Gardening

[Kimmyt]

I know some of you ladies are really into gardening, and have some beautiful yards. I, myself, have a bit of a black thumb, but for a space of about a month or two every year I attempt to plant things. The urge never lasts long. Either I have a short attention span, or everything dies, or both.

Anyway, so now it's that time of year for me and I'm attempting to clean up the yard and make it a little more liveable. I want to put a small native flowering tree in my front yard, maybe a common dogwood, because we could use more trees in my neighborhood, and maybe if I have someone put in the tree (I have neither the time or inclination to do that myself) I'll have them put a border in off my back deck so I can put some plants in. I'm also thinking of an easy-to-care-for flowerbox or two on my back deck where there's lots of sun for a few herbs.

Herbs are the one thing I can't ever seem to kill (and I use)!

Are any others out there struggling with gardening, or attempting to just keep their land nice-looking? Tips for a new homeowner? I live a really busy life with all my hobbies, so it's hard to fit in taking care of the house and yard, these things tend to get dropped by the wayside, but maybe I'll be able to fit in a bit more of this this year (I say that ever year!!)

K.

[Trekhawk]

I know some of you ladies are really into gardening, and have some beautiful yards. I, myself, have a bit of a black thumb, but for a space of about a month or two every year I attempt to plant things. The urge never lasts long. Either I have a short attention span, or everything dies, or both.

Anyway, so now it's that time of year for me and I'm attempting to clean up the yard and make it a little more liveable. I want to put a small native flowering tree in my front yard, maybe a common dogwood, because we could use more trees in my neighborhood, and maybe if I have someone put in the tree (I have neither the time or inclination to do that myself) I'll have them put a border in off my back deck so I can put some plants in. I'm also thinking of an easy-to-care-for flowerbox or two on my back deck where there's lots of sun for a few herbs.

Herbs are the one thing I can't ever seem to kill (and I use)!

Are any others out there struggling with gardening, or attempting to just keep their land nice-looking? Tips for a new homeowner? I live a really busy life with all my hobbies, so it's hard to fit in taking care of the house and yard, these things tend to get dropped by the wayside, but maybe I'll be able to fit in a bit more of this this year (I say that ever year!!)

K.

I love gardening but I know what you mean about trying to find the time to fit everything in. What works for me is doing a little whenever I have a spare bit of time rather than making it a whole weekend job. I might dead head plants or pull weeds for half an hour before I put dinner on (now with daylight saving its a little easier to do this). I do have a bad habit of being sucked into my garden. I got out to get the mail from the box and end up pulling weeds or spreading mulch. My husband laughs when I say Im just going outside for a few minutes, it always ends up being much longer.

Good luck and happy gardening

[short cut sally]

You might want to look into perennials instead of annuals if you want to be in the garden less. I have 2 perennial beds and 1 annual bed. The only thing I have to do to the perennial bed is pull some weeds to get ready for the mulch. The annual bed is just pulling weeds to get ready to plant flowers and con't to pull weeds as I don't put mulch on this bed. I might this year though. Annuals give you continuous flowers where some of the perennials bloom certain times then they are done.

[Kimmyt]

So I decided to hold off on planting things in the ground right now, since last I tried to dig in certain spots of my 'landscaped' garden, the ground was a combination of claylike soil and large rocks. Whoever did the landscaping the first time sure didn't do a thorough job, and planting things in that soil and doing the whole soil replacement thing would just take too damn much time. Luckily my azalea bush is currently thriving and the other bushes and trees are looking healthy. I planted several container gardens a few days ago, and they are actually still alive! I would love to put in perennials, but can't seem to make a choice about 1) which color scheme I want to settle on and 2) which are the easiest to care for.

I think I have decided on getting a tree put in, and my herbs are just waaaaiiiiting to be put into their container on my kitchen deck.

Now to find the time to do it....

K.

[yellow]

So I decided to hold off on planting things in the ground right now, since last I tried to dig in certain spots of my 'landscaped' garden, the ground was a combination of claylike soil and large rocks.

Get thee a pick! Great upper body workout, too! I have one that is pointed on one side and flat bladed on the other.

shellyj is right...if you want a nice year with less maintenance, go with perennials. It takes some time and planning to get everything planted and established, but after a couple of years you mostly just get to be amazed at how beautiful it all is. I had a dogwood in my last yard. It was really very easy to care for. Another one that's easy to care for and grows like gangbusters is Corylus (hazelnut trees). Though since I have no idea where SEPA is or what it stands for, I 'm not sure you could grow Corylus.

We've been this house for 1.5+ years and are just starting to plan the yard. I wanted to see how it all "worked" first and what would pop up throughout the season. We have some new challenges that I've not dealt with before--high elevation, very low humidity and blazing hot sun in summer and very cold in winter, a giant mulberry tree in the neighbor's yard that creates a purple gooey mess for 1.5 months, no irrigation system, and *gasp* a lawn. I want to take the lawn out but DH feels the need to keep it (which I might be OK with if he was the one that actually mowed it! And we have an old-fashioned you-push-it mower, so it takes me forever to mow and clean up our small lawn). Can't do anything about the mulberry, so we'll have to figure out how to hardscape in a manner that is compatible with purple goo and then tons of leaves in the fall (I like the tree otherwise...it provides valuable shade!). We might have an irrigation system put in, but I'm currently having some personal crises about resource use and would like to try a very-xeri-scape yard.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

[surgtech1956]

Go with perennials. Get a variety so that you have some blooming all the time. I have 90% perennials and 10% annuals. I thin out and move some of my perennials every year or so. Good luck.