True, that. Its a little early still as typically the last frost here is the first week of February. But we’re having a large outdoor party for a couple that adopted a girl from China and I promised the wife the bed would be beautiful.
That is one of the nice things about the South though. We often can get away with jumping the gun on Spring a bit.
Heavy, heavy sigh. Around here, conventional wisdom is that the absolute last frost is around Memorial Day. But you can usually get away with planting tender stuff in mid-May.
I guess that’s the price we pay for not having 14 weeks in a row of 90% humidity and Palmetto bugs the size of SUVs.
Try some mint? Do you like mint? Also basil, and parsley, and coriander are all easy herbs to grow.
Veggies…well I had very little problems with my bell peppers! They do need something to train on once the bell peppers come out, lots of sunshine, and lots of water. In the summer you’ll have to water them every day or every other day if it’s cool.
I’m really looking forward to the upcoming gardening season, too. We did a lot of landscaping last year, and I’m dying to see what survived, and what’s going to come up and thrive this year.
(My tulips are starting to come up - poor things. They’re going to get frozen to death. Chinooks confuse plants sometimes.)
Right now: Mache, French carrots, spinach, chives, parsley and chervil.
This spring: Lettuces of some sort, Japanese baby white turnips, radishes.
This summer: Celebrity tomatoes (unbeatable for flavor and production, here in central California), basil, tarragon, and other herbs. Maybe a Thai dragon chili plant.
And this year, something different: watercress. I love the stuff, and I read that you can grow it in pots and keep the pots in a tub of water, which you replenish regularly every week. I’ll give it a try anyway.
Pugluvr (I feel an affinity towards you, I am a mastiff lover) I could not agree more about Celebrity tomatoes–they are the absolute best, even here in Denver on my hot flagstone patio.
We will do the same thing we always do on the south patio: lots of basil and tomatoes, sage, catnip, all the Herbes de Provence, clematis, hyssop, thyme, phlox, alyssum, morning glories–all the easy stuff.
But this spring we are tearing up the entire front yard.
There will still be some sod but there will be lots of new perennials: lilies and echinicea but also a few easycare grasses and groundcovers. Would love some suggestions for low-growing perennials which tolerate hot, dry areas.
Topiary. I’m going to start small…probably a potted heart or something like the. The goal is to gain enough experience to make a huge dancing bear in the back yard! It’s a heart’s desire from way back…
Herbs are the centerpiece of my garden. I used them all the time in my cooking, and it’s criminal how much they charge you at the supermarket (except for cilantro and parsley. I don’t grow cilantro or parsley because it’s practically free here.) This year I will probably grow the same as last year: six to eight basil plants (genovese, cinnamon, and purple basil), rosemary, thyme (we’ll see whether those two weathered the winter), loveage, sage (perhaps time to plant a new one. our sage is 3 or 4 years old now), French tarragon, summer savory, mint, marjoram, lemon balm, chervil, lavender, and dill. On the veggie front, I only grow hot peppers (Hungarian wax are a favorite of mine) and tomatoes (usually Roma and Big Boy.)
While I’m unable to identify your bush, there’s a good chance that your choking vines were some type of euonymous and what you’ve got now is scale, which loves euonymous and sometimes transfers over to other nearby woody plants. If it IS scale, you may notice lots of ants feasting on it. Yes, you can rip everything out and it should be fine, as long as you don’t have woody stuff around it.
Caprese & puglur - fellow mastiff lovers! (I have an American Mastiff named Gracie.) What is mache, and Herbes de Provence? And lieu - what’s pettisporum, when it’s at home?
And finally, WhyNot - you might look for something called “mesclun mix” in your seed catalogues. Not precisely lettuces, but they are yummy salad greens and they grow beautifully in containers. Plus you don’t have to harvest a whole anything to make a salad - just pick the leaves you want that day and you still have a lovely container of pretty foliage. Keep out of reach of bunnies, because they’ll eat them all.
Wile E - I’m an idiot. Your bushes probably ARE euonymous. I just remembered that my mother-in-law had a red-leaf version, that she also lost to scale infestation. They have pretty strong root systems, but some earnest digging should get them out.
They’re a traditional mixture of herbs found in Provence. There’s no one correct recipe for them, but a typical combination might include thyme, summer savory, rosemary, lavender, possibly fennel seed. Sage and marjoram are also acceptable. Lavender is the herb most associated with Herbes de Provence, but it’s not a requirement (despite what some may think.) They are generally used dried.
Almost all store tomatoes are absolutely awful. I cannot believe the American public has been hoodwinked into thinking this is what a tomato is supposed to taste like. If anyone out there is interested in starting a garden, I think growing your own tomatoes is the most practical and rewarding vegetable for newbies.
I did this last year, as an experiment. If you get 2-3 those 6" wide by like 3’ long trays, and plant your mesclun in them, and if, when ripe, you only trim the leaves to about 2" high (i/e don’t trim them to the roots) they will re-grow. Out of a few seeds and a couple square feet of space, I got fresh salad mix for one person almost daily last summer.
I am restricted to a few(maybe 4 total) roughly 2x2 containers. I know I want probably a full container of herbs(basil, oregano, parsley at least), and the above mentioned mesclun(which was an experimental success last year). I also want jalapenos, tomatoes, garlic and onions. What is it OK to mix, and how would you all do it?
I am quite new to gardening. The space I have is on the west side of the building, so all of it is shaded at least part of the day. Everything should be able to get at least a couple hours direct sunlight a day though. And of course, it’s Iowa, so I can’t plant till like what, July? (Ok I kow it’s not that late, but I am unsure when it is safe)
Store bought tomatoes are extremely disappointing. I remember the old days when you could eat them like an apple and they were extremely tasty.
Has anyone tried hydroponics? I saw a plan online for building your own little hydroponics containers using a rubbermaid container, pvc pipe and 2 liter soda bottles. I’ve been thinking of trying it out for a few plants since I tend to forget to water a lot. I just wonder how well they would be supported if I were to grow tomatoes that way.
LifeOnWry, thanks for the help. I don’t think that my shrubs are euonymus though, I looked them up and the leaves are nothing like that. The closest I could come to what they look like is “oakleaf hydrangea” however their leaves are broader than the hydrangeas. I think I will just rip them out though. They tend to get too leggy and grow over the path and when it rains they really sag. They don’t really look good because they don’t fill out towards the bottom, they just get taller. And now since they seem diseased they probably won’t fill out any better.
In Denver, your growing season is probably a lot like Calgary, and we’re having good success with sedum (stonecrop), four different varieties of thyme (English, French, silver, and woolly - the woolly thyme is very cool), violas (Johnny-jump-ups), Irish moss, and Golden Irish moss in our hot, dry front yard. Mint is supposed to be a real tough character, too - I’m going to try some this summer. Oh, almost forgot Hen-and-Chicks - a veritable cactus.
Day lilies, peonies, and bleeding hearts are also good for dry, hot areas.
If you go to your local nursery, they’ll have lots of ideas for plants for various growing conditions.
I just moved last summer. The last home owners were hosta and day lily freaks- both plants are everywhere. I’m not a huge fan of either, but appreciate the fact that they require virtually no care.
I’m trying to go native - the plants I’ve added are all North American and mid-western. So I planted trumpet vine, a button bush, several butterfly bushes, and a buckeye bush. I’m hoping they will do OK with little additional care.