Gardening for City Girls

[MrsK]

Sooooo.....the last home I owned was a condo and I couldn't keep my houseplants alive. Last Spring, I planted wildflowers with the K Bros and DrK and by mid-Summer, we had a bed full of weeds all about 2' tall that I couldn't pull because the boys were so excited about having grown them. I hate dirt and worms and sun and all that but we love beautiful gardens. We have a lawn service that handles the regular yard maintenance but I don't want to hire them to plant flowers. The house came with hedges, trees, and a few rose bushes. Today (yes, on April 8th) I planted the daffodil bulbs. I bought them last Fall and kept them in the garage all Winter because I just couldn't find the time to plant them last Fall. Yeah, planting took under 5 minutes. I planted them now because I discovered today that they sprouted in the garage. I want to plant more bulbs -- daffodil and other variety. What's easy? What do I plant when? Do I have to dig them up and replant? Can I plant bulbs that bloom in different seasons in the same areas? I want to be able to put it in the ground and pretty much forget about it. Can that be done? Am I hopeless?

[SoonerTexan]

Bulbs are typically plant in the fall, though you could force them in the freezer for indoor blooms.


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[SoonerTexan]

I'd try doing some seasonal containers and maybe a small container herb garden. Strawberries are fun for the kids too


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[scrub-jay]

Gardening for City Girls

It's important when you plant them. Daffodils and tulips are great, but you plant them in the fall. The ones you just planted will likely come up again this time next year. Bulbs are pretty easy, but they'll require watering and maybe a bit of fertilizer. Most of my daffodils have already come and died off for the year, but my tulips are in full bloom now. We planted them Fall 2013. We will dig them up later this year and separate the bulbs and replant to promote new growth. This is because the bulbs split as part of their reproductive process, so we dig them up to get the new bulbs that have split off.

[ides]

Another of my favorite bulbs I plan to plant in the fall are Crocus. I think they are the earliest bloomers.

How about putting in a variety perennials that flower? That's my main thing. Right now you could plant echinacea, daisys, mums. They come back each year (usually) and are pretty much no work.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

I can only handle pretty ground cover plants right now. Nothing that requires too much advanced planning. Just go to Home Depot and ask for low maintenance ground cover...

[mommax3]

Get a pot for each of the K bros, figure out if the place you will put them is mostly shady or mostly sunny, and then take them to Lowes or a local nursery, read the little plastic stick things in the plants for sun recommendations, and have them pick their favorites for "their" pot. Get some potting soil and maybe a watering can that is small enough for them to handle. I *love* picking out plants for containers and most years plant too many and get stuck watering endlessly!


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[ladymoreta]

We have big pots that we've planted stuff in. I can't handle a garden, and I hate weeding flowerbeds. We've grown tomatoes and strawberries in the pots. The kids get a kick out of it. They loved the strawberries. The tomatoes amused them, but they wouldn't eat them.

[MrsK]

Eh, I'm really not into gardening in pots or starting plants indoors. I'm not good at fish or houseplants. Anything that cannot tell me that it's hungry starves in my house. I literally want to put something in the ground and forget about it.

I know that the time of year things are planted is important. I would have held off on the daffodils but I got worried because they were sprouting. I figured that they'll be ok under ground until next spring, right? We bought a bunch of gladiola bulbs today. The instructions said to plant them in the spring for summer blooms. We'll see what happens.

[scrub-jay]

Your daffodils will probably come up this year, they just might not bloom until next year.

[ladymoreta]

Stella de Oro daylilies are pretty and low-maintenance.
http://landscaping.about.com/od/pere...lla_de_oro.htm

[HouseofWool]

In your zone, look for a plant called Four O'Clocks. They are so pretty. I have a couple that I got as a gift, but i have to dig them up in the fall.

[Michele]

We have Snow Princess in our front beds. It's a Lobularia variety and it's easy and low maintenance, but pretty and showy. We water it when it's been a week or so without rain. And we trim the sides when it gets too big. Each plant can get about 3 ft in diameter. It blooms through the winter here in N Florida. I just looked it up and a hard frost will kill it. So it's an annual probably everywhere north. But it blooms the entire time. Loves sun and is heat tolerant.

[MrsK]

Oh rats. My neighbor just told me that the prior owners of our home were gardners. They used to plant zillions of flowers every year. They were out every day and had the prettiest house on the block. All the neighbors who have beautiful landscaping were all just keeping up. I'm so intimidated! I don't know how to do that.

[Deebs]

You have beautiful flowers, too. They just talk and walk and run! You're not in the season of life for having a beautiful garden (or at least that's what I tell myself).


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