Overview

As far as a garden goes, we don't usually spend enough time at home to care for one, so for us it's only grass.

Being in central Oklahoma, Bermuda grows well here. As far as it's care, at age 76 and with huge allergies, my wife and I are blessed with the ability to have someone both spray it for all kinds of problems that might come up, and another company owned and run by a personal friend to cut and trim it. God has been so good to us and given us the ability to work and set up a decent retirement program. It also helps that we have a city park right across the street from us which the city keeps up. Park last fall.

Personally I have a lawn??? in the rear garden that has gone to chaos. Too many things going on to deal with it so far but I may be making time this year to sort it out.

I thought it would be a good idea to have a topic on lawns and their care. What do you do to maintain your lawn? How do you deal with weeds? What types of grass are better for your area? etc.

Identification Quiz: This recent photo shows the flower and fruit of a plant I have in my garden. Who will be first to name the plant that produces this?.

Mine are in the greenhouse,LOADS of buds that grow to a tiny size ( about the size of a little finger nail ) then just go brown and rot

Is there anyone here that is good with container gardening ?????

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Any info on storing cyclamens after their blooming time is done?

Sorry for the late reply. Still learning. Thanks for the info.

Hi! This has been a long winter and March is only a hint of spring to come. It is this time of year that I get in the mood for planning my garden. Soon it will be time to order seeds and when they arrive plant them indoors. But, this year I think I will start dahlias. It would be fun to grow and maybe begin a collection. Buying perennials is a great idea they don't take as much time and they last. Well just thinking of ideas and sharing.

Yes, thank you, very helpful. I grow my own organic vegetables, have for years. I have the worse time with cabbage worms.

I love to look at garden art and things created to make ones gardening more useful or easier. I have made a few things in my garden.

I have a vegetable garden each year as well as fruit trees and vines. I need the bees and ants for my produce so, yes, I plant flowers and things to draw the pollinators in that I need. My okra is right next to my peony becasue both need ants, for example.

Hello Yves - or do you prefer Orphan? I've got to say, I'm sure glad I started earlier. If I waited until now when I'm 65 I'd have suffered more doing the heavy work in the garden and probably could not have done as much. I'm going to the Y a few times a week now to take better care of this tired old body and it is helping. But arthritis prevents me from doing a few things. So I'm very happy to have done the heavy lifting while I still could! Where do you garden if you don't mind my asking?

Hi fellow gardeners. I wonder if anyone else started out growing food plants but ended up growing flowers and other plants just for the sake of drawing birds and butterflies and bees into your gardens? That is what happened to me. When I first started out, if you couldn't eat it, I wouldn't grow it. Now I'm just about the opposite. Actually it started off as my wife's garden. She had a vegetable garden and planted a lot of roses. Well, mostly I dug the holes for her roses .. all the while insisting that unless she watered them they would die as I would surely not think to do so. Now the garden is mine and she is happy to enjoy it and do her own artwork in her studio. The summer after my first year of teaching I built an outdoor aviary for birds and kept finches, some of which nested and had babies. The next summer I built two more aviaries and converted an old 10 foot square garden shed into a place the birds could go to for shelter. Once I got around to planting the outdoor flight cages, I got hooked on plants. We live next to a year around creek and are on a natural fly way linking the bay to the hills. So I started reading about plants that gave food and shelter to birds and started planting to create verge areas which are more appealing to them. Anyhow, long story short, the more I read about plants and visited gardens, the more my planting for the birds started to be about planting to create scenes to please myself too. Twenty five years into it I am pleased to have full grown trees I planted myself but also lots of open areas. I retired from teaching a couple years back and last spring I hosted a Garden Conservancy garden tour to help them raise money. I met a fellow who makes a gardening blog called Succulents and more. Well actually I didn't meet him at first but another gardening friend who reads him set me this url in which he shares photographs he took here that day and writes about his impressions. I always find it so interesting to see my garden through someone else's eyes. http://www.succulentsandmore.com/2017/04...html#links

I thought that these garden Creations could be a blessing to the groups? I guess when you are my age you do things like gardening,reading , and scrapbooks that reminds the past beauty fading and life fragility shinning bright the life of Christ. But it is not an excuse for younger man and ladies to start earlier? Hi! hi! Shalom in the Saviour,s Name. Orphan. (Yves)

I'm not super-obsessed with an organic life, but the theory is, that if you can do something 'naturally' and without hard chemicals, then why not? If you want a thriving garden, with organic products, this is a regular routine that I do, that works... - Weed less, more often (don't let them build up to create a massive day - also relax and find the enjoyment in removing them). - Water lots, less often (like the rain does). Depending on climate etc and with exceptions, veggies need pretty much daily water (perhaps set up a tap timer system if you find that too much to handle). - Every 2 Weeks: spray your garden: oil (for pest deterrence), seaweed (for root health) & fungicide (for disease prevention)*. Check out OCP eco-organic garden products as you can make a mix of all of these in one (eco-oil, eco-fungicide, eco-seaweed + can add ec0-neem + can add eco-aminogro) - Every 2-3 Months: feed your garden: organic chicken pellets for everything + add some potash for flowers/fruit *Watch certain fungicides (and everything else you spray) if you are going to use them around veggies or anything you eat. Organic ones are much safer, and usually, completely safe... which is why I like them - no stress. Always check the withholding period and label of the specific spray you are using. A good organic CONTACT pest spray is from the Yates Natures Way range, pyrethrin . What makes it an "organic" pyrethrin spray is what it is mixed with. Compare and see the difference. Some effective organic herbicides are also coming onto the market, like Slasher. Check the active ingredients as there will be other brands copying the formulation. This is an alternative to glyphosate sprays. Nonetheless I have not myself used this product yet. I don't know, I hope this might help

We have a garden 20m2 x30m2 and looking for best second hand sit on lawnmower I know the john deer are very pricy was wanting to know off other makes and what you would recommend for reliability

I have a yard garden this year and I am glad that you have started this thread. I am pretty much a novice at gardening. I made mistakes this year that I intend to correct next season. I planted a number of different things: bulb onions, carrots, a type of hybrid corn, tomatoes, and peppers. I planted some red potatoes that came out well, but I believe that I did not break up the soil deep enough and with this and the other things that I planted, I figure that I planted them too close together. I planted so many sugar baby watermelons that I could not eat them or give them away fast enough. I didn't plant enough potatoes; after I harvested them they only lasted for a few days. I didn't organize my plants well; I could not cut the grass around them and I could not get to the sections in order to weed them.