weretable, will you come plant a garden at my house? I have about a 4x4 patch of dirt where I want to plant flowers, but I'm absolutely clueless - all my past gardening attempts have been failures. If I go to a garden center, will they be able to advise me as to what flowers are good to plant this time of the summer here in NJ? I was thinking that I am probably too short on time to bother with the flowers this year, but your posts are inspiring me.

Do you have photos of your garden, or any outside shots? It sounds like you do some really interesting things! I'm going to take some photos of plants and things in my backyard right now.

I adore lilies! And dahlias. Gorgeous, and such great cut flowers. I'm trying to clear space for a cutting garden next year. I'd like to have tulips and lilacs and dafs in the spring, and hydrangea and dahlia in the summer, and zinnia in the fall. Not sure what else would make a showy, good cut flower in the PA area...hmmm. Do you cut any of yours and bring them in?

My boss, whose house and gardens have been featured in national magazines, goes to Walmart every summer and buys about 2000 bulbs, mostly tulips. He has a new color scheme every year, and so at the end of blooming seasons he digs up all of his bulbs and throws them in his composter. I'm thinking of begging for some this year - I'll give him some compost in exchange for his tulip bulbs! He also shops at Walmart, and gets his bulbs for 10 cents each.

Speaking of Walmart, as cheap as they are, I just can't keep shopping there...

Luckily for me I live right down the street from Burpee headquarters, and get lots of amazing bargains and cast-offs. I've dumpster dived there on several occasions... ;) I think I'm going to go there today, because now I want to see if I can get some bulbs. I'm jealous.

edit - ack I keep forgetting about flickr - you're one of my contacts, for christ's sakes. I'm going to go look at your garden shots now, for some inspiration!

I would love to start up a collab/group garden blog some day. I was thinking of doing a gardening/outdoor rooms/botanical-themed blog myself. I have SO many things I could scan and talk about and link to.

Oh and good on ya for finding a 20.00 birdbath! I've been wanting one. We have several birdfeeders (consequently, everything outside is covered with bird poo, which is quite fetching), but I can't find a birdbath that I really like. Last year I sort of made one with some terra cotta pots and a huge terra cotta pot saucer, but I would like to have a real one. Gotta love the birds.

Sorry weretable, cheering for Wal-Mart is like cheering for evil, not going to happen. I'm glad you got a deal and all but shopping at Wal-Mart is like trading pieces of your soul.

But I am glad that you are having so much fun playing in the dirt!

iconomy, thanks for linking to that AskMe, I'd meant to read it and forgot.

I think I want to go to Wal Mart today and wander around for hours in their air conditioning, staring dazedly at plastic things. Mmmmmmmallwart.

If I go to a garden center, will they be able to advise me as to what flowers are good to plant this time of the summer here in NJ?

If you mean an actual nursery, yeah. If you mean the garden center at a box store, no. You can get good prices (sometimes) on plants but the people working at Lowe's, Wal-Mart, Home Depot and other similar places usually have no clue what they are selling and half of their plants are not going to even be right for the area they are sold in. But a local nursery should be able to give you good advice. It is best to plant things before it gets too hot to let them get established, but there are some things that take the heat much better even as new transplants.

Do you have photos of your garden, or any outside shots?

Eh, I need to take some. Most of my pictures in my flickr stream are of individual plants rather than large areas. But that is partially because most of the time every part of my yard is under construction and I don't want the stray buckets of rocks that I dug up or the tools piled out or whatever in the pictures.


Do you cut any of yours and bring them in?

Some stuff like irises and occassional a hyacinth or tulip or something, and roses. I don't do it that often though.

new color scheme every year, and so at the end of blooming seasons he digs up all of his bulbs and throws them in his composter. I'm thinking of begging for some this year - I'll give him some compost in exchange for his tulip bulbs! He also shops at Walmart, and gets his bulbs for 10 cents each.

Some people ditch their tulips every year since most of the fancy hybrids weaken year after year unless they have perfect growing conditions. I buy almost all of my tulips and other spring bulbs through mail-order companies and I am trying to buy more species tulips because they actually multiply both underground and by seed. Other than the occasional odd dahlia (usually way cheaper at Wally-World than mail-order), I buy very few bulbs or plants there. I try to buy my stuff elsewhere.

I've dumpster dived there on several occasions... ;)

Nowhere here that I can do anything like that. Box stores around here keep their stuff on the bargain tables until it is gone or totally dead and the nurseries that toss out old stock tend to have their dumpsters inside fences or something. I certainly wouldn't mind doing it though if I knew a place where I could.


I have SO many things I could scan and talk about and link to.

I bought a domain for that purpose and then never did anything with it, did not renew it.

Oh and good on ya for finding a 20.00 birdbath! I've been wanting one.

I don't have the cash to get the really nice ones the local nurseries carry and I have wanted a stone one for ages. I was surprised to find one that did not look like complete shit for twenty bucks.

shopping at Wal-Mart is like trading pieces of your soul.

I dislike a lot of Wal-Mart's policies and practices, but I could not entirely avoid shopping there if I wanted to so I am not going to lose any sleep over it. I avoid buying anything like books, music, film, games there because of the censorship stuff that goes on, but if it is something I can not buy elsewhere (at all or for a comparable price) I am not worrying about it. Besides all that... considering where I live I can't say anything too bad about the company since I might end up working for them one of these days. :)

Meanwhile my new home is less than five minutes from Target. Dunno if they sell bulbs tho. In my case they'd probably go to feed the squirrels anyway.

We have a Target here now but it is a PITA to get to. I have been meaning to go see if they have a garden center and what they have there, but never have made it by. Despite the fact that the red theme in the store makes me insane with rage after a few minutes, I kinda wish one was closer.

Well I am glad that this thread is being posted to with respect . . .if this were MeFi, the flinging would be fast and furious by now.

I would never shop at walmart unless I were starving to death and that was my only chance to eat.

But to each their own . .

So in August, I am demanding pics of the dahlias. . .I never have much luck with them. . .

Speaking of cheap bulbs, ever since I moved to SW Missouri I notice tons of daffodils popping up every spring out in the country, at places where houses used to be. Often you see a row of them running perpendicular to some county road. If you stop and look hard you see the faint depression of the path they used to line, and the rubble of what as the foundation to some home or shack a generation or two ago.

Last fall Wonderboy and I headed out to one of these phantom daffodil rows and dug up a couple hundred bulbs. We were careful not to take all of them and I fertilized what were left. We planted them in the strip of grass between the sidewalk and road on our corner lot. This spring they came up, a bit scraggly, but it looked good. I think by next spring it will be amazing.

amro, check out a catalog nursery called "Spring Hill" They'll tell you what grows here in N.J. and they'll send it to you when it's time to plant. I got a butterfly bush from them that was about a foot tall and by the next year it was four feet tall. I also bought a pygmy lilac bush that put out the most fragrant flowers this year. Now I've purchased two honeysuckle vines (to attract hummingbirds), some mini carnations, a daylily or two, and a couple of ground covers. For color, just buy some colorful annuals-they're in flower right now and they'll look great.

You have gotten lucky with Spring Hill. Or bought with them during a "good" period. Part of the time they were ran well but most of the time they have been considered one of the worst (but not THE worst) places to buy from.

http://davesgarden.com/gwd/

I hate davesgarden because of things I will not go into here... but that really is a good resource for seeing which catalogs to order from and which to avoid.

I'd give my (non-existent) first born to have Target stores in Canada.

I went to an independently-owned garden center this morning but they weren't open yet (damn this ridiculous new sleep schedule that has me up on a Sunday at 7:30). I need some things from Home Depot so I'll probably end up buying garden stuff there - I talked to my parents (also in NJ) last night about what I should plant and they had some good ideas (and they gave me a lovely pot of mums!).

weretable, I can respect your perspective and hadn't put the red and rage together until you mentioned it. Just smoke a bowl before you go in, you'll be fine.

And the Target near my house has a decent garden center that also happens to be the always-shortest-checkout-line.

But then, I shop at Home Depot sometimes and I know they have a pretty crappy track record. Damn, the stink is on me too! Ahhhh.