48 Comments

• 1. Holly  |  March 7th, 2006 at 10:07 pm

  i think the machine you were looking for is “tiller”

  last year when i went on the quest for the garden i sprayed weed and grass killer on the area that was to be the flower bed. then we dug up the dead stuff after a week, added a few bags of topsoil, and planted the flowers. it worked nicely. if you have a large area to dig up, use a tiller. i just happened to have preteen boys that were getting on my nerves in the house so they were my garden machines.

• 2. crazyjane  |  March 7th, 2006 at 10:16 pm

  it’s called a rototiller! you can probably rent one somewhere but, even better, i’ve seen signs that people will bring one to your house and do it for you!

• 3. Jenn  |  March 7th, 2006 at 10:19 pm

  Right, so apparently, I’ve already screwed up. Just looked online and Ox-Eye Daisy is officially a NOXIOUS WEED. But they sold it to me! In a seed packet! WE PLANTED IT IN A LITTLE GREENHOUSE ON OUR KITCHEN TABLE!

• 4. the Mater  |  March 7th, 2006 at 10:25 pm

  Gosh, Jenn, I’m feeling so bad for you these days … and you know I’m not the one to dispense with the green-thumb advice. But I did understand you perfectly and there are tillers that can overturn soil … heck, how about a horse and plow? You loved Little House on the Prairie when you were a kid.

  Can’t understand why the woman in the garden shop didn’t understand you? Why don’t you take the noxious weed back and ask for a refund?

  Good luck. Your kind readers will offer more advice I’m sure.

• 5. Kristen  |  March 7th, 2006 at 10:51 pm

  What you need is a “Garden Weasel”, at least I think that’s what it’s called. That was pretty funny, by the way. First time here- your blog name caught my eye…wish I’d thought of it!

• 6. Bethany  |  March 7th, 2006 at 11:09 pm

  “I want something that doesn’t need me.”

  Hee! Love it.

  I have a machine that digs up sod and weeds. It’s called my husband, and he swears a lot when he’s doing it. He swears even more when I let the whole thing fill back up with sod and weeds again instead of planting it like I said I would. My machine doesn’t work anymore.

  Good luck!

• 7. ozma  |  March 7th, 2006 at 11:29 pm

  You are so funny.

• 8. Mir  |  March 7th, 2006 at 11:47 pm

  I want a Garden Weasel just because I like the name. And because I know lots of weasels and it seems like one of them ought to help with the garden, at least.

  Oh, sorry. Were we talking about you?

• 9. TRF  |  March 8th, 2006 at 12:27 am

  “Garden machines”? ROFLOL! I’ve failed you.
  You don’t need a garden machine. You need therapy and it is instantly available to you, along with a way to keep the daughters occupied. The area along your northern border with your neighbor’s house had nice stuff planted. As it now starts growing, sit with daughters on the ground and pull everything out, bit by bit, one by one, as it pops up. Good, mindless therapy! Replant your potted seeds into this newly cleared area. Cheap, therapeutic, and BEAUTIFUL when it blooms. Like you and your daughters.

• 10. TRF  |  March 8th, 2006 at 12:28 am

  After submitting the above post, the blog says “Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
  What?

• 11. margalit  |  March 8th, 2006 at 12:39 am

  Jenn,

  Email me and I’ll be glad to help you start a garden in western MA. I’ve grown several there (lower down near CT). First, you can rent a ROTOTILLER at any of those URent Stores. You can also probably look in your local weekly paper and find someone that will till your garden under for maybe $25-50 depending on the size.

  You want to rototill three times; Once to get rid of the sod and break up the clumps (which you REMOVE and do not dig under else you will have weeds galore). The second time is to get down deeper, as you haven’t tilled in a while so you want to be able to go down in the topsoil at least 6″. Then you spread lime, compost, and whatever else your soil needs (get a soil test from your local extension agent) and till that in again. Let it rest for a couple of days before you plant anything.

  It is WAY too early to start tilling. I usually wait till mid April to even think about it, and then consider planting around May 1. That can be dangerous if the weather is unforgiving.

  The seedlings you planted need to be in a cold frame or they will get too spindly and won’t grow very well. Cold frames are VERY easy to make and you can probably find the materials for free. Make a simple box, put hinges on an old window, hinge them to the box, and then put the plants inside it. Use mulch to keep the plants from freezing. All of this can be found by looking in garden books.

  Are you planning to grow veggies as well as flowers? Because you probably want PERENNIALS, not annuals. They’re easier to keep and you can find people to give you some for free if you want to come and dig up and divide plants. For example, I have a HUGE siberian Iris that I want to divide into about 6 plants, and I’m going to advertise on craigslist for someone to dig it up and divide it for free plants.

  Anything else you want to know, just ask. Gardening is my passion and I love to talk about it.

• 12. Spot the Wonder Dog  |  March 8th, 2006 at 12:51 am

  $25-50 would buy and awful lot of nice silk flowers.

  Let me give you a little word of warning, take it or leave it…

  Gardens are fun to plan. Gardens are fun to plant.

  Gardens look like @#$%^&* if you don’t weed them on a regular basis.

  Weeding= not so fun.

• 13. nolamom  |  March 8th, 2006 at 12:57 am

  My daughter Moira who is 3, wants to plant flowers in a garden so bad, and her mom only has black thumbs, not green ones. HAHA. My idea of a flower garden is pretty plastic pots that you can put silk flowers in, and I know that sounds terrible, but it is the truth. The only thing I could ever grow was roses, and its because like you said Jenn, “they don’t need me.”
  Love your site, visit everyday and love to see new entries. Thanks Jenn.

• 14. Khali  |  March 8th, 2006 at 1:05 am

  Ox-eyes are considered weeds only because they are very hard to get rid of once they’ve taken hold in an area. This means they don’t need you, which is why the lady probably sold them to you. =) (same with a plant we call “poached egg flowers” but I think they’re so pretty.) “Weed” after all, is a matter of perception, especially when you’re trying to grow something else in the same area. If you have any q’s at all, let me know. My mother’s a Master Gardener so I can always pick her brain!

• 15. Sami Zahringer  |  March 8th, 2006 at 1:55 am

  Upon reading your post, I immediately thought, Aaah, Jenn needs a “DR Field and Brush mower”TM but then, reading the other posts, I realized that what you did, in fact, really need was just a tiller. But I always overdo it. And am never to be listened to, under any circumstances, especially drunken circumstances after a fabulous win at Team Trivia Tuesdays at the local pub. A win that will live in Trivia legend or, at least, until the headache clears.

  Good luck with th garden! Sounds like it could be a fun project.

• 16. sweatpantsmom  |  March 8th, 2006 at 4:13 am

  Well, first you need a shovel…

• 17. sogal  |  March 8th, 2006 at 6:56 am

  sounds like we need a new blog for gardening with jenn….

  i too am designing a new garden this year at my new residence. from 8x10 plot in the brownstone front yard to a huge (to me) 25x35 backyard that has had NOTHING done to it in donkeys years.

  its going to be a busy spring!

• 18. teresa  |  March 8th, 2006 at 7:13 am

  What you need is a tiller. They have big ones that you can rent that run on gas …or you could just pick up a small push one. We use one to tear up the grass easily when creating a new garden. Good luck with the seedlings. I’m too lazy for that. I usually but full grown plants and plant them right in the yard. I’m into instant gratification!

• 19. Contrary  |  March 8th, 2006 at 7:20 am

  I actually have a tiller. I don’t use it, or have a garden or like to get my hands dirty, but it’s there if I should ever feel the need!

  I think I expressed envy over my mother-in-law’s (beautiful!) garden one time and next thing you know, she’s sending me her old tiller and buying herself a new one. I think I was just her excuse to feed her tiller habit.

  You’re welcome to borrow it, but I think it would make more financial sense to just rent one, what with gas money to Texas being in the Kajillion dollar range and all.

• 20. mama_tulip  |  March 8th, 2006 at 8:43 am

  Yeah, good luck with that. Me and my Black Thumbs of Death will go on killing plant life at an alarmingly fast rate.

• 21. kelly  |  March 8th, 2006 at 9:05 am

  Yea, that’s the thing with the perennial border seed packs, a lot of the perennials are now considered noxious weeds, but don’t fret! If you’re looking for low maintenance, sweeping beauty, long-blooming flowers that’s fine! You don’t have to do much once they’re in and getting established.

  Rototilling’s one idea if you’re looking for the instant satisfaction of seeing nice loamy soil, but keep in mind that it also stirs up a whole lot of weed seed and brings it to the surface. Also, if there’s lovely perennials buried underneath all of that weed mess, you’re killing off some already established plants. Do you have a good friend or relative who knows a little bit about what plants look like and would come over and help you dig it out with a shovel and a digging fork? Wish I was there, I’d be all over that! Then you can fill in with the new plants.

  How big is the garden bed?

• 22. Nancy  |  March 8th, 2006 at 9:33 am

  I absolutely cannot provide any assistance. My husband and I moved from a house with two cats in a yard to a townhouse with mulch and bushes and absolutely no yard. The only source of gardening stress is a little 2 foot by 2 foot patch of dirt that may or may not have a rose bush growing in it. Even that tiny bit of “gardening” is enough to give me nightmares….

  GOOD LUCK!

• 23. Nancy  |  March 8th, 2006 at 9:34 am

  That was supposed to be “…two cats in the yard…” per CS&N. Also, we did not get rid of the cats, they are now two cats in the house.

• 24. elsimom  |  March 8th, 2006 at 9:40 am

  How can the Agway lady not know you need a rototiller? I was just about shouting at the screen when reading this.

  Rototiller. A Shovel?!!! What’re you some kind of sadist? do you live in the 18th century? Maybe you’d like to suggest a horse-drawn plow? The woman needs a rototiller! Geesh.

  Go for the perennials. With a little bit of planning, you can have beautiful flowers and very little work. Also, the perennials usually look better than the annuals when they’re done flowering - so if a few weeds creep in, they won’t show as much. The one good thing about annuals is they will bloom repeatedly if you keep trimming them. We’ve had great luck with the miniature snapdragons. Beautiful colors, low maintenance. They “self-seed” so you’ll see them popping up in other places the next year - kinda fun!

  Finally - I didn’t see any mention here of mulch.
  Plant the perennials. Surround them with mulch. It cuts down on the weeding considerably AND you can tell the kiddos to pull anything that is sticking up through the mulch - making them your weeders. My kids actually love helping in the yard.
  Mulch works great around fruits and veggies too. Pumpkins are a really fun thing to grow with kids- because you can really see them growing.

  Last, but not least, you can get kid-sized gardening gloves. If your kids don’t like getting the mud on their fingers, or if the weeds are dry and scratchy, the gloves are the ticket!!!

  Good luck - may your garden bloom!

• 25. Vikki  |  March 8th, 2006 at 9:52 am

  As someone who has been trying to control her yard and gardens for the past 10 years, I have the following advice: Beware the Black-Eyed Susans! They are gorgeous and I love them but they spread like crazy. I wanted a nice tidy garden and they went crazy. I ended up pulling them all up. But, I’m also the person that gave my spider plant a crew cut because it was just “looking too unruly”.

• 26. Amy  |  March 8th, 2006 at 9:56 am

  How big are the garden beds you want to renovate?

  C. and I have been gradually claiming parts of our front lawn and making them in to garden beds. We start by removing the sod (by hand, with shovels and mattocks), and then putting in a bed edger to keep the grass from re-invading the nice new beds. Then we add soil & compost to replace the soil lost when we removed the sod, and plant things.

  With regards to keeping your garden relatively weed free with relatively little effort, use mulch. Mulch the heck out of it. Mulch is organic material (we use chipped bark on our more permanent flower beds, grass and fallen leaves on our vegetable beds) that you put down in a fairly thick layer between your plants. It keeps light from reaching the soil, so weed seeds can’t germinate, but allows water to percolate through. It also regulates the soil temperature and moisture content, making your plants less vulnerable to drought (so you don’t have to be quite as on top of watering things as you otherwise would need to be). Mulch is the lazy/busy gardener’s friend.

  With respect to rototilling: I don’t trust it, because it breaks up the soil texture and brings dormant weed seeds to the surface. There are also some common weeds in our area that don’t propogate by seed, but rather by root cutting, so chopping up their root systems with a rototiller just makes them happier by spreading them around. If you do decide to rototill, you need to wait until later in the year, after mud season. If you do it while the soil is too wet, it basically dries out and hardens in to a concrete like substance, rather than nice fluffy soil.

  Our average last frost date around here is the end of May-ish. All of the plants that you mentioned are at least kind of frost sensitive, especially when young, so you need to wait to plant them out until after the danger of frost is over. We ususally plant all of our frost tender plants (and I can give you more detail about which are frost tender and which aren’t) the first weekend in June. Basically, you’ve got a while to wait before planting things out.

  Lessee, what else? Oh right, invasive species. As far as I know Ox-eye daisy isn’t invasive (probably what the internet site you were reading meant by “noxious”) in our climate. Invasive species are non-natives plants that dominate and out-compete native species, often establishing areas where they’re the only thing growing. One of the interesting things about invasive species is that how invasive a plant is is climate dependent. Things which will absolutely take over down in Connecticut can sometimes be pretty tame around here because the cold keeps them from thriving. But it is true that garden centers will sometimes sell invasive species, though the good ones don’t.

  Are you interested in herbs? C. and I need to do some dividing in the spring, and we’ll probably be looking for homes for the divisions we can’t use. (Divisions are just part of a grown plant that are dug up and transplanted) (Getting plants and divisions from other local gardeners is an inexpensive and pretty easy way of getting garden plants going. Starting seedlings can be a lot of fun, but it can also be frustrating, as more things can go wrong with wee baby plants than with study grown up plants). I think we’re especially going to have some chive, oregano, and marjoram looking for homes.

• 27. Lisa  |  March 8th, 2006 at 9:56 am

  I know you can do this….because I have been slowly but surely putting out all sorts of great plants around my yard and home and they come back all the time. I also do BOXES (rectangle planters) of really fun flowers that last all summer long. Then I can just be done with it when the season is over. If you do the flower boxes put some gravel or small pebbles in the bottom of the flower box and make sure there are small drain holes in the bottom of the container. Then in goes the dirt. If I can do this….you can do this.

  I have HOLLYHOCKS in my yard! They are outstanding! I could send you some seeds if you’d like!

• 28. goslyn  |  March 8th, 2006 at 10:38 am

  Congrats on starting your garden! Don’t worry about “not knowing what you’re doing” - most plants do just fine with some sunshine and some water. You don’t have to go all crazy with them. Just water them. They do the rest.

  I am a consummate gardener … and I started much like you did, with a few packets of seed and some seed starting mix. You can do this. It is ok to just rip out whats there and start new. It’s YOUR garden.

  With regards to the cold frame - they are a great idea if you want to put it together, especially since you probably can’t plant outdoors for 3 more months. If you don’t want to do that, you can pinch back your seedlings if they get to long and stringy (leggy). Email me if you want more information on how or when to do this.

  If you DO decide to use a cold frame, don’t put your seeds in it utnil they have sprouted and grown at least two pair of real leaves - the ‘first” leaves you see are called seed leaves. They don’t count.

  Also, many of the perinnials you started (like your hollyhocks) probably won’t bloom this year. It takes hollyhocks and many other perinnials one growing season to become established. They will be gorgeous NEXT year. Your daisies should bloom this year, though. Same with the black-eyed susans. If you want color this year in the garden, i suggest buying a few already started plants from a nursery. That way you have the best of both worlds.

  Seriously, email me if you have any other questions. I love gardening and helping out new gardners!

• 29. JustLinda  |  March 8th, 2006 at 10:44 am

  “I want something that doesn’t NEED me.” ROFL - perfect, perfect way to qualify your requirements to a salesperson. LOL Yes, yes — I’ll take two of what you are having, assuming it won’t ever NEED me. LOL

• 30. Rachel  |  March 8th, 2006 at 11:32 am

  As others have noted, if you’re looking to dig up a malfunctioning garden bed and start over you probably want a rototiller. We rented one last year from the Carr’s Hardware on North Street in Pittsfield. We ran it over the patches where we wanted new lawn and meadow, scattered seeds, watered them, and voila!

  (It’s a big heavy thing, though; I don’t know if it would be comfortable for you to use. I didn’t try. *g*)

• 31. Lisa  |  March 8th, 2006 at 11:51 am

  That was a great line wasn’t it? Just something that won’t need me.

• 32. Sara  |  March 8th, 2006 at 12:39 pm

  If you want low-maintenence, may I recommend impatiens? They are frost-sensitive, so definitely wait a few months, but they are easy to grow (just stick them in the ground - I distinctly remember being charged with this task when I was a small thing.) They also do NOT need you - they like partial to full sun, and the seed pods they grow are the coolest thing EVER - they look like little footballs, and then you give them a gentle squeeze, at which point they burst, curling up into a neat little curly shape (hard to describe, sorry.) The point, I think, is that that’s how they spread their seeds. The real point is that hunting for those seed pods can keep small children entertained for *minutes.* Minutes, I tell you.
  Another very, er, independent choice would be cosmos. You can start them as a seed or get some plants, but they are hardy things, and even though both of the flowers I’ve mentioned are supposed to be annuals in your climate, my mom’s garden on Long Island always has some come back the next year - they even grow between the cracks of the bricks on the patio! They’re pretty too.

  Good luck with the garden.

• 33. hollygee  |  March 8th, 2006 at 12:51 pm

  How about ignoring what’s underneath and planting what you want on top? Get a book called Lasagne Gardening. She doesn’t tell you how to plant veg for lasagne, but shows you how to layer wet newspaper, peat moss, compost, and then layer again until you’ve built up the garden foundation you want. The worms will take care of the underneath part and you never have to think of it again. NO DIGGING NEEDED.

• 34. Chris  |  March 8th, 2006 at 2:43 pm

  My first bit of advice would be not to go back to that gardening store. For being so unhelpful they really shouldn’t get your business, and it sounds like they don’t really know what they’re talking about anyway.

  Beyond that, I’d happily blather on for hours about gardening and such things, but I’ll spare you… for the most part.

  Before you rototill you should make sure the plants that have invaded your existing beds are not ones that would be spread by tilling. Also, tilling is not strictly necessary - we’ve never tilled our garden and it does quite fine.

  I’ll second Amy (disclaimer: I’m her husband) in singing the praises of mulch. Mulch is an especially nice way to deal with fallen leaves, if you keep them around from the previous fall. Grass works well too, but you have to be careful that you use cuttings that do NOT include grass seeds. Caveat - heavy mulch will get you more slugs, but it also gets you more earthworms and so many fewer weeds that it’s totally worth while.

  Raised garden beds are really nice, but maybe not worth pursuing if you don’t have access to a decent amount of soil. Similarly with ‘lasagne’ garden beds.

  For starting out gardening you shoudl not get discouraged if your seedlings don’t take - just ask any gardener you know if they have extra seedlings (usually they do), or buy started plants at a nursury or farmers market or some such (but not the gardening store that you just visited).

  If you do want herbs (which are typically perreniel and very low maintenance), not only can you have some of our divisions, we’d be happy to show up at your house and put them in the ground (and talk about other gardening stuff if you’re interested).

  Some good beginning vegetables to grow: Garlic, Lettuce, Bush Bean, Broccoli, Cherry Tomato

  Some good beginning flowers/decorative plants (annuals): Cosmos, Impatiens, Coleus

  Some good beginning flowers/decorative plants (perreniels): Daffodil, Hyacinth, Lily, ferns of various kinds

• 35. Jenn  |  March 8th, 2006 at 2:57 pm

  You guys are so good!

  We’re steering clear of veggies, as the whole area had its soil polluted by GE a while back, and we’re not sure we want radioactive vegetables.

  Annuals, too hard, I think. I’m going for all perennials! I can’t build a cold box because I still have a kitchen to finish painting, and, well, I don’t know how to build anything so it would only make me cry and feel like more of a failure.

  So what if I just keep my little seedlings inside until early summer, then put them on the porch for cool evenings, THEN plant them?

  More questions for you:

  Can I use pine needles as mulch?

  What is a mattock?

• 36. Jenn  |  March 8th, 2006 at 2:59 pm

  And I really like the lasagne idea!

• 37. the Mater  |  March 8th, 2006 at 3:30 pm

  What is a mattock?

  It’s an old actor, Andy Griffith, who plays a lawyer on TV :>)

• 38. w.o.p.d.  |  March 8th, 2006 at 3:50 pm

  Like painting a kitchen, this is all WAY over my head. My favorite line was, “I want something to be that straightforward in my life. Nothing is straightforward here and it hurts.” This morning’s example from the windy city: why isn’t changing the little name tag thing on the buzzer by the front door straightforward? Why does it entail a key, a special label maker and special chemical stuff that removes sticky chemical stuff?

  I hope to graduate to paint and gardens. Right now I’m consummed with convincing the prom date that putting together the crib is a little higher on the priority list than our 37th carbon monoxide detector (he says he’s feeling very “protective” of the family) and re-arranging the books on the bookshelf so that they are “topical.”

• 39. R J Keefe  |  March 8th, 2006 at 4:18 pm

  One word: pachysandra.

• 40. Betsy  |  March 8th, 2006 at 4:46 pm

  I’m with hollygee on the lasagna gardening. I’m the laziest gardener around, so it was perfect for me! (I didn’t screw around with the book or trying to do it right or anything like that and it still worked!)

  I just layered old paper bags, compost and newspaper and then stuck mulch over it to cover up the newspaper. The next year I twisted it all around with my Garden Claw and it was ready to go.

  I agree with everyone who said “Mulch!” too. You can spread mulch around dandelions and onion grass and (if you squint) your garden will look professionally tended. It is the pressed powder of gardening.

• 41. usch  |  March 8th, 2006 at 5:37 pm

  Wow. gardening over there looks so complicated. Frost? Sod? Annuals? Here in Australia life is much simpler. This is what we do, no idea if it will work where you are.

  If you want to kill of entire garden beds full of weeds without chemicals I suggest those big black plastic bin liners cut open to form squares, or any large piece of plastic, stretched out over the offending bed and left to cook in the sun for about a week. Once the plastic bag is removed you simply (with gloves) pull up anything that still has a root system, which is easy, because they’re all dead anyway. And there you go! A nice clean garden bed ready for the planting of stuff.

  My favourite way of keeping down the weeds, apart from mulch, is to pre-empt the weed invasion by planting my own selected weeds, which take over the garden bed in an oh so pretty way. Violets are my favourite ground cover, and nothing intimidates lavender and rosemary if you want some nice smelling bushes that will just grow on their own.

  Also I suggest a mattock, because they’re so much fun for releasing anger, and you can get into a rhythm and sing african spirituals. Make sure you wear boots, and dogs and small children are firmly out of the way.

  http://images.orgill.com/200x200/6206270.JPG - mattock.

  wow. I really didn’t mean to keep typing like that.

• 42. Barb  |  March 8th, 2006 at 7:24 pm

  Sounds like you have a project ahead of you!
  When you unearth all those worms, bugs, centipedes, critters, slugs, creepy crawlers ETC. Please leave on your side of the fence!

  And, have you forgotten to make your dr. appointment,? I can see that all this gardening talk has made us forget the “other ” important problem in your life! ( I Told your Mom I would take over the nagging! )

• 43. Chris  |  March 8th, 2006 at 7:48 pm

  Pine needles work quite fine as a mulch. You’ll want to add some other things as well (eg. a sprinkle of garden lime, some birch and maple leaves, grass clippings, whatever - variety is the spice of mulching, or something like that) since they tend to acidify the soil over time.

  Annuals are often easier than perrenials to keep alive (for one season). For your long term garden needs, go with perrenials, but this year it might be worth buying a 6-pack of pre-sprouted impatiens or some such to fill things out (or in, or sideways if that’s what floats your boat ) until the hollyhocks get going.

  Mattocks are handy for sod-breaking, but probably overkill for what you want.

• 44. J-  |  March 8th, 2006 at 11:28 pm

  I went through exactly the same thing way out west here- grabbed a shovel and went to work- it is damn hard work. I’m not a wuss (okay maybe a little) but I was in REALLY good shape and it still kicked my ass doing less than a 1/4 of the garden. SO I got some guys to come out and give me quotes to finish the job. I think that’s what you need:a nice crew of guys that will come in, machines in hand and till your garden under, and remove the clumps- etc. The best part about hiring a crew to do it is the heaviest thing you’ll have to lift is the martini you’re holding, while watching the sweaty mens.
  After the yard was tilled and made ready, my Dad and I laid out the sprinkler system and he and my husband laid the sod in an afternoon. Good luck!

• 45. elsimom  |  March 9th, 2006 at 10:41 am

  One detriment to the pine needles, besides the acidifying that someone mentioned -although azaleas, which are perennials in many parts of the country, like some acid. The needles might not be as kid friendly as some other types of mulch (a little pricky, you know.)
  Pachysandra - beautiful, totally easy. Great idea RJ!!!!

  It’s probably too late for this year - but if the whole thing goes well, you could think about doing some bulbs next fall. Many bulbs create perennials that start peaking up in the spring just when you need a little happiness. Highly recommended!

  So excited for you! Perennials are a blast, and it really is soul-lightening to have something pretty in your yard.

• 46. Patti  |  March 9th, 2006 at 1:30 pm

  Oh dear!

  Gardens are not fun unless you have oodles of free time and enjoy being on your hands and knees with sweat trickling down your back and bugs zooming in and out of your many face holes. I like flowers too. I buy 2-3 pots full every spring and by July I let nature take them back because there’s no way in HADES VAST LAVABED I would spend the hours needed to prune, pluck and de-weed anything that grew out of the ground. I barely feel like watering during the “acceptable” times of day. Before 9:00am???…I’m lucky to be fully awake let alone chipper enough to go sprtiz the flower bed.

  egads….just find a bush or something…..these really aren’t that fun!!!!!

• 47. Dawn  |  March 9th, 2006 at 9:27 pm

  For the love of all that is holy, Do not plant Lemon Balm.

  1. I will dig up a hunk and mail it to you
  2. It will never, never, never leave your garden, despite your best efforts.

  The Ox Eye Daisy will be fine. You’ll like it for awhile, then you will want to rip it up. Gardening is very cathartic.

• 48. knq  |  March 13th, 2006 at 4:49 pm

  Looks like I’m late on the uptake. I kill all plants so I have no advice other than hire a gardener. or teach the kids a new fun game called “tend to mommy’s garden.”

Trackback this post