It's become clear to me through posts and PMs that there are some gardeners here just waiting for the chance to discuss gardening!
So, I was thinking... how do you use gardening, or how does it affect you if you need a break, need some respite, need to relax, need inspiration....how do you use it as a therapy tool in caregiving?
What are your activities: Do you go out and pull weeds, read a magazine, design new beds? Look through garden catalogues? Go to garden stores?
And what interests have you added to your gardening? Visit estate or garden displays? Do you go to garden shows?
Does anyone design and plant Knot Gardens? Raised bed planters? Assistive gardens? Pollinator gardens (and have you thought of ways to help the bees and butterflies?)
Are your gardens primarily for pleasure or food, or a mix of both? Do you grow plants for medicinal purposes? Which ones, how do you harvest and process them? Any suggestions?
Do you grow plants that can be used in crafts, such as grapevines for wreaths and lavender for lavender wands? Do you make herbal products such as creams, lotions, chapstick?
What else can you share about gardening and the means in which it nurtures your soul?
One time I tried growing the cutest little miniature roses in my kitchen widow. The tag said that I could. They didn’t make it though. Ever try those?
Oh my gosh, I just looked up the directions. Micro mini roses only last one week indoors then need to be transplanted outdoors. Oooops! I messed up. Thought I could keep them inside. Now I know! Hahaha 😂
Enjoy your break! My godmother grew beautiful roses. So did my grandpa. Some people have a green thumb. They did.
What color roses do you have? My grandpa had red that he planted for my grandma. My godmother had a pretty shade of pink. All roses are beautiful!
Do you have a favorite color or variety? I don’t know all of the names. How many types are there? A bazillion, right?
Yes, when the wind comes from the West, we get offshore breezes. And yes, we get lots of destructive Santa Ana winds, causing fires, allergies, sinus infections, and death to the palms.
I now remember, you and others have recommended container gardening.
The neighbors have sprayed enough poisons to last forever, another reason to plant in pots.
Writing that the decorative apple tree is 1/2 dead, sounds like a common phrase: half dead. But it is dead on one side only, and the other side is ok. freaks me out. looks really bad.
Thanks for the advice. I will buy smaller, cheaper plants so I won't worry if they die. Guess I will never have an English country garden.
I hope you can make your wattle fences this year, GA.
I like the idea of sharing from a garden. That is also rewarding. My dad always gave his lemons and peppers away to family and neighbors.
I only buy organic. I used to shop our local farmers market to support our gardeners. Can’t do that now. Plus shop in Whole Foods and Fresh Market. They also offer local organic produce.
I have questions for you. Do people save money growing their own produce? Do you share your surplus with neighbors? Freeze or can?
So, dig out your old clothes and prepare for your lessons! And remember, none of us were born with rakes in our hands and old shoes on our feet; we learned gardening as we grew up (and older).
First, we need to determine what kind of soil you have and whether you can garden in it w/o amendments, or if it's better to do container gardening.
Clay soil typically needs amendment. It's thick, and hard to dig. Some options for amendment: add coffee grounds to the soil. Worms love them and will volunteer to till the soil and break it up. Starbucks used to give away grounds for free, but I don't know if they're still open.
There's another way but takes more time to break up clay soil. There's a special radish that extends long roots into clay and breaks up the soil... Daikon radishes, if I remember correctly.
If you can get through the annoying adds, this is a good source for growing Daikons:
https://gardenerspath.com/plants/vegetables/grow-daikon/
If you have sandy soil, like beach soil, it also needs to be amended. I used peat moss and compost (leaves, grass, kitchen scraps but no meat or bones). One part of my garden was in the area that was previously a swamp. At about a foot deep, I could smell water, just as if I was at a lake in a park.
One use for rain is with a rain barrel, to save water for the garden. When I was in NO (only for a few weeks at a time), the rains were almost torrential. Those kinds of rains can wash soil away. So you might want to consider planting in smaller areas, so less soil is removed. Very large gardens could become temporarily soaked.
CWillie, sounds like we gardened more or less in the same manner. Your Victoria Day and our Memorial Day were the typical kick offs for summer gardening. I can even feel the sun on my back as I'm writing this!
I do remember the hardening off, taking trays of plants out, acclimating them during the day, and taking them back in at night.
Did your whole family garden? Did you ever use a dehydrator? Sounds like you grew up gardening, as a lifestyle. How much are you gardening now?
My daddy wanted to teach me and for some reason I thought I wouldn’t have the time because of the raising my kids but they could have helped and enjoyed it. They liked helping with planting flowers.
I don’t guess it’s too late to try and learn vegetable gardening now.
GA,
Yes, you are correct in saying that we get a fair amount of rainfall. Does that make a big difference?
Send, do you get any offshore breezes, or the Santa Ana winds? Your comments on the difficulty of maintaining plants made me wonder about this.
There's no reason you can't have good gardens as well, and it's not necessarily the time that's the critical factor. It's the soil. Do you make compost from your leaves and grass clippings (assuming the latter aren't subject to weed sprays)? Do you add anything to the soil, such as seaweed or liquid seaweed?
I think palms are hard to grow, especially if you get those dry Santa Ana winds, but it also depends on the soil, and if they're potted, what permeability the pot material has.
Clay is I think the best, but I found that Styrofoam was better for begonias. The plastic pots may look decorative, but they interfere with plants' breathing abilities.
Honeysuckle grows in my yard, very aggressively, and it's quite strong, producing vines tougher than grape vines. I love the fragrance.
Rosemary is lovely; mine suddenly died out and I need to replace it.
Grass might be dead b/c of the climate or b/c of poor soil. Do you feed your worms? (seriously - that's not a joke). Worms like coffee grounds, and in turn, they act like little rototillers.
You could consider a rock garden, with sedums.
Sorry about the apple tree.
I hope your husband is able to cope until the quarantines lift; it's challenging to try to work while in discomfort or pain.
Keep going to the park; it'll be a relief to just get out.
What bit you? A mosquito? Nasty and arrogant little bugger - they're supposed to bite on arms and legs, not on eyelids!
Squash bugs here seemed to thrive until about the end of June, so I could avoid them for the zucchini. Pumpkins and butternut were a different story. It was always a gamble just planting them at the end of May or in June, as typically frost was Oct. 15 - 17, and they weren't always mature.
So what I did was plant in June, but bury the vines about every 2 feet, so they could develop roots of their own. When the bugs started at the base of the plant and move out, I could eventually cut out those sections, but the remainder of the plant still grew and produced.
I had some other bug on the cukes, I think it was the same one that was a companion to Chinese lanterns, but can't remember its name right now.
I've got enough old lumber but probably would need to find some heavy plastic; the only plastic I have now are the blue tarps, but they'd block the sunlight.
What's your planting schedule like? I'm assuming you're much farther north than I am, so planting later could work for zukes but not for pumpkins or squash.
Did you start all your plants indoors?
https://www.plantmaps.com/hardiness-zones-for-new-orleans-louisiana
My gardening rant.....
I live in a 9a and 9b zone, a hot summer mediterranean climate.
If I walk the neighborhood, I can see what the really good gardeners can get away with. There is so much blooming now!
Geraniums are abundant. But they are good gardeners. And replace their plants frequently.
My palm plants did not survive mostly, because I am not a good or consistent gardener. Plus the summer heat, then the colder winter.
The most prolific plants surviving for years without too much care are 1) the cape honeysuckle vine, and 2) the rosemary bush.
The grass has died out in the summers. Some is now gravel/rocks.
This year, spring has brought to my attention the rapid decline of my decorative apple tree, it is 1/2 dead, and I am in denial, but it looks bad. It has to go, be cut down, and my front yard will look unlandscaped. Really do not want to be replacing plants and trees, it is too expensive. Husband is not able anymore. We will just keep it clean and neat as best we can. The word for this is disheartened.
Maybe a talk with hubs. If we go out together, outside a lot, and he just weeds for 20 minutes....if I keep reminding him to come inside...
He cannot go to the chiropractor right now due to the virus, and he is also due for physical therapy.
We will survive! I just know it.
Today, we went to the nearby park. He went up the hill to get a photo of the poppies blooming. I waited in the car, windows open.
Getting home, a bite on my upper eyelid, tiny, but can't they bite someone else? Maybe I should eat garlic??
🐦🌵🌴🌾🍃🌱🌼🌞🌸🌷🌹🌹🥀🌻🌻🌺🍁🌲🌲🌳☘🏜
You have figured out how to beat squash bugs, when do you plant? I have tried to delay planting my zucchini but it's hit or miss, and if I delay too long I'm afraid of not getting any harvest til very late in the season. Fortunately the cucumbers seem to be more tolerant but I would love it if they didn't die off so early.
Lemon trees wouldn't grow in my area, although I could start one with seeds and bring it in to overwinter if I had a greenhouse. Green peppers would grow in your area, but I'd have to check as to your rain as I recall there were some very abrupt downpours when I visited NO. Between that and the intense heat, you might have to grow them in pots so you could move them out of the sun during the hotter months.
Many gardeners start peppers and tomatoes inside, under grow lights, or in flora carts with special lighting. Mom did that, starting both, as well as impatiens, geraniums and a lot of other flowers.
W/o spending money on flora carts (they're expensive), it would be easier just to buy the started plants at a greenhouse, but if you're housebound b/c of the virus, I don't know if you could find a greenhouse open. You might be able to get some at Lowe's or HD, which I understand are open b/c they do have antiviral (considered medical, from what I'm told) products.
You could grow either in containers, but try to find some that aren't from China so you don't have to worry about lead in the pots. Chinese products with lead were a big problem some years ago.
An alternative if you want to be creative is to make your own pots. If you've got a lot of soft branches, or willows, you can weave a pot closely enough to be a container pot.
Zucchini.... it has a reputation all its own. It grows, and produces, and like the gift that keeps on giving, it produces...a LOT. Gardeners joke about zucchini since there's such an abundance of them. But it's a good place to start. And it has a variety of uses.
We made zucchini bread, brownies, and I forget what else. I have a recipe book of nothing but zucchini recipes.
You could probably grow bush butternut squash and bush pumpkins as well, but you'd have to time planting so as to avoid the squash bug. I plant after its life cycle is over, as it's ruined more than a few crops for me. There's another bug that we have to deal with here but I can't remember its name offhand.
I don’t know how to start. Is there a chart to look at about what grows here and when to plant? All I know is daddy planted green peppers in a large pot and a lemon tree in a pot. They both did very well. But that’s all I remember. Daddy died in 2002. So, I can’t remember what season he planted them.
I want a lemon tree and I would love to grow green peppers.
I took a class a long time ago from LSU agriculture department but if they passed out literature I don’t remember where I put it.
What veggies are easy to grow? What about zucchini? Is that easy?
What are your specific questions about gardening ? Don't be intimidated - I'm sure that everyone would love to help you.
First, do you know what kind of soil you have? Clay? Sandy? Do you have safe containers that you could use just for a small garden?
CWillie, did you build your own cold frames? Were they at ground or below ground? I've always wanted some to extend gardening longer into winter, but don't look forward to the excavation, as I'd want mine at least partially below ground.
Did you build you own covers? From glass or windows?
I want to do some veggie gardening. I am somewhat intimidated by it. Awhile back I even took a class taught by our LSU agricultural department.
My grandfather had a beautiful garden. I loved helping him as a child but never had a veggie garden of my own.
I think I would rather a container garden rather than a garden in my yard. I want to try green peppers like my daddy grew. He also had a lemon tree. He had both of those in a pot.
My grandpa always had rows planted in his yard. Flowers in the front and side yard. His roses were so lovely. Veggies in the back.
After a quick scramble up a low embankment I managed to find shelter in the entrance to the curling rink, and I'd rather be wet than frozen any day😂.
Siberian Squills are just beginning to bloom, in the back yard but not yet in the garden. When they're in full bloom, they cover an area about 50' wide and equally as deep. Lunaria (money plants) should be the next in the early spring bloom parade.
I used to have a lot of double and peony tulips, but apparently the squirrels preferred something else as most of them have disappeared.
We have to come to an understanding. I don't mind their help but I don't appreciate having my landscaping plans altered w/o my permission.
Glad your garden is doing well. Tulips are lovely.