What do you Grow?? The Garden Thread

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For the Vernal Equinox, or first day of Spring (in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway), I thought I'd start up a thread for any of you who may be botanically or horticulturally inclined. Full disclosure: I am hopelessly obsessed with plants. They are my primary special interest, and consume my thoughts most of the day in one form or another.

Potential topics for discussion may include (but are certainly not limited to):

What do you grow in your garden, yard, or house?
What are your absolute favorite plants? Why?
Do you grow your own fruits, herbs or vegetables?
Do plants have personalities?
Native Plants and Xeriscaping.
Landscape design. Share yours!

You get the idea. All things plants

Last edited by Acacia on 20 Mar 2009, 9:32 am, edited 2 times in total.

Well my mom is considering starting a garden (if you can call it that) . Obviously I will have to do the hard work . Theres no lawn at home, so we thinking of maybe construting a box or using some shallow pots. Truth be told we dont know where to begin, winters coming soon and I dont really know how serious my mom is about the whole thing. If you got any advice it will surely help.

Oooh!

I've got growing:

some cacti, sunflowers, morning glories, something else similar to morning glories

I do, in fact.
I grow a number of native South African plants. They do quite well in Florida's climate, which is similar to yours. They are all easy growers, are drought-tolerant, and require little maintenance. Check the links for further information.

Lion's Ear - Leonotus leonurus
http://www.floridata.com/ref/l/leon_leo.cfm

Society Garlic - Tulbaghia violacea
http://www.floridata.com/ref/T/tulb_vio.cfm

Plumbago - Plumbago auriculata
http://www.floridata.com/ref/P/plumbago.cfm

Bulbine - Bulbine frutescens
http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantab/bulbinefrut.htm

Great, great thread! its soon spring here..

I have a regular garden and a small kitchengarden that expands
a little every year, need more room Nothing unusuall really,
i usually have cucumbers, avocado, carrots, strawberrys, pies,
tomato, pumpkins and some other stuff, some kitchenherbs
and such.

In the garden i plant stuff every year, have alot of the regular
stuff like lylac and rhododendron, various roses, something
called "american giant blueberrry" that i have big hopes for
this summer and various flowers and bushes, have a
willow tree and a peach tree for example and lots of lupines.
Also, i have alot of different types of mushrooms that i try
to make it comfortable for, one of them is a little cool,
Amanita Muscaria, one of the worlds most poisonous shrooms.
I`ve slipped more from having a garden to fixing up the
whole area that belongs to the house, so i have planted
things and fix up everything from the start of the driveway
to the other side where the property ends. If i keep it up
i`ll have a small good looking park sort of

Here`s one of my favourites, its a type of waterrose that
is almost completly black with some red in it. And some
other random shots i took last year.

Last edited by ImTheGuyThatDidThat on 20 Mar 2009, 2:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.

@digger
cool! you must post some pics when those things start flowering.
what kind of light are you growing them under?

@imtheguythatdidthat
those are fantastic pictures!
thanks for sharing!
I know what you mean about:

I have lots of herbs, fruit trees, and some vegetables like tomatoes and peppers, but I am always trying to fix up the property with ornamentals and shrubs. Maybe in another 5 years, it'll start looking decent...

I'm still pulling up the last of the summer stuff and digging over, adding manure and stuff to the dirt.

I'm also trimming back my passionfruit and giving it a feed soon (hopefully this weekend) and expect I need to do the same for things like my grapes and berry canes. I also need to take care of the strawberries, and trim back all the peppers.

I have beans (purple ones) being harvested right now, and silver beet growing, and am still getting marrows; I also have bay leaf, spring onion, rosemary, and basil but the latter is now going to seed.

Crocuses and irises are my favorites. We have some of those.

don't have green fingers, but am persistant.

Usual herbs and apple tree will grow, just needing a lttl epruning. Snake head fillitaria(?) seemsto multiply year on year and looks really striking.

never have any luck with veggies so I'm going to keep it simple this year, courgettes and sunflowers.

what soil types do you guys have?.

Sand. Most of Florida is just sand. Very little rich soil.
North Florida has some clay, and South Florida is often just rocks or shells.

So most planting I do requires some amendments. Either store-bought cow manure/mushroom compost/chemical fertilizer, or something from the bottom of my leaf/trimming compost pile.

Okra, jalepeños, and cherry tomatos are about all I can do.

I've never had my own garden before, so I think I'm going to give it a shot this year. I don't have a whole lot of room either, but it will be enough. Cucumbers and carrots will be first on my list. I'm not a huge fan of tomatoes, but I will probably throw a couple of those in for mom. A few different species of peppers would be nice, both sweet(green) and hot. I'll finish it off with some yellow squash, because I love 'em and they grow great around here. I might even throw in a handful of corn plants, just enough for one family dinner at the end of summer.

hair.

and nails.

I hope you don't grow potatoes under them

I've been busy in my vegetable garden again today. I'm growing potatoes, onions, cabbage, Swiss chard, runner beans, chives, peas, turnip, tomatoes, beetroot, radish, leeks, broccoli, cauliflower, romanesque cauliflower, Brussels sprout, strawberries, raspberries, giant blackberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries. I've probably forgotten a few things there. In the orchard there are several varieties of apple, pear, cherry and plum. My young olive tree looks poorly at the moment - it didn't like the hard Winter we've had.

Basically we are self sufficient with veg. As for the flower gardens there are hundreds of varieties of plants. Also a number of mature trees. The garden is over an acre, most of it is lawn.

Gardening! My favorite spring topic! I live in zone 7.5 (US) - which is North Georgia and is a gardeners paradise! We also do tropicals well in the Summer.

Here's my horticultural inventory by microclimate - most of which I have propagated myself (BTW land's really cheap here in Georgia):

Have an herb garden - but also grow tomatos - will include red bell peppers this year

Have a "beach" - with "sea grass" and palmettos

Several (Louisiana inspired) tropical gardens (dormant now) - Banana trees and lillies

"European-inspired" hedging and topiaries - boxwoods, holly, lavender, cypress, and creeping fig

Japanese garden - Gardenias, camelias, dwarf everygreens

Trees - Crepe myrtles, a beloved Japanese Maple, Magnolias, river birches, dogwoods, sweet olive, and of course Georgia pines (All very low maintenance once they get going)

Ornamental grasses - strategically placed to look really cool during storms and also help gauge wind velocity

What I can't grow - that I miss from the west coast: Bouganvillea, fruit trees (apple, lemon, avocado), and roses. Yes, roses. You can't grow decent roses here. Just these crappy ugly wild roses.

I planted this last year and can recommend it, it
doesnt demand much and they can get really big,
its called Argentine Pampas Grass, they look their
best when planting several plants close to each other,
works nice as a filler



edit---
not a pic of the plants i have, i just found it to illustrate