DL Gardening Thread 2019

I always grew Salvia Amistad at the side of my house. It grew to a nice size. I had an extra plant last year so I planted it in my front garden. Big mistake. The front garden gets more sun & the Amistad took over. This isn’t my garden, but it’s an Amistad that grow almost the size of mine

Amistad has never overwintered for me, sadly. I took a bunch of cuttings of tender salvias in the fall and to my shock and delight every single one rooted.

Black & blue salvia (salvia guaranitica) comes back for me, but it takes forever to mature. It’s a late comer-upper and doesn’t start flowering til summer is nearly over. Usually I buy a new plant, put it where I want it and take bits of the old plant & move them around.

And Amistad has never come back for me, either. But both plants root really well not just from cuttings, but even from damage. The stems can be easily damaged when transporting in a car if you buy fairly mature plants. If a stem gets damaged, just break it off, strip most of the leaves, leaving just a few at the top of the stem and plunk it in the ground. As long as the soil is good, it gets water & sun, it’ll grow. You don’t even need rooting hormone.

I feel sorry for people in parts of the world where they don’t have hummingbirds because these plants are hummingbird magnets.

I bought 2 salvia Hot Lips last year but I’m going to have t9 move them. They are too large & shrubby for my garden. They need to spread out. I’d bought them for my hummingbirds but they are far more foliage than flowers. They aren’t bad plants, they just need to be in a place like the photo below, with plenty of space

I redid a long flower bed (that never worked) with pink hydrangeas -- Pinky Winky and Strawberries and Cream. They love it in my zone and are a trouble free shrub that blooms from July to frost. My limelight hydrangeas form a shrub wall at the back of my long border. Can't say enough good things about them. Thank god for my garden. Even in bleak mid-winter, it is with me

OP it sounds like you got MAD gardening skillz yo!

I can’t even keep a peace plant alive.

These are some of my favorite threads on DL. I’ve learned so much from the people on here and I find everyone so inspiring! Bronze Age Gay has helped me with my house plants and potted zinnias. I just have a couple of house plants that I manage to keep alive and I change my front beds from begonias to pansies every spring/winter. I think I’m finally ready to try to plant something more exciting!

Do most of you order specialty flowers/plants or do you just go to your local nursery? I guess I’m starting to realize my local chain garden store doesn’t really carry anything that exciting. It always seems like it’s the same old thing in the same basic varieties.

Heirloom tomatoes, corn, trail of tears black beans, Chinese yard long beans, sunflowers, watermelon, chard, purslane, eggplant, various flowers. I can finally harvest from my asparagus beds this year. Also ordered some new grape vines.

I have a gardening question. My partner likes to grow tomatoes and herbs on the side of the house. The tomato plants grow along a fence that’s about 4 feet away from the house. I think the tomato plants attract pests. Multiple times this summer I’ve seen one or two cockroaches in the kitchen! I even saw a rat one time. Do you think these tomato plants are attracting them?

Cockroaches aren’t garden pests. Rats are, but they’ll eat anything. I have large birds on my property. I feed them, they poop. Large poop. The next day, there is no poop. I’m sure rodents are partaking in the poop party. Also, we have raccoons, opossums & deer, so they might be cleaning the yard for us, too.

My aunt lives in FL and every evening a very large turtle would go into her backyard and chow down on the dog poo.

One animal’s poo is another animal’s treasure

R9, hope this helps: My sister-in-law had rats in her house due to some construction close by. She noticed a tomato that was on her window sill and then in another room. The exterminator said that rats love tomatoes.

In addition, it's best to grow tomatoes in the open air, rather than on a fence to discourage other pests that are attracted to tomatoes.

A note on tomatoes.

What we all know: Tomatoes like sun, of course, and pinch back extra branches to encourage larger fruit. What is surprising: But they benefit from being stressed. Do not overwater: allow them to wilt in the heat. That is why the tomatoes grown on the slopes of Vesuvius and Etna are so incredibly flavored. High elevation, constant sun, lack of water.

In the Fall, I planted 250 daffodil bulbs under/around/near a flowering plum tree, along with about 100 grape hyacinths. I'm incredibly excited to see them bloom.

We planted the plum tree with the ashes of 7 of our former beloved pets, which we'd had in the little boxes and urns in various places around the house. We finally decided to do this, and were even a little bit conflicted about it, but once we did it, it was a huge cathartic moment and felt like a final act of remembrance. I cried. It was lovely. I can't wait to see the tree grow and bloom every Spring.

We have a lot of deer where I live so I'm incredibly limited on what I can plant. Thusly, we have A LOT of rosemary!

I had a fig tree in Brooklyn and it was one of the great joys of my gardening experience. Fresh ripe figs on everything including the corn flakes from August 15 through September 15. No, you don't have to wrap it for the winter. Fig trees are all over Brooklyn and I never, ever, saw one wrapped.

Now I'm upstate. Last year, I found something called a Chicago Hardy Fig. The root system is supposed to be good to 20 below zero. I started it in a large pot and by the end of the summer, I had a small fig tree. About two feet tall. No figs, yet. But it was a fig tree. On the advice of a local nursery man (who is a fuck buddy. Yay!) I've moved the pot and tree into the garage for the winter. It seems to be holding its own. On Mother's Day, it is going into the ground.

Fuck coreopsis. I want a fig tree in my backyard again.

I've been having good luck with this, too. Seems a natural for Data Lounge.

R15, I LOVE having fig trees. One of my best friends has the biggest fig tree I've ever seen and we pool all our figs every summer and make dozens of jars of jam, which we divvy up and also give to our friends. It's one of the best things we do all year. We look forward to it, and feel really super accomplished.

Oh, my. There are so many more things to do with figs than make just make jam. On salads. With grilled meats. Mixed into yogurt. And, yes, on your granola in the morning. Or even corn flakes.

And you must try this. Buy a brick of a good parmesan cheese. Break off shards. Push a small shard into a freshly picked fig. Wrap it in a slice of prosciutto. Drizzle it all with raspberry vinegar. Bite into it. That is the BEST flavor bomb I've ever encountered. It has everything in two or three perfect bites. Do this. Enjoy it!

I'll be planting interlocking bricks in my garden this year.

“Fuck coreopsis. I want a fig tree in my backyard again”

Nobody’s saying you have to have either coreopsis OR a fig tree.

OP. Try this. It works great for me ... I start in early March usually.

Direct Gardening sent me dead stuff. And their “plants” were just cuttings, and bad ones at that. They sent me 5 dead lavender cuttings & tried to say they were “dormant.” Yeah. They were permanently dormant. Same with some sedum groundcover. A tiny, tangled-up string of dirt and minuscule dehydrated cuttings that never rehydrated. I “planted” them and never saw them again. I went back to Michigan Bulb for the sedum when they had a half price sale. I paid $2.50 for one plant, but it was alive with green shoots and a nice bit of peat and moist potting soil around the root.

I like Santa Rosa Gardens. Their plants are usually pretty substantial and well packed and they have half price sales. Last year I bought 4 specialty Veronica plants and only one survived. I let them know & they’re not selling them this year. They were fussy plants. If a plant is too fussy, it’s not for me. I give them good soil, plenty of worms, sunshine and water and I plant them far enough apart so there’s room between plants. I scatter some bloodmeal to keep rabbits away ...sometimes I use deer repellent. They get the right amount of fertilizer and proper pH. If they can’t make it, that’s on them.

I’ve orders fro:m lot of online nurseries. A helpful guide to online nurseries can be found at Dave’s Garden. I’ve used it as a resource and Ive commented on retailers I’ve done business with. Dave’s Garden is very helpful for a lot of things. People give “real life” experiences with plants. Sometimes retailers will sell a plant as a perennial when it’s really what is called a “tender perennial” meaning it won’t survive a winter. So it’s helpful to find out things like that before wasting good money on a perennial that will be an annual where you live.

Maybe this thread will inspire me. Our weather has been so extreme that all my old standbys don't do well now. When basic morning glories won't bloom because you suddenly live in a perma-monsoon. . . .

And don't get me started on the lack of bees.

I love Romano flat beans (pole style, not bush) and haven't been able to find them the past few years in my local nursery seed shop. I love their flavor, I love their productivity, I love the fact that they are still tender and not fibrous even when rather mature. So I'm going to break down this year and look for an online source of seeds. I saw some on Etsy, but I've never used that. (I think people sell stuff from their garages on there or something? ) My brother gave me one of those little plastic greenhouses, and I'm going to experiment with starting my greens in there in early March (kale, collards, spinach, chard, etc). When I plant them in the open ground, they germinate beautifully, but slugs and other critters get them right away when they are young and tender!

Has anyone grown their own peppercorn? It's awfully tempting. A personal supply of fresh black pepper would be great.

I have bees. I let clover grow in the grass in spring. That’s very important for bees. I use no pesticides. I want to KILL people who brag that they use “organic” pesticide. Arsenic, belladonna, digitalis, jimson weed - all these things are organic. All are poisons.

I plant the plants bees love, even if they’re not pretty. Catmint can be floppy and unattractive but bees love it. Lavender, coneflowers, butterfly bushes, caryopteris (the biggest bee magnet of all, but doesn’t bloom until September). Sedum Autumn Joy. I let wild goldenrod & asters grow. Veronicas are also bee magnets. Some are tender perennials, some are great perennials, some can be a little invasive, popping up in my garden or flower pots.

But yes, I used to have far more bees than I have now. I’ve also been a little invaded by carpenter bees.

I use no pesticides and I plant what bees like, etc. Unfortunately, everyone around me drenches everything in poison. My next-door neighbor (very next door, as we're in townhouses), went so far as to spray my clover and kill it.

I have 3/4 acre of mixed grass field. It’s a pain to mow, gets patchy and muddy in spots, and offers little benefit to native insects or pollinators. So this year I want to plant clover seed. I was reading about a variety of mini clover from the US company called Outside Pride that sounded exactly like what I wanted, but while reading reviews on Amazon I saw that the founder of Outside Pride is an outspoken homophobic, conservative asshole. So fuck them.

Can anyone here recommend a seed source for micro clover that’s a company of the organic, liberal variety?

I’m now considering a wildflower bee friendly mix that’s 60% clover (dutch white, not a micro clover, alas) from a brand called Nature’s Seed, but their products have relatively few reviews and I don’t know anything about the company.

I'm growing grape tomatoes on my balcony. I work the vines through the iron railings for support. I'm going to try cucumbers this year; let's see if they can co-exist.

A Pinterest link showed how to grow plants from kitchen scraps, so I've got a celery base in water to sprout it.

And I've got giant pink zinnias started for some color.

R28, I've found this company to be very reputable and dependable, and their seed is very high quality. Their website, not so much. The company is a little bit hippie-dippie but they are committed to the best product. Try them out.

Thanks, r30! That sounds like exactly what I need.

Shoot. Looking at them more closely, the Seed Source folks only focus on seeds, grasses, and plants for the southwest/Texas region and I'm up in Maryland (Mid-Atlantic region). I wonder if there's an equivalent company in my area? Those guys are hippy-dippy but they're just the kind of resource I was hoping to find.

Just sprinkled blood meal in my gardens. A whole bunch of plants have bunny damage already. I think they may have eaten all the Mesa gaillardia I planted last year.

I bought 8 common milkweed online two years ago & planted them. They were very small that year and didn’t get big enough for seed pods. Last year they reached maturity and this year they expanded & I have about 30 of them. I had more but I accidentally cut them when clearing the mock strawberry and ragweeed from the area. Now I have a real milkweed patch. Monarchs should like them.

Turns out the Hot Lips salvia I planted last year is an annual here because it didn’t return.

Lavender I’ve had for years didn’t return, no doubt due to all the rain we had this autumn, winter & spring. Lavenders hate too much water.

Dianthus I bought last year— firewitch - a complete dud. Never grew enough to bloom last year, disappeared this year.

I seem to be missing a lot of coneflowers.

Everything seems like it’s a month behind due to cold weather.

Bought plants from an online gardening place last summer. Most of the plants were n good shape & packed well.

None of the plants came back this year. Not one. They were all listed as perennials.

Will be doing some direct-seeding soon:

Sweet basil- good bee plant, but the birds will peck it to the ground unless I put a chicken wire cage around it.

Tithonia-Great for butterflies. Difficult to germinate as the seeds require light to start growing. I place some on damp paper towels, then transplant the ones that sprout into cellpacks.

Zinnias-found a packet of the ones that are mildew-resistant( Zahara Mix). Grew them last year and enjoyed them, although they were short. Can't seem to find any tall enough for cutting.

Parsley and Dill- for my fave swallowtail butterflies. Once established parsley can be cut back to encourage new growth, dill requires successive seeding to have enough foliage for the caterpillars to munch.

Four O' Clocks- can't hardly beat them for ease of sowing as the seeds are big, and the scent is great in the late afternoon and evening.

Jimsonweed-Wish I could have a big stand of them, they overwhelm even my largest containers. They open just at the right time to provide nectar for moths, some of which are huge, hawkmoth perhaps?

Will be trying Phacelia, Larkspur and Single Hollyhocks(they were my husband's favorites, unfortunately I never saved enough seeds from his family's heirloom ones from Kentucky, so I've had to rely on Burpee. Sorry Granma.)

Butterflyweed, Echinacea( I used to think those were immortal) and Anchusa did not return. Strangely enough my Rosemary did, it's the first time I have not lost one.

Direct seeding presents several challenges, chief of which is providing cover for the seedlings until they are big enough not to be bothered by squirrels. I've given up trying to grow tomatoes because the squirrels seem to get every one.

Why do big box stores sell shelves and shelves of red, hot pink and orange sunpatiens but no white sunpatiens? Sure, you can find a giant potted White sunpatiens with those spike you green plants doe $30, but I'm talking about a shelfull of sunpatiens in a 2 Qt container for $8.99, so I can buy a bunch of them? (All of them, actually). Even garden centres reserve white sunpatiens for giant potted displays while 200 red and orange sunpatiens surround the planter.

This is by far the best post in my 5 months on DL. I love gardening!! I planted lavender for the first time this year... Any tips? Do they really not like that much water?

Six chili pepper plants in the ground or in pots: habaneros and Caribbean Reds. Last week I noticed flower buds starting to set. Won’t be long now.

Lavender prefer dry conditions with occasional watering. They also prefer sandy soil. Think Mediterranean climate.

After reconnoitering it looks like 90% of plants I bought from online nurseries last year didn’t make it this year. The only one to come back and look healthy is blue hills salvia. It’s not beautiful, but it’s reliable.

Plants that didn’t come back

Dianthus cotton candy

Dianthus firewitch

Veronica Christy

Mesa yellow gailardia

Summer phlox, David (I have some in my garden from previous years that’s fine)

Lavender

Penstemon Purple Perfection

Salvia Hot Lips

I’m in Zone 7A.

This is blue hill salvia. Bees love it

I love gardening - but you people have patience. I can’t stand waiting years before a plant grows. And buying new every Spring gets expensive. Plus so many bloom briefly and disappear.

I need a mix of stuff that blooms from June to September. April and May gets tulips, azaleas and rhododendrons - which are great color. But then nothing until mums in the Fall. Would love something that stayed colorful in the summer. Those salvia and amistad look nice.

my beloved iris are succumbing to a fungus i can’t seem to eradicate. i’ve sprayed a copper solution, tried dishwashing detergent, removed all the infected fronds...

Oh I'm so sorry to hear about that R42-- what kind of iris are they? I grow a charming variety called Ceaser's Brother that has the most vibrant blue-purple blooms. Tough as nails but the flowers are super short lived.

R41, the plants that flower all summer are annuals. They come from warm places where they bloom all year round. We can grow them in temperate climate in summer, but yes, they will need to be bought in spring.

Everyone used to use impatiens for color in the garden. They worked great. Unfortunately, there is a fungus that is killing them. They still sellimpatiens in my area, but they really shouldn’t because they won’t survive long before the fungus gets them.

Sunpatiens are an annual hybrid that seem to hold up well, but you can’t buy a flat of them, like you could impatiens. I don’t know why not. They are more expensive than impatiens. because stores only sell them in large sizes.

Petunias are annuals that can bring summer-long color to a garden. They come in cellpacks in big box stores, so you can get them for a good price if you check for sales. Sales usually start Memorial Day weekend.

Salvia Amistad is what’s called a tender perennial. It’s a perennial in warm climates, but in temperate areas, it’s an annual.

It’s trial and error. If you plant perennials you will find that they do what they want to. It was too cold this winter? Not coming back. Too much rain? Not coming back. But one thing you’ll find that is very annoying — they don’t come back where you planted them. They come back 4 inches to the left, or 8 inches to the right. If they established good root systems, they could come back almost a foot away from where you planted them. They decide “this is warmer/dryer/sunnier here than where I was last year. I’ll send up my shoots over here.”

I live in a rich area and see women in their big brimmed hats at the local garden center buying absolutely beautiful plants that will be arranged in a beautiful garden. But I don’t have that kind of money, so I plant native, non-flashy perennials that birds, butterflies and bees like. They’re not pretty like what you see in magazines. I tried planting gorgeous plants and they could tell I am working class and said, “Fuck you.” So I use the tried and true perennials - coneflowers, black eyed Susans, day lilies, daffodils, coreopsis, butterfly bush, catmint, astilbe. I throw some annuals in for color but I just don’t have the eye for arranging things.

Dahlias. In upstate New York, mine continue to blossom until the first freeze. Then after the freeze kills the plant, and before the ground freezes, dig up the tubers and save them for next year. You will find that the tubers have reproduced through the growing season. With luck, you will have a steadily increasing amount of dahlias. They are a great choice for a budget conscious gardener.

This is my garden/lawn inspiration right now.

There are lots of sources to tell you what to plant for color from spring to fall. After the flowering trees and tulips stop blooming, you could have lilacs, iris, peonies, oriental poppies, columbines, lupines, bleeding hearts, all the summer daisies (shasta daisies, black-eyed susans, coneflowers, asters), balloon flowers, lilies and daylilies, delphiniums, phlox, beebalm, and summer/fall flowering shrubs like tea roses, and rose of sharon (hibiscus) . But this all takes a bit of planning and patience, since perennials take 2-3 years to come into their own, and you have to leave space in between them because they'll eventually spread. . So the first few years, plan on planting annuals, or if you don't like to be on your knees that much, sprinkle seeds of easy to grow annuals between the perennials, like shirley poppies, cornflowers, sweet alyssum in early spring, and marigolds, etc when warmer weather comes.

Anyone else love Mrs greenthumbs? Enjoyed her book greatly ...

R46, that would cost well over $100k where I live. I can’t dig standing up - can only dig sitting down due to injuries. If I went to a landscaper where I live, I think ....probably close to $200k.

I wish I lived in a place where that kind of yard was affordable because I like it lot.

What are some good perennials for a yard that doesn't get a huge amount of sunlight through the day?

Hostas are the internet’s favorite shade perennial. If you live in a place without deer or rabbits, hostas are great.

Astilbe are shade plants. They come in lots of colors.

Forget fuschia. It’s a shade plant but it has to have the exact correct conditions or it’s a dud. My gardener friends and I never had any luck with it. It’s fussy

Bleeding heart plants. They are cool weather shade plants There are two kinds that are readily available at garden centers - decentra spectabilis .is old fashioned dicentra with the pink and white hearts. Then there are exima decentras, that are called fern leaf or fringed bleeding hearts. They are not as dainty as the spectabilis but I find them hardier and there are now cultivars that keep the plant in the garden well into summers heart (others disappear in late spring and return the following year.

Spectabilis below

Those look really nice R51 thanks for the help.

eastern long island with major deer problem. Cleomes are technically annuals, but mine reseed and I get a bumper crop every year. they spread randomly so you may need to transplant, but they have elegant blooms on tall stems that last for months.

same true with rose campion.

rose campion

i usually get a flat of verbena bonariensis every spring. they grow quickly will propagate by reseeding, grow quickly, and have beautiful blossoms that are bee and butterfly magnets

One of my favorite accent trees, which to me means small to medium-sized that can be grown close to the roof line and displays interesting color or structure, is Eve’s Necklace. A very sweet tree.

R56 again. Wow! Okay the picture I posted of the blooms make it look very much like a vagina, but I believe the name is derived from the seed pods that develop post blooming.

This is dicentra eximia, the fern leaf variety of bleeding heart. Recent varieties can bloom well into summer. They’re not as pretty as the other version but I like them because they come back reliably.

One of the reasons why I ordered from online nurseries is because I can buy late summer bloomers in spring, plant them and figure out my garden plan. Garden centers and big box stores only sell late summer bloomers in late summer. Excuse me, but all hardy perennials can be planted in spring. If they can force early spring plants in greenhouses, they can force late summer perennials so they can be planted when planning a garden.

I found a Pooh.

I bought a gold heart dicentra for the hell of it. It just arrived and its small. This is how it will look if it grows successfully

yarrow and salvia, always a beautiful combo, both hardy and easy to grow

Lowe's had a lot of Dappled Willows, so I bought three. They are green shrubs topped with white newer growth, and look great with a Japanese Maple (red). At sunset, the light hits the red leaves of the maple and the white of the willow, and it's sort of magical.

Are your goddamn Calla Lillies in bloom, too?

I love color in gardens!

My yellow Calla Lillies are. r64

R53 I ordered some rose campion. How tall and wide do yours get? I’m on LI too, twin forks

I'm done planting for the season except for a couple of geraniums I need to squeeze in somewhere.

I'm in Northern CA and we had torrents of rain this season. The gardens are glorious, including mine. Almost everything is in bloom. I have roses, abutilon, fox glove, butterfly bushes, holly hocks (not blooming yet), mock holly hock blooming ( alcea rosea), geraniums, gazania, tiny mice, some azalea still blooming, hydrangea, salvia, petunias, pansies and a bunch of stuff of forgotten names and various flowering ground covers.

Yet to bloom are crepe myrtles. Also succulents and tall shrubbery and trees for privacy. I planted so the garden blooms year round. I also planted so that no houses are seen from my windows, only green and gardens. The garden is my happy, peaceful place.

I posted a photo of the Tiny Mice (Cuphea llavea), a small flowery shrub that is a hummingbird magnet. Hummingbirds literally hang around in my tall shrubbery feeding on them all day. Tiny mice are harder to find in the nurseries but they do well in No CAL (and elsewhere) and their small blossoms look like little mouse faces with big red ears. Once they get going in early summer they bloom profusely. Cut them back in winter if you want to control the size but you don't have to.

I have a purple coneflower that I bought a few years ago that is about 5’ tall. The garden center I bought it from is under new management and doesn’t know what specific kind it is. Does anyone know which kind of purple coneflower grows this tall? I’d like to get more, but when I search for tallest purple coneflower I get results claiming the tallest coneflower “with giant blooms.” And in the height section it says “3 feet.” Mine looks like a regular coneflower, just much taller. I have it planted up against gray fence railing, with my gray house behind it and it looks so good.

I find everyone gushes over Pow Wow coneflowers, but I don’t like them. They look fake and I never see bees, butterflies or goldfinches on them, which is why I plant coneflower.

R60 I had that Pooh bank when I was a little kid back in the 70s.

Southern coastal garden here. This year I've planted a bunch of pintas . They're colorful, easy to grow and can take the heat. I've got a townhouse, so I do container garden it's great therapy after I watch the news.

I got white clover from Johnnys Seeds and it has done well. I plant it as a living mulch to fix nitrogen.

White clover is great as a lawn, durable yet soft on bare feet.

The bees do seem to love it!

Pintas or Pentas, R71? I don’t know pintas, but I know Pentas really attract butterflies, especially in early autumn up north here when all the other flowers are pooping out.

We don’t get butterflies, especially monarchs, til late summer. If you only have a small amount of land you can plant a milkweed in a pot. You may need to stake it — I use those green bamboo sticks and a twist tie. Works fine. This year my milkweeds have spread out a lot. No butterfly activity yet, though. Too early and rainy.

R22 I really like Santa Rosa Gardens. Always had good luck with them.

AND a big "yes" to Dave's Garden. Best website for plant info as well as sources for favorite plants.

Doing canas this year. From bulbs from a neighbor I planted in May. They grow like 2 feet and give a great bloom in August. A great feeling of accomplishment because they grow so fast.

Santa Rosa gardens has good half price sales starting in early summer but be aware some of the plants won’t be as nice as the full priced ones when they arrive. They need some TLC til they fill out. But it’s a good deal if you give TLC.

Bluestone Perennials is expensive. They have a few 50% off plants, but not many. But I have to say their plants are good & healthy and well packed. You can get some things other nurseries don’t carry (for full price) and they have stuff when less expensive nurseries have sold out. I stupidly bought one agastache RosiePosie half price & wish I’d bought more. The shipping costs can be onerous.

R68, you better hold onto your Tiny Mice cuphea. I tried to find it online & couldn’t. One nursery said Tiny Mice is no longer on the market in the US.

They have it in the UK, but not here. Dunno why not.

I ended up losing a number of plants while I was in a hospital/nursing home. My ex and brother both looked after my plants, but there were still a few that were lost while I was away. But I figure I now have room for a few new ones. Every so often, I treat myself to something truly unique: most of them end up on my barely heated sunporch. I have this bizarre plant coming within a day or so: it's like a Dr Seuss creation: basically, a shrubby dandelion from the Canary Islands.

I used to buy seeds from Annie’s Annuals years ago. I didn’t know they sell plants now.

I’m planning on starting a mostly Organic garden. Here’s what I’m planning so far

Herbs: Genovese Basil, Oregano, Dill, Parsley, Lavender, Rosemary, Chives, German Extra Hardy Garlic, Santo Cilantro, Thyme, Sage

Vegetables: Farao Cabbage, , Clemson Okra, Lunchbox Sweet Peppers, Dunja Zucchini, Corinto Cucumbers, Big Tomatoes (Wisconsin 55) San Marzano Tomatoes, Sun Gold Tomatoes, Cherry Bomb Tomatoes, Yellowfin Squash, E-Z pick Green Beans, Corn (Xtra Tender 2171), Olympus Bell Peppers, Parade Onions, Toscano Kale, Win Win Bok Choy, Dark Red Norland Potato, Bastan poblano pepper, Capperino cherry pepper, Carrots

Fruits: Elan Strawberries, Bing Cherries, Blackberries, Raspberries, Crimson Sweet Watermelon, Honeywhite Honeydew, Divergent Cantaloupe

What are some of your favorite hot peppers to grow? I’m looking for things that will be good in salsas or Mexican cooking

Aw crap, my swamp milkweed got infected by tussock moth caterpillar before I knew what was happening the ate the plants down to a stalk. Last year I had aphids, but was able to control them.

I didnt check on my common milkweed plants way in the back yard because of the heat wave. I looked out my window and saw dying, yellow plants. Holy hell, a fungus called the yellows infected them all within 2 days, thanks to being spread by milkweed bugs.

I'm not going to have much of a year when it comes to monarchs. And so many of them laid eggs on my plants, too. But the leaves are just shriveling up and dying.

Live and learn. Next year I will be on the lookout for tussock eggs. Those little fuckers are my incarnata overnight. I turned over leaves that were left and there were scores of the tussock caterpillars. Today I killed a bunch that migrated to my coneflowers. They are horrible pests.

R82, That's a shame about the problems you're having with milkweeds. I always had difficulty keeping the orange butterfly weed alive, although I've seen it thriving in different places. But I never had problems with common or swamp milkweeds. They always seemed incredibly tough. Then again, there's a highway enbankment near my BF's house that's full of butterfly weed, which gets mowed with a brush hog several times a year, but still always had plenty of butterfly weed blooming.

For the most part, I've only purchased house/conservatory plants recently. Most of them are outdoors for the summer, but indoors, I have a crossandra infundibuliformis in bloom in my dining room: it has interesting flowers in a strange shade of salmon-orange. I also have a Hawaiian tree fern that I ordered on eBay: right now, it's just a stump that I'm hoping to root and nurse along. I know I managed to get one to grow a long time ago. Outdoors (just for the summer), I have a papyrus plant, a collection of little edible fig plants that I bought on eBay, which I need to nurse to a larger size before I try planting them outdoors. And I have a pachystachys lutea (golden shrimp plant), which isn't hardy, but is attracting hummingbirds right now. I think I'm going to have to cut it back this fall when I move it indoors, since it's growing like gangbusters (sample photo attached).

Plants just don't seem to be doing well in any of my beds this except for gaillardia "goblin" I planted from seed last year and coreopsis "moonbeam."

The coneflowers I planted 2 years ago are smaller than they were last summer. Much smaller. It was a cold, wet, long spring, but all springs in the past few years have been cold & wet & long, then it's suddenly 85 degrees.

My fairy roses are kaput. I think deer ate the early buds. Now I've got leaf hoppers and some kind of bug is eating my salvia guaraniticas before they bloom. My poor little hummingbirds are so bummed. .

I planted a salvia plumosa and it is SO ugly & floppy I'm tearing it out & replacing with yarrow. Salvia plumosa looks NOTHING like all the photos I've seen online.

And new neighbors moved in. After 20 years of gardening as therapy & quiet reflection these assholes play loud, pounding rap and auto tune garbage ENDLESSLY. They stuck a pool in the middle of their yard, and it's surrounded by the weed choked dirt piles made with the earth that was dug up when the pool was put in last year. They scream their heads of day & night.. I quickly hired landscapers to plant arborvitae along the property line but could only afford 3 footers, so I'm completely exposed to these creepy critters who watch me move around my yard. Pure trash and......their trashy relatives bought a house adjoining theirs in the corner & cut down trees that had been planted yeas ago as a barrier so they could run back and forth between houses. So I'm exposed to both houses.

This is no slum - houses now sell for $1M. Money doesn't buy class, especially when it's from Bensonhurst.

R42

R84, I've planted some very nice hybrid coneflowers at my BF's house, and they don't seem to last long. On the other hand, I've planted the very common pink coneflower at my brother's house, and not only does it thrive, but there are coneflower volunteers popping up all over the place. I don't know what type you have, but I can attest that the hybrid sorts seem pretty fussy. I've never been able to grow gaillardia. I think it needs sunnier, more open conditions than I can offer. I liked the old common name 'Indian Blanket Flower' that used to be used, before it was decided it was inappropriate. On the other hand, I have an old gardening book from the '20s that uses some extremely rude terms when discussing them, and I can't imagine that polite people every spoke that way (although I know better).

"Goblin" is the only reliable blanket flower I've ever planted. It didn't flower last year (planted from seed in jiffy pod) because it was the first year. It's blooming like crazy this year. Next year half of them probably won't come back and the ones that do will be smaller. The year after that, none will return. It's reliably a plant that lasts two or three years for me.

I've bought Mesa yellow gaillardia from an online nursery and it blooms like crazy but never comes back. I put them in front of my coneflowers last year and this year, but I've planted coreopsis moonbeam in between the mesas so that I won't have to buy them again. The coreopsis is doing well and should be nice and big next year.

There were two frisky monarchs in my yard today and they went to my Common milkweed and laid eggs but I'm sure the plants will be dead from fungus in two weeks. I started some volunteer Swamp milkweed way, way in my backyard and they were flying around checking it out, but the seedlings are too small for caterpillars to survive on.

I hate those fucking tussock moth caterpillars and am squishing them every day. They are very destructive to trees as well as to milkweed and I squished a few on my King coneflower.

I don't like Pow Wow coneflowers. They haven't come back in my coneflower garden nearly as big as they were last year when I planted them, and a few I planted in a sunny spot at the side of my house never came up this year. Fuck em. My King coneflower sent up seedlings this year, so I replanted them next to the pow wows because I don't think the pow wows will be back next year.

Has anyone here tried growing the seeds of Ghost or Scorpion peppers and if so how did they turn out?

I've got 5 monarch caterpillars on my milkweed.

Wish me luck

I've had Zebra Swallowtails laying eggs on my pawpaw trees, as they do every year. But the birds always seem to get the caterpillars. Still, as long as I have pawpaw trees, I get to see Zebra Swallowtails. At my brother's house, I have a pipevine (aristolochia) planted. It's the host plant for the Pipevine Swallowtail, and he's always telling me how many 'black butterflies' he has visiting it and laying eggs.

R91, Good luck with the caterpillars!

I live in an apartment. My gardening consists of a single window box. I planted one geranium , salvia and lobelia because they all do well on my balcony but for the first time ever I grew nasturtium from seed. Only four sprouted from 10 seeds and they've taken over : they're apricot, yellow and orange in colour so I'm really pleased.

Oh no. I went out and looked at the caterpillars at dusk and one is hanging in a straight line & deflating. It's got NPV, a highly contagious caterpillar virus. It will die and the others are probably infected as well :(

I've had some red and black bugs on my hot peppers plants.

I tried Four O'clocks for the first time this year. I had white, red, pink and magenta...they are neat plants, however, they tend to bloom closer to 6-7 o'clock or later, especially on hotter days.

I’m loving Cannas - huge stem with beautiful red flower. So fulfilling to be able to SEE them grow - unlike the little ones that take forever to grow 6 inches. I kept the bulbs inside in winter and planted in June - they have all doubled and are almost 3 feet tall. A great plant for late summer drama.

Next year I'm pulling out all my lilies and replacing with coreopsis. Not one lily bloomed because deer and rabbits ate them before they opened up.

They even ate my coneflowers & black eyed Susans. My yard was virtually colorless this year except for my blue hydrangeas. And I asked my landscaper to cut down my hydrangeas last year so I could replace them with butterfly bushes and dwarf chaste trees and he wouldn't do it. Too difficult.

The rabbits are getting bold. When I toss seeds on the ground for my Guinea fowl at least one rabbit scampers out of my garden to eat the seeds.

I cut down a beach grass that planted itself next to my pool and planted a dwarf chaste tree. Let's see how that does. Hopefully rabbits don't like it.

R93, I love nasturtiums! I haven't grown them since I was a kid. The leaves and flowers are edible. I actually did grow a climbing, tuberous nasturtium several years back on my sun porch. I loved it!

R97, Years ago, I had a planting of tall cannas and tithonia, and planted hyacinth beans at the base, so they could climb through the taller plants.

Right now, my new favorite plant is an old-fashioned fuchsia which is covered with blooms. I haven't grown them for many years, so it's sort of surprised me how well it's been doing in this hot summer.

R81 have you tried growing Jalapeno peppers?