Your summer garden plans?

christiangirl · #1 07-03-2010, 04:49 PM

Right now, I'm just trying to keep my mother's plants alive while she's gone! She has some of everything: lemon and orange trees, tomatoes, collard greens, mustard greens, strawberries, violets, a ton of roses, pomegranites, plums, spider plants, aloe vera, and a bunch of other things I can't identify. I ran around at midnight last night watering all of her indoor plants because I've concentrated so much on her garden, I forgot about those! Luckily, bamboo doesn't need a lot of attention but the violets and orchids needed water.

I'm a horrible gardener. I have a brown thumb (literally

). My mom bought me a cactus when I moved into my new apartment and it died--that ought to give you an idea.

aephi alum · #2 07-04-2010, 01:52 AM

I am unfortunately restricted to container gardening for my veggies and herbs, as we have a deer problem. I have three tomato plants going, and one of them (cherry tomatoes) has just started to yield ripe fruit - delicious! Only one of my cucumber plants survived, but it is thriving. We should be getting some jalapeno peppers soon. The mint is doing well. My cilantro bolted, but I'm going to harvest the seeds and try to plant them next spring. And, as always, there are my faithful chives... they come back year after year, and my oldest chive plant (10 years old) has survived two house moves.

Garden-wise, I had my usual spring flowers - forsythia, azalea, rhododendron - followed by some lovely roses. My hydrangea is blooming and my lady's mantle is very happy.

I will be looking for bulbs this fall, but I've got plenty of time between now and then.

honeychile · #3 07-04-2010, 03:01 AM

Help! How do you dry seeds for the future? At a convention last year, I was given seeds from someone, and it was a cool & personal gift.

I'm talking about peonies, mostly. I love them. If they grew all summer, I'd fill my yard with them. I know that you plant them on September 13th (you don't know how close I came to being named Peony!), but is that the plant or the seeds? Help!!

I'm still killing off the renegade morning glories that killed a lot of my other plants in the front of the house, and I'm toying with trying a crape myrtle for the sunniest place of the back yard. I'd love to be like Kevin, and do some terracing, but frankly, I can't afford it.

Also, there's a horrible weed around here - my mother had part of her yard mulched, and it came in on that. The local conserventory (sp?) says that they're having a terrible time killing it, too. I've been told to cut it down when it's somewhat dry, spray Round Up on it, cover it all with newspaper (held down by rocks), then mulch if I want. I don't trust mulch anymore, so just getting that week killed will thrill me. Has anyone else heard about the newspaper bit?

carnation · #4 07-12-2010, 08:40 PM

You can pretty much plant a peony plant any time of year but the seeds go in in spring or fall around here. With the seeds, you can just store them in a cheesecloth bag until spring.

Honeychile, you know how I have the best luck with killing weeds? Cut the weed off an inch or so from the ground, then apply herbicide to the cut surface.

honeychile · #5 07-12-2010, 11:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carnation

You can pretty much plant a peony plant any time of year but the seeds go in in spring or fall around here. With the seeds, you can just store them in a cheesecloth bag until spring.

Honeychile, you know how I have the best luck with killing weeds? Cut the weed off an inch or so from the ground, then apply herbicide to the cut surface.

I managed to select three dead peonies from the garden center this year, so I think the seeds may work better. I've let them dry - so now, into the cheesecloth?

This weed is some sort of mutant! Picture a dandilion that grows up to five feet tall, with tiny thorns on all of the green parts. It's miserable to pull out, and simply will not die. My boro will not allow the use of napalm, and I can't afford to have all of the dirt removed. SO MANY YARDS have this, it's a real nuisance. I've never hated a plant quite so much! Is it restricted to my area, or have others seen it, too?

carnation · #6 09-25-2010, 08:22 AM

It's been a frustrating year gardenwise. The southeast has had awful heat--I don't remember the last time that our daily temperature here didn't rise about 90. So...we've lost a lot of plants, not to disease or lack of water or plain stupidity but to the heat. I think that both new hydrangeas may not make it and there are others too.

Jobellesis · #7 09-25-2010, 08:36 AM

After the May floods, it's been mostly hot and dry here, so not a good year for a brand new yard. I moved a couple of years ago from the house I had planned to die in. I didn't dig up most of my plants because I thought the buyers would want them. I drove by about a month after I sold it, and my neighbor, who bought my house, had just plowed most of them under. I wish I had known he was going to do that! One thing that made itto my new house in a potted plant was my hummingbird vine. I didn't know I had it. It was hiding in a pot with hollyhock. I planted the hollyhocks. They didn't do so great, but the hummingbird vine did. It is absolutely beautiful, but I don't have much else. I have to start all over again because I have a new house without an established yard. This is the fourth time that I have started with a new yard. I hope it's the last.