# Plant 'em and forget 'em, with flowers, for a black thumb **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 21, 2019, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833 "2019-06-21T08:06:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/21 "2019-06-22T07:01:25Z")
> [@MacTech](#): > > … > you simply _CAN’T_ kill these things, they’re extremely thorny, and the flowers aren’t even remotely attractive, small, boring white flower clusters > [Rosa multiflora - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_multiflora) Oh well this kind of thing I could probably grow. Like, I seem to do fine with dandelions and bindweed. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/22 "2019-06-22T07:03:21Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > When I grew flowers, I liked cosmos because they were so easy to grow. It was just a matter of scratching in some seed, keeping the dirt slightly damp, and watching the cosmos spring up and bear pretty purple, hot pink and white daisy-like flowers. I’m pretty sure they’d do fine in Denver, and they like heat. > > Added bonus: they make great cut flowers for arrangements. I have planted these in the past. They are one of my failures. Black thumb. I agree, they’re neat. :o ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/23 "2019-06-22T07:05:29Z")
> [@MacTech](#): > > Marigolds are pretty straightforward, and many different varieties, Nasturtiums seem to be pretty easy as well > > another benefit of four o’clocks is that Japanese beetles _love_ to eat them…’ > …why is that good? because the 4’s are also _TOXIC_ to them, they’re lethal, the beetles eat them and then die, they’re the perfect trap crop, plant them away from the plants you want to protect, and let the beetles have a lethal feast Four o’clocks sound good. I had a neighbor who had some, growing essentially wild on one side of her house. She did nothing to them except to tie them back so she could walk down her sidewalk on that side. Hm… ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/24 "2019-06-22T07:07:09Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > … > > [Salvia is another wonderful, low-maintenance plant for your purple pop.](https://www.waltersgardens.com/variety.php?ID=SALMM) > > Don’t be afraid to use foliage plants for three season colour, too. I use coral bells and shrubs for exactly that. > > If you have the money, a landscape designer can make your yard into exactly what you want it to be. 🙂 Aha, I think salvia is that purple thing I mentioned that is growing as if wild in untended places. Good to know. If I had the money I would definitely hire a landscape designer, and then someone responsible to make sure I didn’t kill them. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/25 "2019-06-22T07:22:26Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > I can’t think of much other than shrubs and maybe climbing honeysuckle that would give you scent while being dead tough, and climbing honeysuckle does need cutting back every now and again or it’ll go a bit crazy. How much space for flowering shrubs would you have? Mm, honeysuckle. But I think my area might be too narrow. It is about six feet, but right in the middle is a walkway. But there is something it could climb on–a fence–if it didn’t get too bushy. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/26 "2019-06-22T07:28:10Z")
> [@MoonMoon](#): > > You’re in Denver? Or somewhere in the Front Range? > > You want drought tolerant plants, for sure. Ice plant comes in purple, yellow and pink, and will take off as a ground cover. Daylilies are pretty fool-proof, as someone said above. Poppies will self-seed, as will cosmos and echinacea. Autumn joy sedum is beautiful and lasts through the summer and into fall. Russian sage is purple and also lasts forever. Anything you plant will need to be watered to get it going, but once established should be fine. I have tried ice plant, and it did okay for one year but did not come back. (I don’t even know if it was supposed to come back, but I thought it would. But no.) The Russian sage, I think did not get enough sunlight. I have failed with Russian sage, and I had some lilies at one time but they also disappeared. I probably should mention that my soil could be used to pave a tennis court. Or make pots out of. I have tried to mix in potting soil. But then the instructions on my dahlia said to use garden soil, not potting soil. Do you think it’s too late in the year to plant that autumn joy sedum? I googled it. That looks beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/27 "2019-06-22T07:36:31Z")
Hey, guys, thanks. Lots of good ideas here. I realize that I am probably starting too late in the year to grow things from seeds. I did plant a freesia bulb, or I guess it was a bunch of them. Someone told me they were super easy. Well, it never did anything. I…keep…watering it. I think I’ve killed it. So frustrating. I am really not good at this at all. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/28 "2019-06-22T10:36:40Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Very well if you keep them watered. I keep them in largish terra cotta pots which I slip into slightly larger plastic pots that stay buried in the flower bed, water comes from a drip line set to a timer. When winter comes I bring the pots inside, switch out the dirt for something new and yummy, and store them in a crawl space under the house. Spring = bring out the pots, drop them into their plastic sockets and get them wet. All my mother does with hers is put a sheet of transparent plastic (the kind used for greenhouses in the [Sea of Plastic](https://www.dw.com/en/spains-sea-of-plastic-where-europe-gets-its-produce-migrants-get-exploited/a-47824476)) over the plants during the winter, and stop watering until the plastic is removed. I only water occasionally (very occasionally) and the geraniums are perfectly happy; that’s in a location which can see snowfalls in August. In college my window had these pink ones with small flowers, called Gitanilla, which are climbers: since they had no trellis, they fell down to cover my neighbor’s window instead. I apologized when I saw that but she pointed out that her view behind the flowers was of a red brick wall: the flowers were much prettier. This was in Barcelona, where snow falls about once every twenty years: no need to cover the plants at all. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/29 "2019-06-22T10:44:12Z")
> [@MacTech](#): > > another benefit of four o’clocks is that Japanese beetles _love_ to eat them…’ > …why is that good? because the 4’s are also _TOXIC_ to them, they’re lethal, the beetles eat them and then die, they’re the perfect trap crop, plant them away from the plants you want to protect, and let the beetles have a lethal feast Yeah, I forgot to mention they are quite bug and fungus resistant. I might see an occasional bite taken out of a leaf, but that’s about it. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/30 "2019-06-22T11:30:05Z")
The name and the being poisonous to bugs were tickling my brain; I checked and yes, four o’clocks are the kind called in Spanish _dondiego de noche_ (Don Diego by night). In Spain they’re sometimes combined with _dondiego de día_ (Don Diego by day), which looks similar and needs similar care but closes and opens in opposite patterns. The scientific name of this other plant is Ipomoea Purpurea. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/31 "2019-06-22T13:19:10Z")
> [@MacTech](#): > > Up here in New England, we have a wild rose variety that seems to be a crossbreed of Kudzu, cockroaches, and Tribbles, it is well beyond feral, and is _everywhere_, it is a creeping vine-type plant that grows inside other plants, using their branches as climbing trellises, and they will happily choke out the host plant. I never realized that was a type of rose. They truly get everywhere, though. You won’t be able to buy them again (as plants, that is, from seeds they’re not very easy) until the fall when the icicle type that survives over winter is sold, but pansies are pretty easy. I bought bunches about seven or eight weeks ago, and due to difficulty finding enough plants in the two colors I wanted inadvertently ended up keeping some of the poor things in the basement almost two weeks, watering them 3-4 times a week while they languished in the dark. I planted them in three big plastic tubs, dead-headed them, and put them out on the deck. I haven’t touched them since - not even watering them - and they’re thriving. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/32 "2019-06-22T13:50:21Z")
This thread has inspired me to plant a row of flowers along my mom’s back fence. Using a location visible from her dining table. Too late this year. This needs to be done after the last frost in mid March. The Plan is to strip off the grass on a 2ft wide x 6 ft area. Lightly rake out the dirt to break it up. Scratch in Marigold seed nearest the fence and scratch in a row of Cosmos at the front. Once established, it should reseed and grow every Spring for years to come. I haven’t tried Cosmos before. But several articles say it’s almost like a weed and is prolific. ---
**Author:** ![MoonMoon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonmoon/32/2959_2.png) [@MoonMoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MoonMoon)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/33 "2019-06-22T19:03:18Z")
No, you can plant perennials all summer long! They will be happier planted in the spring or fall, but Denver doesn’t really have those anyway. 🙂 If you can find an Autumn Joy (or three), go ahead and plant them. Yarrow and creeping thyme will also do well in hot areas with crappy soil (do go ahead and dump the occasional bag of compost there, though. It’ll help.) Edited to add: I lived in Denver for almost thirty years, and I’ve successfully grown all of these things in that climate. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/34 "2019-06-22T23:19:40Z")
Summer is generally very good time to plant seed of perennials in temperate climates. Seedlings just need to be kept adequately watered and maybe sheltered from midday sun. By fall you should have good-sized plants which can be transplanted to permanent locations, and they can put down a good root system by hard frost. ---
**Author:** ![Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Long_Time_First_Time)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/35 "2019-06-23T01:49:10Z")
Hostas are perennials that can be planted any time. They have pretty purple flowers. They are bullet proof. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/36 "2019-06-23T18:40:33Z")
> [@MoonMoon](#): > > No, you can plant perennials all summer long! They will be happier planted in the spring or fall, but Denver doesn’t really have those anyway. 🙂 Agreed. I plant things right up until freeze-up here - some make it, some don’t, but I buy the end of season plants at 75% off, and I don’t much care. 🙂 > [@](#): > > If you can find an Autumn Joy (or three), go ahead and plant them. Yarrow and creeping thyme will also do well in hot areas with crappy soil (do go ahead and dump the occasional bag of compost there, though. It’ll help.)\ Yarrow was one of the ones I forgot to mention - it’s a weed here. You can get some more well-behaved cultivars at the greenhouse that are lovely. I’ve seen some very nice yellow and red ones. All the thymes are also good, as well as lemon balm. Some landscape designer tips (I was a landscape designer for a time) - make your flower beds BIG! That’s one of the biggest errors amateur gardeners make - scrimping on the bed size. A postage-stamp sized bed in a huge yard is going to look kind of silly. Plant the right plants in the right place - shade plants in shade, full sun plants in full sun, etc. Pay attention to the mature size, too. I’ve seen far too many blue spruces planted right next to a house or sidewalk - blue spruces can get up to 75 feet tall, with a commensurate spread! Put a one dollar plant in a ten dollar hole. That means, the soil you put the plant in is a lot more important than the exact plant. You don’t need to replace the soil in your entire yard - I tend to condition soil on a bed-by-bed basis, or even a plant-by-plant basis. I dig a big, deep hole for a new plant, and put a really good compost, topsoil, vermiculite, peat moss mix in the hole. Mulch, mulch, mulch. You want a somewhat fine mulch, not the huge bark chips that you see so often. Mulch keeps moisture in the soil, prevents weed growth, and works into the soil to help add organics. I use a well-chopped cedar mulch on all my beds. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/37 "2019-06-23T18:44:12Z")
I always found begonias to be extremely forgiving. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/38 "2019-06-23T22:18:38Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Some landscape designer tips (I was a landscape designer for a time) - make your flower beds BIG! That’s one of the biggest errors amateur gardeners make - scrimping on the bed size. A postage-stamp sized bed in a huge yard is going to look kind of silly. To balance that out, a huge planting area that the gardener doesn’t have the time/energy to maintain will become weed-ridden and deteriorate. Strive for the happy medium. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/39 "2019-06-23T22:56:36Z")
You might try catmint. It’s tough and grows quickly and has beautiful blue flowers that attract a lot of butterflies. Chamisa has yellow flowers in the fall and is so tough you couldn’t kill it if you nuked it from orbit. Its main drawback is that it can get fairly large. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833/40 "2019-06-24T03:38:49Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Some landscape designer tips (I was a landscape designer for a time) - make your flower beds BIG! That’s one of the biggest errors amateur gardeners make - scrimping on the bed size. A postage-stamp sized bed in a huge yard is going to look kind of silly. > > Plant the right plants in the right place - shade plants in shade, full sun plants in full sun, etc. Pay attention to the mature size, too. I’ve seen far too many blue spruces planted right next to a house or sidewalk - blue spruces can get up to 75 feet tall, with a commensurate spread! > > Put a one dollar plant in a ten dollar hole. That means, the soil you put the plant in is a lot more important than the exact plant. You don’t need to replace the soil in your entire yard - I tend to condition soil on a bed-by-bed basis, or even a plant-by-plant basis. I dig a big, deep hole for a new plant, and put a really good compost, topsoil, vermiculite, peat moss mix in the hole. > > Mulch, mulch, mulch. You want a somewhat fine mulch, not the huge bark chips that you see so often. Mulch keeps moisture in the soil, prevents weed growth, and works into the soil to help add organics. I use a well-chopped cedar mulch on all my beds. I know this is great advice. But for someone who (a) hates gardening and (b) is not good at it which (3) might be the same thing–this just gives me the idea that I should probably (1) write a novel which is (2) a best-seller, and (3) use _profit_ to hire gardener. Because this is all just a bit more hearty than I can make myself get. > [@Jackmannii](#): > > To balance that out, a huge planting area that the gardener doesn’t have the time/energy to maintain will become weed-ridden and deteriorate. > > Strive for the happy medium. 🙂 I should have listed the plants I have killed. Plants that should have, according to their PR, come back year after year, on their own, but did not. What I want is the things that are growing like wildfire in alleys and other places where no one is taking care of them, and they look beautiful. Things that come back year after year. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I always found begonias to be extremely forgiving. Yeah, but I think they are not perennials. I got a couple, a couple of years ago. Ruby begonias. I think they came back for one year, now they are dead. > [@KRC](#): > > You might try catmint. It’s tough and grows quickly and has beautiful blue flowers that attract a lot of butterflies. Chamisa has yellow flowers in the fall and is so tough you couldn’t kill it if you nuked it from orbit. Its main drawback is that it can get fairly large. Actually, after my cats ate some tulips I brought into the house, my son gave me a catmint plant for each one of my kitttens. I have repotted it and it’s not dead yet, and whenever a kitten escapes (they are supposed to be indoor cats) that kitten is attracted to these pots, so I can catch him and put him back inside. Now I’ve only had these plants about a month so I have not killed them yet. But on the other hand, I haven’t killed them yet, and I’ve killed plenty of plants in a month although, admittedly, it usually takes me longer. A little longer. I have got a rue plant. Or bush. I planted it nine years ago, and I’m sorry, because it has taken over and pushed out some other plants that were prettier. It allegedly has yellow flowers, which is why I got it. But these flowers always look like they’re about to open up, and then they never open up. And yet the rue gets bigger and bigger. So on the one hand, this is the kind of thing I want. Something that will thrive without a lot of attention. Or any attention. But prettier. (But on the plus side, here is a plant I have had for nine years and have not killed, unlike the begonia, the hostas, the basket of gold, the ox-eye daisies–ox-eye daisies for god’s sake–the lavender, the yarrow, the Russian sage, the hyssop, and, apparently, the freesia. To list a few.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plant-em-and-forget-em-with-flowers-for-a-black-thumb/835833.md?page=3)