The dirt on my dirt...

Seems I've become a bit obsessed with gardening this year. Truth is I know very little about growing things properly. 

The funny part about the whole thing, to me at least, is that even though Mac Daddy and I are as old as we are the 2 of us put together know just enough to be dangerous.

He's had some experience with big league gardening way before we ever met and I have years of spring magazine reading and article clipping but in real life I'm pretty much a plant killer. And he's just all about the tractor and the dirt most days.

Just as it is with many things in my life I want to be Crunchy Mama but end up more like one of the 3 Stooges. I've killed more house plants over the years than I care to admit yet here I am at a real plant nursery looking at plants I can't identify.

So I thought I'd at least try to play it smart and instead of buying a bunch of pretty plants I don't know what to do with I took pictures. Pictures of things that caught my eye and not only a picture of the plant but also its tag with all that good info like "prefers shade" and "requires well drained soil". So now I can look them up and figure out what will actually grow here and what can tolerate my inevitable neglect.

Most of what I did take home was bails of stuff to help "amend" our soil. Soil is the wrong word. We've got rocks. We've got pebbles. We've got shale and we've got clay but I wouldn't call much of it soil.

So we're amending with Llama poop and humus and vermiculite and last year's compost and I've been reading about worms. Good stuff.

So maybe I'll take some pictures of my strip of clay that I'm slowly turning into my flower garden. Then we can all follow the progress of a brown thumb and take notes on what not to do next year.

Truth be told... I'm having a blast with all this. Mac Daddy and I picked rocks out of the strip he tilled last night like 2 little kids playing in the dirt... chatting about ornamental grass and spirea. We'll be squaring up the veggie garden in the next week or so and I've got another load of organic matter to pick up from the nursery. 

Here's to a good planting season and some lessons learned in the dirt and the fresh spring air.

And about that material on the pergola... the whole thing is a kit Mac Daddy bought... a Martha Stewart boxed pergola from Kmart... on sale. Its a pretty nice deal. 8 feet by 12 feet and he bolted it right to the decking. Its nice and sturdy and was easy to build. The material is some sort of nylon and fluffles like a sail in the wind.

Comments

[Mel]

We have clay and rocks too. Here are the plants I've had success with in this kind of soil (I don't compost yet, so I know these will grow in just about anything.)

PETUNIAS -- as long as you keep picking off the spent flowers, they'll keep making flowers. They like sun, but don't tolerate high heat (90-100 degrees) very well unless you water them everyday. If they get too gangly, cut them back and in a few weeks they'll be blooming all over the place again. I keep these in the beds near my front porch and in hanging baskets. Hummingbirds love these.

VINCA MAJOR -- These are the bigger, taller vinca plants (unlike vinca minor) and they love full sun and can tolerate more heat without watering everyday (every other is good.)

ZINNAS -- both the smaller and the bigger ones. They'll go like gangbusters all summer long until the first hard freeze. Full sun, very heat tolerant and you don't have to pick off the spent flowers to keep them blooming. Come in lots of bright colors and are great cut flowers. I put these in my beds at the end of the driveway because I don't get out there everyday during the heat of the summer. These also grow from seed very well. Toss them in the ground, give 'em a little water and walk away.

PORTULACA (aka Rose Moss) -- This is great for borders because it spreads and you don't have to do a dang thing to it. Forget to water it? No problem. It doesn't care! :) Comes in mixed colors or single colors, and blooms all season long until the first freeze.

Now these are all annuals, but they're cheap and give you lots of color without having to do to much to them. (I'm a plant killer too.) In Oklahoma, because we don't get as cold in the winter, the zinnas and sometimes the Rose Moss will come back without re-planting the following year, but I've only been successful in getting my zinnas to come back.

For perennials, I like SHASTA DAISIES. They like sun, but can tolerate partial shade. Plus, when the daisy plants get to big, you can dig them up and divide them, replant them and have lots of new little plants. Don't have to do much to them either.

SEDUM is good as well, but it likes full sun. It blooms in late summer into the fall. It's a succulent perennial, so you can pretty much ignore it. Plus, break off a stem/leaf, just stick it in the ground and it will root. Bam, new plant! (Tell you how unkillable these plant are, I kept one in a pot for 3 years stuck behind some bushes underneath the water spigot several years ago before I got around to planting it. Didn't hurt it a bit.)

Finally, if you like roses, just remember that they don't like having their "feet" wet. In other words, don't plant them in an area where the water doesn't drain well. If water stands in an areas for several days after a rainstorm, then don't plant roses there. This year, I'm trying out the Double Knockout Roses. My mom has planted some in the past, and they just go likem gangbusters and don't require a lot of work. They're the unfussy ones of the rose world. ;)

Hope this helps! :)

[bezzie]

Half of my gardening is hit or miss. I'm skipping the tomatoes this year since the pigeons get to enjoy them more than we do. Just wait, you'll be hooked!

[marissa]

Something is sure to grow from your sheer will and determination! I have come to accept my Black Thumb. I can kill the un-killable. But I don't let that stop me! It's my way of supporting the econony...buying more plants!

[Katinka]

At first, my brain read it as you were amending the soil with "hummus". :P

I was a novice gardener when I filled in our flower beds four years ago. My advice would be to not hesitate to yank out plants that don't pull their weight (after they've been given sufficient time to prove themselves). This also applies to ones that prove to be too high maintenance. You might also be surprised with very nice results from plants from which you weren't expecting much. Terribly helpful, I know. ;)