This is me after a walk in the rain with Kip. And this is the infamous stairwell where my garden resides. As you can see, I moved the house plants outside for the summer. More pics of the flowers later.
I picked out four plants. The first was a bright red Geranium. I love red and enjoy how geraniums smell. It's always a good start. The second was some pink flower. It might be a Begonia; I have no idea. It was almost murdered by yours truly during a "re-potting session gone wrong", but she has ceased to glare at me every time I leave the house. I will be posting about that "re-potting session gone wrong" lest any new gardner make the same mistakes and amputate their plants. A bright purple Dahlia also caught my attention, and finally a grass that "The Man" said was a cousin to corn. As I was ringing up the beginnings of my very first garden "The Man" offered me a few free plants. They were Celosia. Surprise covered his face when I asked for all of them. There was just enough room in my car.
Providing pots for my new brood was a different issue entirely. My sister's future mother-in-law, who is South African and has a thumb so green I swear her wood floor will sprout leaves, gave me a few old pots. The local dollar store offered some good options that were a hideous flesh tone. I spray painted them a deep copper. (Good Tip I Have Learned: If you can't buy pots, and don't want those fantastic clay pots you find at a superstore for a few dollars, buy cheap plastic ones at a dollar store and spray paint them. I don't know what effects this has on my plants, but for my first year it worked.)
Things went well and I learned a few things this summer. 1) Don't water your plants too much. 2) Don't water your plants to little. 3) Trim your Geraniums down. I think mine would have bloomed better had I done this. I had a time in the heat of the summer when I thought he was dead, but I kept him around and walaa! A resurrection!!! 4) I don't know what I did wrong with my grass that is corn's cousin. It did not do well. At all. It's actually suing me for neglect.
More on my first garden efforts later.
Cheers!
My first Geranium on it's way back from the dead. I think I'll call him Lazarus.
1 comment:
Geraniums will stand being dry more than they will being wet, especially in winter when its best to keep them on the dry side as they are prone to rot if too wet. For this same reason if you cut them back I would do it in the spring or early summer that way they will heal before the rot sets in. Your Dahlia will like plenty of water through the summer, the water needs to be able to drain away though. I see you have a saucer under the Geranium which is okay to catch any stray water but lots of plants don't like to be stood in water for a long time. The Dahlia will have its foliage killed by the frost which is okay, just cut this off 4 to 6 inches above the ground, tip it out of its pot and clean the dirt from the roots which are called 'Tubers'. They will look a bit like Potatoes and feel firm to the touch. Leave them upside down somewhere frost free to dry for a couple of weeks and then they need to be put in some sort of container filled with moist peat or compost and kept in a cool, dark but frost free place for the winter, the peat/compost only needs to be very slightly damp, you're not trying to grow them just keep the tubers from drying out. If that seems too much trouble throw it away and buy a new one next spring! By the way, the spider plant looks good. Bob.
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