Welcome, flower gardeners! (Part 2) Introducing Barbara Martin’s new Flower Gardens: future flower gardening articles, advice, how-to tips, techniques, new flower varieti
(Missed Part One of the Welcome Message? Catch it here!
Coming Up Soon in Flower Gardens
So much of gardening is trial and error and passing along our experiences -- for better or worse. We can all share and learn from each other, that's the time honored way for gardeners to learn and grow. During the months ahead, we'll have new Flower Gardens articles about twice a week and additional tidbits of advice and how-to information as fast as I can crank them out!
Help Me Help YOU Be a Better Flower Gardener!
As we travel this garden path together, I'll be passing along timely tips and suggestions plus information about what's new in flower gardening. Let me know what you are working on, wondering about, dreaming of ... or having trouble with. Do the Polls on the Welcome Page, too. I'll do my best to help you succeed with your flowers. And when things turn out great, tell us about that!!
Contact Barbara Martin
If you need to know something right away, please use the Flower Gardens discussion area to ask and I'll get to it within a day or two if not sooner. If you email me, make sure to put my address in your address book so my reply gets through.
A Special Welcome to Cottage Gardeners
A very special welcome to those of you who have read my earlier Cottage Garden topic at suite101.com or my columns for the National Gardening Association over the years. It's great to be back writing on-line once again and I am so excited about this topic. You already know flower gardens are so close to my heart, asking me to name my favorite flower is like asking me to select between my children: I love them all!
Tell Your Friends!
And if you enjoy Flower Gardens, please invite your flower gardening friends to join us as we play in the flower garden together. The more, the merrier!
Starting your first flower garden? Don't miss
Flower Garden Basics!
Welcome to Barbara Martin's Flower Gardens!
THINK SPRING!!!!
All Flower Gardens Articles So Far
Copyright 2006 Barbara M. Martin
The copyright of the article
Flower Gardeners II in
Flower Gardens is owned by
Barbara M. Martin. Permission to republish
Flower Gardeners II must be granted by the author in writing.
Comments
Mar 13, 2006 10:27 AM
Joni Rose
:
Hello Barbara,
I have a challenge. I plan to buy a new place and move out of the house I am renting. I have a large fish pond with flower beds surrounding it and other rock and flat gardens that have some perennials but there are holes that I usually fill with annuals (and spend a fortune doing it). As I may be moving soon, I would like to fill my garden as inexpensively as possible to be colourful and showy yet save some money for my new garden. Can you suggest some ways to garden on the cheap? I live in the Southern coastal area of British Columbia, Canada.
Joni
Mar 13, 2006 3:46 PM
Barbara M. Martin
:
Hi Joni! Dontcha just love moving. But, it sounds like you have some exciting plans ahead. WOoHoo!
Purchasing annuals definitely adds up fast if you need more than just a few. The least expensive way to go would be planting seeds for some easy to grow annuals. Plant them directly in the garden to avoid all the seed-starting equipment expenses.
I'm not sure of your color scheme, but for sunny spots you could try some of these planted early for early season bloom: sweet peas, sweet alyssum, calendula; then marigolds, nasturtium and batchelor buttons, then for later season bloom you could use cleome, sunflowers, thunbergia, and zinnias (Cut and Come Again blooms well all summer in a nice selection of colors). I am not sure how warm it is in summer where you are, the last 4 do like a warm sunny spot. All of these should be easy to find locally in the seed racks at the stores.
Even cheaper, because you would need even fewer seeds since each plant is big, you could do an annual vine like morning glory and let it ramble as a ground cover (if there is nothing to climb it will crawl). BUT this can be a big weedy nuisance the following year due to all the fallen morning glory seeds all over the area.
Renee's Garden web site has detailed descriptions and planting instructions for different varieties of these annuals. Some are planted very early and some later when the soil has warmed up.
Hope this helps!
Mar 14, 2006 7:47 AM
Joni Rose
:
Thanks for the terrific advice! I have planted seeds for a veggie garden but haven't ventured into planting a flower garden so that is definitely what I'll do.
To make sure I don't weed out the seedlings, I do patches of the same seeds - although it sounds like you are suggesting that I plant the seeds for the different phases at once in the area - is that correct? or do I plant the seeds at different times.
I live around the Vancouver Area of BC so weather similar to Seattle if you are in the US. Lots of rain, mild although we had freaky one day snow storms recently!
I will put down fresh soil in the areas I plan to seed. Should I mix in manure as well?
As for colours - I am a lover of bright colours -not pastels, so from a first glance at the list I can see that most are bright colours or can be bought in brights (I will have to look up some of the names). I also love having cut flowers to bring inside.
I have mostly sunny spots to seed - a couple of shady spots.
Oh and I don't dare plant morning glory LOL! as it is a weed here and takes over choking plants and making me curse at the ground!! LOL!
Thanks!! You've got me all excited to get out there and plant!!
Joni
Mar 15, 2006 10:23 AM
Barbara M. Martin
:
Sorry if I wasn't clear, the sweetpeas for example germinate in a cool soil and grow best while the weather is still cool. They would be planted before your last frost, much earlier than marigolds and zinnias, for example, and the thunbergia requires hot weather and warm soil so would be planted about ten days after your last frost. You might be able to plant them on top of each other to some extent, or just in drifts (informal swathes) arranged so the later season plants can cover the area where the earliest ones have died out.
How do you prepare your soil for the veggies? Ideally you would do the same for annuals.
However, since you are leaving, it seems a shame to be adding expensive amendments. (Assuming this is being done inexpensively as possible.) Is the soil truly terrible?
Mar 15, 2006 4:58 PM
Joni Rose
:
Thanks Barbara,
So I plant the seeds in stages - will do! Now I know why my sweet peas haven't grown in the past, I've started them too late! So I'll get some in the ground pronto!
The soil is okay but you make a good point about spending money on ammendments - I'll just do the "shovel and bag it yourself" dirt from the garden centre near by as it is $3 a garbage bag and it cleans up the beds. I'll skip the manure but fertilize with liquid fertilizer.
I also saw some great bags of rocks at Home Depot today that will help tidy up places in and around my pond. It will add some texture and help to tidy it up as well.
I will take before and after pictures as you have me all excited looking through books and on sites to find other hardy annuals that I can grow from seed here in BC.
Thanks again!
Joni
Mar 16, 2006 1:50 PM
Barbara M. Martin
:
Definitely an exciting project!! Pictures would be so much fun!
Remember to budget something for mulch -- you'll want to mulch in between the annuals to keep the weeds down, especially when they are small. If you don't keep after the weeds your little seedlings will be swamped. And, the mulch helps keep the soil moister so you water less, too.
Cheapest mulch can be a couple layers of dampened newspaper to exclude light, top that with just enough organic mulch to hold it in place (and look good.) You could use half finished compost, old rotted leaves, or purchased mulch for this.
Or cheaper still and just the price of elbow grease, you could do the old fashioned dust mulch where you rough up the soil surface. But I think that is a lot of work in today's world. (grin)
Mar 17, 2006 2:51 PM
Joni Rose
:
I have read about using newspaper for mulch but have never tried it so again - now that I am going the bargain route, I'll give it a try. I've always used landscape cloth and bark mulch.
I went to look at seeds and it was customer appreciation day so everything was 15% off! I even got a couple of rock garden perennial plants at half off the reduced price!!
We finally have sun so I'll be out this weekend preping the soil and getting it ready for a top dressing and planting of seeds.
One question I thought of was fertilizer - how often and what kind do you recommend?
Thanks so much for your inspiration and advice!
Joni
Mar 19, 2006 8:55 AM
Barbara M. Martin
:
Fertilizer is not really the end all to the be all in my book. The reason I say that is as long as you have prepared your soil well with organic matter and used an organic mulch, and selected plants that are suited to the location, and you water as needed -- not over water, but as needed, and the pH is within a reasonable reading of say 6.0 to 7.5, then things should do pretty well.
It is actually better to underfertilize than overfertilize. Overfertilized plants get so lush and floppy that they become insect bait and are just wide open to diseases....
Ideally you would fertilize based on soil test results. Your county extension can help with that. It probably costs ten or fifteen bucks.
But, since everybody seems to feel better if they fertilize, I would say use a slow release general purpose maybe 10-10-10. Those can be relatively expensive but are applied once and give a fairly steady dose for months.
Cheaper would be a general purpose 10-10-10 granular for example, but apply it at a lower amount than on the label -- and then apply more often. By that I mean for example use a quarter the amount listed for early spring but apply it four times over the next couple of months. That way it would give less of a roller coaster ride on the release. Look for one with a lower proportion of urea as the Nitrogen source, too.
There are many "organic" fertilizers on the market, but they are more expensive than the synthetics.
The water soluble fertilizers are nice for container plants, but they are very expensive for use over a wide area. Since you are on a budget, I would not recommend them. Also, they take a lot of time to apply every week.
Whatever you use, be sure to read the label completely and do not apply more than the label rate. More is not better, it could "burn" your plants.
What kind of soil do you have, how do you fertilize your vegetable garden? This can give you a clue for your annuals.
I hope this helps.
Mar 19, 2006 9:49 AM
Joni Rose
:
It sure does help! I find fertilizer to be one of those mysterious gardening tools that overwhelm with all the choices and complicated instructions. You make it all so simple!!! I really appreciate your advice. I always put mushroom manure on my veggie garden and so I'll do the same on the flower beds. I am thinking I'll buy 5 bags ($17.99 for 5 shovel and fill yourself bags) and fill them half with mushroom manure and half with soil and add the mixture to the beds. I'll wait until the seedlings become something before working in a 10-10-10 slow release fertilizer. Does that sound like a good plan?
Mar 20, 2006 9:47 PM
Barbara M. Martin
:
You can work in the the fertilizer after planting or maybe work it in the soil just below the seeds, that way their roots will reach down to it. Either way should work.
I am curious to know what is in the soil you dig and bag? Do they tell you? (Top soil for example is usually not regulated in any way as to content. So ....)
I have used spent mushroom compost in my own flower gardens in the past with good results. Someone (whose opinion I respect) recently mentioned a concern about pathogens that might be in it and could affect seedlings. But I don't think I planted seeds where I used the mushroom compost, and that is the first time I have heard that particular concern about it. You might ask the supplier if they have had any reported problems like that? I would be interested to hear from anyone who has used it and had an experience one way or the other.
One concern with starting the garden from seeds is weeds. Here is a strategy you mght want to use. Prepare your soil, water it if it doesn't rain, and then wait a week just to see how many weeds pop up. Weed seeds near the surface will germinate -- and you can stop them easily now.
ONce about a week has gone by, rake or use a swivel hoe to lightly disturb the soil surface. This should stop the weeds that have already germinated plus some that are about to germinate. Do not go deep, you do not want to bring more seeds close to the surface where they will sprout. You can do this twice if it seems really bad. This also gives the soil a little time to settle so you can notice if there are any extra high or low spots, too.
Glad you liked the fertilizer explanation. Sometimes I think we overthink it all. :) It should be more fun, less stress. Remember, plants are pre-programmed to grow! lol
