.

Is ivy really bad when it grows up the side of the house? I've always liked the look.

[SWTXBelle]

Do you have a brick house? Ivy is bad for brick.(But it looks so cool!)

[AOIIalum]

It's still too cold here but I'm ready to plant flowers. Last summer I didn't put out any flowers and really missed them.

The back of my house is virtually full sun all day long and I can grow whatever I want out there (in planters, of course). The front is another story. My problem is that the front of my house is full shade for the most part, until late afternoon when it's 2-3 hours of FULL sun. We've got rock hard clay soil, and we're in Zone 5b. I've had luck with impatiens in-ground and petunias in planters, but would like to branch out in the front of the house. Any suggestions?

[carnation]

Are you talking about putting in evergreen foundation plants or annuals?

We have the rock hard clay too. I hate it. We're going to try to amend it before we plant the Encores but we used to do that at the college where I taught horticulture and you know what? A year later, we'd take some core samples of the soil we'd amended and it would be all clay again.

Honeychile, the English ivy hurts brick because of the suckers it clings with. There are other vines that aren't quite as destructive to brick.

[honeychile]

Yes, I do have a brick house, but I've tried to keep the ivy lowish. *sigh* What kind of vine looks nice on brick? I could probably get the English ivy to grow on one of the nasty parts of the hillside...

[carnation]

I'm not sure what thrives up there but 2 less destructive choices might be the evergreen honeysuckles or the wintercreeper euonymus (lots of new cultivars).

[AOIIalum]

Originally Posted by carnation

Are you talking about putting in evergreen foundation plants or annuals?

Annuals and/or perennials, but not evergreens.

[ThetaPrincess24]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

Do you have a brick house? Ivy is bad for brick.(But it looks so cool!)

Yes! Supposedly the vines work their way through the cement/grout between the bricks and can do damage that is expensive to repair.

[ThetaPrincess24]

What's the name of that green plant that looks nice hanging out of plantars? it's not ivy atleast not a traditional looking ivy. I think i want to try some of that this year in my plantars out back.