Morals & Research

Before jumping straight into large projects, it is always a wise idea to research the undertaking at hand. Thank you great spiritual being, aka inventor of Google, for making this a relatively painless task under most circumstances. I am a die hard Googler. If I don't know the answer, Google is where to go to find it, or least give you a big jump start in the right direction. Understanding the importance of research and Googling, I have failed myself somewhat. After extensive research, a la lots of pretty pictures of plants, cottages, stone pathways, urns, & fountains, I dove into my large project called THE FRONT YARD with a big batch of naivete & threw the research out the window. One of the pieces of advice mentioned on several sites, was to plan, plan, plan before doing any work to save money and hard work down the road. Whoa Miss Money! My plan, always a bit sketchy. Even though I never had a sketch & the plan was always centered around what was on sale, cheap, or looked appealing at the moment. it was not the wisest of moves. It has landed me with azealeas that I swore up and down I DID NOT WANT IN MY YARD! *stomps my foot* ....among other gems of random garden center trips that has made a mish mash of a yard. I don't regret this. I put in some good sweat and mosquito bites in for some plants that I really like (some that I didn't) & have thrived, but next year, there will be a plan. It will involve large numbers of a few hardy varieties to make me a happier camper. I have the list almost narrowed down, and if I had stuck to my gut in the first place, I wouldn't have all this other shit that I got myself into. LESSON LEARNED! My excuse is that I am a plantaholic and I think I need mass quanities of little bit of everything. That is my main problem, followed close behind with I really like to wonder around stores and look at different plants and daydream, thus causing a wasteful array of plants that I wish had never happened.

from my apartment garden last year

Other lessons learned from my front yard....
Squash bugs mutilate the zucchini that I wanted very badly.
Ants farm aphids. Where there are over abundance of ants, there will probably be aphids soon enough.
I don't like okra that much, unless my mom makes fried okra, so of course that is the vegetable that's going to be plentiful.
Real life banana peppers taste nothing like what drowning in the that jar I bought at the store and is still not of date (yes, I admit, I am an American!).
One watermelon plant will take over an entire flowerbed & then some. I should have just grown pumpkins like I had dreamed of in the first place because Autumn is creeping closer & I'm sad to say I will probably spend too much money on pumpkins that make me happy, happy, happy! I haven't even seen a baby watermelon. I doubt it was pollinated properly, bu it has helped smoother out the weeds. YAY!

Moral of the story..stick to my gut, follow sound advice, & research, research, research before jumping in. I am marking this growing seasons down as research & I'm writing off the expenditures.

......& YES, I am dreaming of Autumn. Only the best season. Ever!

oakleaf hydrangea at the park

My small list of plants to invest in large quantities
1. Lantana
2. Rosemary
3. Oakleaf Hydrangeas
4. Black-eyed Susans
5. Purple Coneflowers
6. Lemon balm

Annuals that did well this year from seed
1. Sunflowers
2. Moonflowers....(too bad I bought a few seed packets too many before my mother so kindly pointed out I had wild ones growing in several places in the back yard. ooops. They grew well. They smell great. I'm happy with them.)
...Marigolds & zinnias don't quite make the list, but they grew when some things didn't even sprout.

marigolds from my apt. garden

Seeds that didn't do so well
1. Everything else I sprinkled out.

how'd he get in there!?

I ended up with several wild moon flowers & a wild passion flower (& lots of weeds & crabgrass).
The Lantana I bought at a local nursery thrived the best out of all of the plants I purchased this year. This just hammers the nail on the head, buy local.

moon flower from this year

This is the tale of my having a real yard experience thus far. Stay tuned.