Gardening Questions and Pictures

[Nana~ 4]

I would love to have some of those bushy tiny roses are those antique roses? what kind of things can I plant in the front yard. My front yard has area around the house we have concrete curbing and Texas clay/dirt thats hard as a rock unless you wet it well. the plan is to pull the weeds and put pea gravel in the curbed area (to match the two curbed trees in our yard) but I have no idea what will grow in clay with area that is slow draining...oh and I have no idea what Im talking about plant wise the only thing Im good at growing is weeds lol

Maybe I should take a picture so yall get the idea lol

[TheWomanWithin 0]

:help: Anyone know what clover grows in this red lava rock?

In Feb 2006, we took the whole area up, dug down to the roots,

covered the area, sprayed stuff the garden guys told us

at Lowe's and replanted everything but the large Palm (?)

on the back left.

We don't want to take the lava rock out - it was a huge investment,

but our HOA requires NO weeds even "clover" in your yard.

Maybe they were just talking about the plants themselves :Banane33:

We planted yellow delicate ground cover in the dead areas and that

has improved it BUT when we use miracle grow to help the plants/trees, the clover just over runs

Thanks in advance - seems alot of you have more knowledge

than the lawn or garden guys - and we both have brown thumbs! lol

[paula 4]

Lisa,

We have a HORRIBLE time with clover growing in our yard. What usually helps our problem is just plain ole 'Weed N Feed' found at Walmart. Have you tried anything like Round-Up in the areas that have NO flowering plants? Good luck.

Your place is SO neat and clean - AND pretty!

[mychevygirl 0]

Lisa & Paula , I too fight clover here in the NW. I have tried all kinds of stuff but have found the best way to get rid of it is to just dig it out! I have literally spent hours getting it out of my yard. I would like to share photos of my yard but can't figure out how to place them on. Maybe someone could give me some ideas. good luck with the CLOVER:faint: DeAnn

[TheWomanWithin 0]

thanks - going to try weed and feed next

even commercial round up did nothing, except wash down and kill my petunias that had spread all over - we live on a bit of an incline (see how the paver walkway does?)and it washed into them and they were gone - but the clover came back rofl

before we put in the lava rock, we had no clover - I can't stand the smell of mulch so we put in the rock to go with the paver walk and deck in back.

that picture was of Feb06 - as soon as some rain came - the plants/shrubs doubled, but the clover came back in droves!

we spend so much time digging and pulling the roots out of this stuff, maybe it's not worth it and just get rid of the rock - or is the rock not the problem?

DeAnn - go to photobucket.com and sign up for an acct, upload your pictures and then click on the insert image link and copy & past your picture. you might have to resize it with an editing program or paint for it not to be so large.

sorry if this question has been answered already

[Nana~ 4]

We put down bisquine (sp? sounds like bis Queen LOL) in our round curb areas around our trees..Then we covered in peagravel, we too are on a incline the Bis Q doesnt hold Water and we have no weeds. we have very tiny amount of grass that wants to come up between the Bis Q and the concrete curbs easy to just pull up.

[DevilMayKare 1]

WomanWithin,

If Round up didn't work you might just try keeping a spray bottle with straight bleach handy and squirt every new clover leaf as it appears.

BTW I love the mauve color of your place! Maybe you need a purple door?

Anyone notice my blue door? Some people love it, some hate it. I had such fun picking out the paint. I showed the swatch to the guy at home depot and he mixed an INTERIOR paint. When I noticed, I said, "No, it has to be exterior. It's for my front door... I'm making a statement."

The guy waiting at the counter next to me asked, "What statement are you making?"

And the paint guy said, "A crazy person lives here?"

I said, "Noooo, a FUN person lives here!"

Last month I found a really cool antique stainglass window taken from a torn-down bar in San Francisco that has a blue ribbon that same color running thru it. Soon as I can find someone to do it I'm going to have it put in to replace the yukky window you see in the pic next to the door.

[Wheetsin 714]

We buy a type of Weed-n-Feed from a local lawn specialist. It's the same stuff that golf courses use. It completely wiped out all clover, dandelions, purge, etc. Our lawn looks better now than it did when we had Chem-Lawn taking care of it. I'll see if I can look at the bag and post the exact name of the product. You apply it via broadcast spreader, when the grass is wet (e.g. morning dew) but when it's warm out and only if it's not going to rain w/in the next 48 hours or so.

So I have a question. I did a lot of planting this weekend -- mostly the pots I keep on our deck & patio. I probably planted 8 full flats of flowers, about 18 different kinds, and I did 5 pots of sweet potato vine. I didn't buy the vine all at once, I bought some a few days prior, and some the day of, from completely different stores and from different suppliers.

I went outside and looked at things about 2 hours ago and I noticed that ALL the potato vine is really sad looking, droopy, losing its color... the stems/vines still feel strong, but the leaves are really fragile feeling, almost like they haven't been watered, but they have been - every day - and the pots have good drainage so I know they aren't water-logged. Everything else looks great, but every single potato vine looks like crap. Any ideas?

[TheWomanWithin 0]

Kare, I think my camera puts more pink into the picture than is there - its supposed to be a FL color a pinkish/brown something called Dawn Mist.

(btw I love your yard - wish mine looked like that)

The stones in the walkway are supposed to compliment the house (or so the concrete guys says)

I did purple petunia's deep/lighter contrast all over the left side of the walkway that were blooming great until I did the roundup.

I don't think my husband would go for a full purple door - there is one down the road that is this deep purple that is gorgeous, but he thinks its ugly. I would love to redo our door and put stained glass inserts in the panel with purple accents.

I might look into purple flowers up in the pots at the front of the house pink hydrengaes (sp) there now to compliment the colors here. Im just really bummed about the petunias - $50 on them and I kill them:think

Wheestin, if you can get the name of the Weed-n-Feed you use I would appreciate it - I'm apt to try anything right now before I re-do the front walk.

Oh Plunder - is that Visqueen like plastic/vinyl stuff? I tried to do that to begin with and my husband told me not to bother MEN! hehehe

if the weed and feed doesnt work, before I plant anything else, its ALL coming up again and Im putting down the weed screen or plastic stuff.

Any tips on doing this? do you put it down, cut it to size then cut holes where you want your plants? Ill have to go back to HGTV.com and look it up.

[Nana~ 4]

vis-bis lol ya the black plastic stuff lol my uncle helped me do it lol.

We raked leveled ground laid visqueen tucked it in around the edges the laid our rocks.

It was alot of muddy work but I think it was so worth it because I hant had to pick a weed in two months so far..

Now I just need to do the bigger curbed area around my house windows. pure rock were easy around the trees but I want something other than just rocks around my house lol

[TheWomanWithin 0]

I want alot of things around my house hehehe but our HOA are pain in the butts - can't have fountains!blah well why not...

we can only have certain trees and we're not supposed to even change our flowers without written approval, can't have weeds, which I seem to be good at growing here[sigh]

Now if I would just quit killing the plants, they would grow and look nice! :heh:

[Wheetsin 714]

Any tips on doing this? do you put it down, cut it to size then cut holes where you want your plants? Ill have to go back to HGTV.com and look it up.

We did the entire perimeter of our house with this stuff, as well as the perimet of our deck (16x32) and several landscaping "islands" I made in the yard. Here's what we did:

Start the fabric againt the house, and roll out to where you want it to end + 1 foot. Cut, including any contour you need to have. We also tacked down with "landscaping fabric staples" - basically big metal U shapes that you hammer through the fabric into the ground. They REALLY helped. Once you have that width, move the fabric back against the house, roll out, and repeat. We were doing all perimeter areas with edgestones, so we just took the leftover foot and put it down in the trench we'd dug to hold the stones, then put the levelilng sand on top of the fabric and put the bricks in place. Worked like a charm. Then we cut X's wherever the plants went, folded the flaps back, planted the plants, pushed the X flaps back in place to keep weeds away from the base of the plants, and covered with our river rock.

[Wheetsin 714]

Oh also there are different kinds of landscaping fabric. The most common one is black and either plastic-like, or woven. IME neither were great choices - they didn't hold up to our weather. We ended up using a heavy-duty gray mesh fabric that we bought at (I think) HD. It was probably double the cost of the black stuff, but SOOO worth it. We did all this three years ago, and this year I went to plant some clematis and the fabric was just like new, no wearing through, rot or decay.

[TheWomanWithin 0]

Great thanks again :Banane20:

Im such a novice at this - we bought this house 2 years ago, the plants they put in these subdivisions are just baby plantings that are dead in no time.

I got tired of looking at them and decided to start with a whole plan. When I took everything up in Feb 06, was the first time I have done this.

I researched and found what we liked and didn't like etc., drew out plans and then found out - no pond, fountain or any Water structure etc can be put in the front like we thought.

The problems we have is the heat and humidity here are so bad most of the time, plants/shrubs tend to die. We can only water 1 day a week - I think if we watered a bit more, the plants might grow in better.

The hedges are almost double the size they were in the picture in Feb, the begonias are doing great and fluffing out (is that even a word?) my husband's sego (?) palm has grown about 7 or 8 inches higher. I can't seem to get that double palm to turn green like the tall tree with the marigolds around it - might not be a good sign :bananadoggywow:

Dumb question, but can I use miracle grow along with weed n feed? I don't want to burn the plants up lol

Any suggestions to add some "curb appeal" this what we have?

Last question - how long does it take for plantings to grow in pretty well?

[3loves 0]

Does anyone plant a vegetable garden? Here's a few pics from last year.

This is our garden in IN with tomatoes, peppers, corn, & green Beans. It's one of my favorites b/c it looks like my son is watching it grow.

Here's my dads...the family garden. A few years back this was an herb garden with over 3000 plants. This was when my mom had her shop. Dad changed it to the vegetable garden and we all pitch in when we can. My baby brother helps the most b/c he lives the closest. It's nice to make memories as a family in the garden. That's how I was raised. :biggrin1:

Pea Pickers....grab a bucket and start picking!!