Gardening & Landscaping

Gift for a gardener

mary107 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:45:42 GMT

I'd like to get a gardening-related gift to thank my realtor, who is a Master Gardener. Are there any specific products/tools (e.g., a specific brand of hand lotion, gloves) that you would recommend or wouldn't mind having an extra of?

front yard landscaping w/ brown thumb...

ArmyWife123 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:38:56 GMT

i seem to kill everything other than grass (and 1 lei tree that has miraculously survived 3 years with me! yeaaa!) and now i have a landscaping problem. DH and i are renting a house, and there was a round thing in the center of the front yard that was full of nothing but weeds w/ lava rocks under them surrounded by those curvy topped landscaping stone things (like i said- im HORRIBLE!!! sorry). anyway- i made it a project to dig up the weeds and rocks, and discovered there used to be a tree in there. there was a rotten tree stump burried underneath the weeds, and HUGE roots. so i had DH pull it up and fill the hole back in w/ dirt. now i have a big blank spot in my front yard and NO idea what to do w/ it. i'd like to do something kind of cute or creative, but (again) im just no good with this whole landscaping idea....

any ideas?? its probably about 3' in diameter and literally in the center of the front yard.

TIA!! :)

Putting your garden to bed for the winter...

Fitzfern — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:52:17 GMT

What do you do to prepare your garden for the winter ahead? I'm in Seattle, I think that's zone 5. Last year I didn't do much and we had an unusually cold, snowy winter and I lost some plants. I have a vegetable garden that still has some things going in and hopefully will until it frosts. Other than that it's starting to look pretty shabby. I've heard raking up the leaves, chopping them with the mower, and using them to mulch is a good idea. Any other suggestions? thanks!! :)

XP: Fireplace Ashes in Compost?

EmmieB — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:11:27 GMT

(Also on Green Living and my local board)

I haven't had a fireplace since high school and at that point my father took care of the cleanup...

I've been poking around online to see the best way to dispose of them. In a perfect world we'd just dump them in our compost and let them enrich the soil, but I keep seeing things about that jacking up the pH and the nitrogen and the potassium and all kinds of stuff.

Some people suggest "dusting" your lawn with them.

So far we've just bought the almond wood from whole foods and we'll add our own yard debris (ok - kindling from pruning our 8 million trees) so it's chemical-free ash, if that makes a difference.

What are your thoughts? What do you do?

TIA!

balcony flowers in SoCal

Shleigh02 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:35:06 GMT

Any ideas for good plants on a balcony in Southern California? I would love to plant some Lilacs, blueberry bushes and rose bushes on my second floor balcony. Obviously, they will be potted. Does anyone have experience with these plants in SoCal, or being potted? Does anyone know of a good website/resource for finding info on great plants for the SoCal area - like what does well here?

XP: Need help with shade plant for front yard PIP

queenbone — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:15:26 GMT

This is my horrible rr tie front retaining wall. We are going to replace it next summer with a proper stamped concrete wall. There is a crab apple tree in the parking strip, a lilac and weeping cherry in our yard and kiwi plants growing along the fence which all form such a canopy that the roses are not getting enough sun and are not thriving no matter how much I feed or prune them. So I want to remove and transplant all the roses this fall. You can see that we have ferns volunteering in there. I was thinking that I would grow hostas, ferns, and trillium in this shade bed. However my DH is afraid to get rid of the roses. He like the thorns because he thinks it deters our homeless neighbors from sleeping there. We do get people stoping to smoke on our steps because they can't walk two whole blocks from the bar to their car without stopping for a smoke. But I can't imagine someone sleeping there even though there is a fence that blocks the view from the house. Do you think he is right and we need thorny, prickly shrubs there? And if so, what can you recommend that is shade tolerant?

TIA!

XP: Can you ID this plant for me? (PIP)

EmmieB — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:09:36 GMT

(also on my local board)

I didn't plant it. In fact -the corner where it's sprung up used to be completely bricked over with a bucket-type water plant that had dried up and was just dirt and then - of course - the whole thing was covered with ivy.

It has no flowers that I've seen and it appears to be flourishing without any encouragement from anyone. We don't even water back there.

If it's something awesome that will be pretty in the spring, then I'll leave it. If not, then the garden plan I'm making up after my trip is going to include removing it.

TIA!

Peonies

KLF01 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:31:39 GMT

I planted two in the spring/summer. They were doing okay, but now as it is getting colder the one looks like it is dying. The other one looks better. Should I be cutting them back for the winter, or just leave them alone? I am in Zone 6. Thanks!

Dahlia question

ladycee — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:43:01 GMT

Do I need to bring them inside during the winter? It has been a very mild fall so there has been no need to as of yet, but I don't want to kill them if they need to be in the house. Anyone know something about this? I'd appreciate the advice, gardening is pretty new to me!

Don't die, spider plant!

Bippy — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:52:39 GMT

My cats eat my spider plant, so it lived a very fruitful summer and fall outside. I've recently moved it indoors, first to a place where there;'s not much sun and now to a place that get maybe 6-10 hours of sunlight a day.

Despite watering and sun, the plant looks very droopy and sad. The leaves are brown and dead, and it continues to spread. They are not dry.

Does it have a disease? Have I ruined it inadvertantly?

XP: DIY Terrarium

SecretServiceWife — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:25:13 GMT

Has anyone made these before? I'm thinking of making 3 this christmas as gifts and I found some on etsy that I like, and they're $20 a piece, but i'm wondering if I can make them myself for cheaper. They would be smallish (maybe in an 8-10oz jar) and I would want to put a little creature in there, like a knome or something.

TIA!

Oh, and hi!

question about raspberry bush

CTFandme — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:16:39 GMT

Do I have to do anything to them before winter sets in? This whole gardening thing is new to me. Thx!

New backyard.

Hwrd2be — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:45:34 GMT

We just bought a brand new home. Our back yard has nothing but a very small piece of cement and lots of dirt. We are looking for cute ideas for making a backyard.

Does anyone know of any good websites to look at to get ideas? I have been looking around but havent found too many I like.

Please recommend your privacy trees/shrubs.

Raving Rabbids — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:30:13 GMT

We're looking to make our yard a little more private from our new next door neighbor's yard. They put up a kind of crappy white lattace fence (half assed at that) and I'd like to put up some sort of trees or shrubs to help divide the yard a little better. Maybe a flowering tree? Then again, I wouldn't want things to fall onto their property line since they're a little...odd.

TIA!

"Parkway" garden inpiration needed

NJinAustin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:09:57 GMT

What do you do with the space between your front sidewalk and the street? I'm considering transplanting cactus and succulants from pots to the ground in this space... also some flagstone.

Any photos or links to ideas you like?

Plant buying question

natsan08 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:27:29 GMT

Hello all! I'm moving to a new house and we have significantly more garden space than we did in my old place and I've been dreaming of different plants to buy and gardents to make.

We have this great walkway where I want to plant night blooming jasmine OR sweet violets but at all of our local nurseries they only sell african violets not the viola odorata that I'm looking for.

I tried looking online but the only place I saw that had great reviews (Canyon Creek Nursery) that ships plants is out of business I suppose or their link has changed or it's just extremely dated. Either way I'm looking for a good online seller that has violet plants OR night blooming jasmine plants.

Are there any places in particular that are better than others? Any places in central Florida that any of you local gals recommend? Any help would be greatly appreciated! TIA

repot and divide?

jacquita — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:10:46 GMT

Hi, I know very little about growing plants. My husband was given a pot with different plants growing. Now I think it's crowded and should be re-potted into different pots so that they can grow full. BUt I don't have the slightest idea how to do so. I can tell that there about 4 different plants in this small pot. Can I divide them and repot?

What Zone am I in??

Kristi85 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:00:26 GMT

I live in Texas!! Southeast Texas (Beaumont, Port Arthur area, as in an hour away from the Gulf of Mexico). I have tried to google it; however, I end up with nothing? TIA

How do I hire a landscape designer?

Malvagia — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:28:25 GMT

I want to hire a landscape designer to design my front yard garden but I plan to do the gardening myself in the spring due to budget. How and where do I hire a landscape designer? Can I just call a landscaping company and ask them to design the garden without building it? Any idea how much they charge per hour? Can they design it in a few hours?

Green tomatoes

smilee1079 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:11:52 GMT

I have a bunch of tomatoes that are just not turning red. Can I do anything with the green tomatoes?

Stupid Newbie Question

LilBit0621 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:41:51 GMT

Hi ladies. DH and I bought our first house over the summer and my mom got us several potted plants this fall. I'm pretty sure they are all perennials, but I didn't have a chance to plant them in the ground before frosts. I had brought them into the garage because of an early frost, but since the weather will soon be changing for good, should I set them back outside? What else should I know/do to have them come back next year? TIA!

Pumpkins

Bippy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:28:54 GMT

I've saved the seeds from the pumpkins we carved this year. Any special seed saving tips to perhaps plant them for next year?

Preparing yard for sod now?

jandawed — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:14:35 GMT

My husband and I bought a house with a backyard that's all landscaping (rose bushes, flowers, etc.) We like it but can't keep up with it and we would like to put in grass this upcoming spring. Does anyone know if there's something we should be doing now to prepare for this? We recently had some trees removed and we're working on killing the stumps so we can remove those as well but should be removing other plants now or wait until spring? Any insight would be great- we're new at this. Thanks!

raking leaves

CollegeGrrl219 — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:19:43 GMT

Does anyone have any tips for how to safely rake leaves? I keep getting blisters on my hands when I do it. Wearing gloves doesn't seem to help.

I don't want to get a leaf blower, because I kind of like getting the exercise. Would it help if I got a more expensive rake that had a nicer handle on it?

floral design/ers

mefsta777 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:37:57 GMT

i am 19 years old. when i graduated high school, i went straight to a four year college. i ended up needed to take a medical leave after being hospitalized, and at that time, i decided that traditional four year school wasnt for me. i got married, and pregnant two months after the wedding. since i left college, i have taken two professional photography courses to certify me as a professional photographer. i plan to go to culinary school for pastry arts after the baby is born and about a year old. now i am thinking about taking a distance learning course to be a floral designer. i loved planning my wedding, i adore doing creative things with flowers and arrangements for the holidays...i think i could really enjoy it. also, i think that all three things i have interest in (photography, pastry arts, and floral design) go well together...or at least they do in my mind. my question is this--do you think floral design is something i could have a good paying career in? anyone work in this field? any advice appreciated!