I’ve got a little patio (partial sun) that looks pretty bare. I’ve also got a lot of free time on my hands and not a lot of money. I want to start a little container garden. So far I have a big bag of potting soil.
I know nothing about gardening. I’ve managed to kill spider plants. I know this is an uphill battle.
It would be nice to grow good smelling plants (minature roses? jasmine? honeysuckle? Can these be grown in pots?). It’s on a busy exhaust filled street so food and herbs arn’t really good options. But really anything green is good, and anything with flowers is better. I am not picky at all.
I live in coastal central California. Very moderate temperatures- between the fifties and seventies in the day, and winter nights in the thirties and rarely the twenties.
So, I need ideas. Are there any cheap ways to get containers? Will coffee cans with holes drilled in the bottom work?
Are there cheap ways to get plants? How does the whole making-plants-from-cuttings thing work? How long will it take to grow plants from seeds (and is that even possible in a container garden?)
I’m told that coffee grounds make good fertilizer. Would that work for the kind of garden I’ll have?
Really any advice is good. I can’t spare more than a few dollars on this whole venture. Is it possible?
I think that the good folks at www.yougrowgirl.com would be of lotsa help in your quest here.
It’s a really cool gardening site that’s not run by snooty octagenarians.
Mini roses might be OK but they really need a nice sunny spot, so partial sun may not cut it. But hey, youv’e got a nice temperate climate to work in, so who knows what exotic things you could grow?
I’ve had bad luck with growing directly in coffee can pots -they rust up like mad within days. I do believe that there’s a section on “cheap, yet classy containers” over at the site above. Yard sales would probably be a good resource for containers (and possibly plants). I grew my plants from seeds this year with mixed results. Some were great - mini tomatoes, others not so much - like sweet peas. I’d highly recommend planting something, anything, because you’ll be astonished at the burst of pride upon seeing the first little buds of flowers!
Find a gardener. They will be splitting their plants (in Minnesota, Fall and Spring, I don’t know what they do when it doesn’t snow). Ask them for hardy perienials. A lot of gardeners end up tossing stuff to keep it healthy. Split plants are great - they are big almost immediately, you will be able to split them again in a year or two and get more plants.
For pots, yeah, coffee cans would work, but wouldn’t look like much. Clay pots are pretty cheap from the garden center or hardware store. You can plant in near anything - old tires, wheelbarrows. Once again, if you find a gardener, they may be able to help with some old pots they have lying around.
I don’t know if this is the “snooty octagenarian” place that Gretchen was referring to, but it’s the biggest gardening resource on the web, and I’ve learned a lot from it: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/
Make sure you drill holes in the bottom of your cans or buckets, so water can run off, or put a couple inches of gravel in the bottom.
Fresh coffee grounds should probably be used only on acidic-loving plants, or start a compost pile!
Plants are cheap- get cuttings from friends, seeds from the food you eat, sales at nurseries.
Gardening is really no more complicated than you want to make it (Ok, maybe roses are kind of ambitious), just relax and enjoy it.
If you buy pots, do not buy small ones. You can cram several different plans in a larger one and you’ll have a nicer display than half a dozen small ones.
If you go to the site Miss Gretchen recommended, it’s full of people wanting to ask questions and give advise and they are very friendly and helpful. There is also a swap section.
Compost, compost, compost It’s wonderful for the plants and completely free.
You can grow all the plants you asked about easily in a container garden. I don’t recommend mini roses for a beginner though, because they are prone to aphids and powdery mildew. Try lavender. It’s easy, smells great, and has nice purple flowers. Growing plants from seeds takes variable amounts of time, depending on the plant. Ask around to find out what will easily grow from seed and what is suited to your environment.
Personally, I recommend buying cheap plastic containers and sprucing them up yourself. Make sure to put a layer of rocks, styrofoam peanuts, or broken pottery in the bottom to weight the pots down and improve drainage.
Im not far from you ES, & I use geraniums in plastic 2gal containers that I got free from Trader Joes. The geraniums I got at Longs. Do remember that they get bigger so figure that in.
I’m told that gardeners in the UK do “bag gardening.” Lay your bag o’ potting soil on the ground and make a hole in the middle of each side. Plant a tomato plant (for example) in the hole on top. The other hole in a drain for excess water. Through the life of the plant, add all your water and fertilizer to the top hole. At the end of the season, throw away the bag o’ dirt, which will be full of roots and fertilizer salts.
The advantages? Most bagged soil has been steam-heated, so it contains no weed seed, bugs, plant diseases or fungi. There’s no pot to buy. Kids, dogs, nor wind can knock over a bag of soil.
If you stick with natives, your chances of killing them are slimer, since they are used to things like drought, cold, heat, etc. They can withstand a little neglect.
Since you are in a temperate area, why not try rosemary (the herb, you pervs) it can be a perennial in your area, or, like in mine, die in late September. It smells great, is a sinch to grow and smells purty.