Ten Tips for Flower Gardening
by Terry McLaughlin

Wet Noodle Posse | Terry McLaughlin

If experience is the best teacher, then I've earned the equivalent of a doctoral degree in killing pretty green things. Seedling six packs used to cringe when they saw me coming. But then I started doing my homework--I actually read the articles in all the gardening magazines I bought instead of just looking at the pictures.

Hundreds of flowering plants gave their lives for these tips. If I can help save just one seedling, I'll know those sacrifices were not in vain.

Location, location, location.

Set in stone. Stuck in a rut. Grow where you're planted. Notice a pattern here? Your flowers can't pull up roots and move to new digs when the neighborhood goes to pot, so be sure to do the necessary prep work and research before you plant that first seed or seedling.
 

1. Soil. You have to start your flower garden somewhere, and it doesn't get more basic than dirt. Take the time to add plenty of compost or other organic material to your flower beds every year. Container gardeners should shop for potting soils that proudly label their ingredients, which might include moss, vermiculite, perlite, composted products, sand, and lime.

If your flowers die, it could be because they don't like your soil's pH, or the clay content, or the amount of organic material, or the drainage, or the lack of nutrients. Picky, picky, picky.

2. Climate. Most gardening magazines and books include temperature zone maps. Know your zone, and check the climate requirement of any plant you're considering for your yard.

Know your garden, too. Certain conditions in anyone's yard will create microclimates, special niches that will allow you to bend a couple of those zoning laws. For instance, flowers planted near a pale, southern wall will get a boost from the reflected light and heat.

3. Light. Flowering plants are big on photosynthesis. Remember learning about that in your high school biology class? If you remember that it has something to do with light, give yourself an A.

Some plants need their day in the sun, while others like to play it cool in the shade. Be aware of the path of the sun during the day and the exposure that creates for your flower bed--a morning shadowed western foundation plot, or a constantly sunny expanse on the south lawn, or the filtered afternoon light below a tree--before you plant.


All I have to do is dream.

One of the things I

Leeds Castle Gardens, England

most enjoy about gardening (besides watching my husband do it for me) is planning my flower beds. So many books and catalogues to browse at my leisure! So many inspiring pictures! So many dreams to dream!

This may also be the safest phase of gardening--before I start spending money.

4. Texture. When I'm planning for texture, I usually grab some graph paper to sketch a strategy. Vegetation can be lacy (cosmos), strappy (iris), wide (pelargonium), and everything in between. Flowers can be round (marigold), spiky (snapdragon), or dish shaped (shasta daisy), and anything else you care to label them.

Aim for variety. Don't stack all your spikes in one area and all your dishes in another. Mix and match shapes and textures for a plan that will draw the eye from one spot to the next while blending beautifully.

5. Color. Hot palettes, cool palettes, monotones and mixed. Color is what it's all about in the flower garden, and it makes the strongest statement. Plan ahead here, too. Certain colors (some pinks and oranges) simply don't go together, dahling. Others combos (blue and yellow, for instance) are classics. And don't forget to mix in plenty of white, which both intensifies all other colors and gives the eye a rest.

Hint: Vegetation has color, too, from yellowish hues to midnight purple. Mix in some cool, silvery greens or some bronze tones to add interest.

6. Height. Many beginning garden designers focus on color and forget about form. Every flower garden needs some height to give it character and depth. Start with the backdrop of a hedge or a flowering shrub, train a vine on a trellis, or add some tall varieties such as hollyhocks, cosmos, delphinium, or the taller dahlias.

And I don't need to remind you to put the shorter flowers in the front and the taller ones in the back, right? I didn't think so.

7. Style. Trying for an effect? Consider researching some traditional looks. There are reasons gardeners continue to experiment with the charming chaos of the cottage garden, the elegant formality of a French parterre, or the serene sculpture of a Japanese landscape. Choose a style that coordinates with your house, or indulge in a design that reflects your personality.

 

When the growing gets tough, the tough get growing.

 

8. Water. The typical flower garden will need approximately one inch of water per week, depending on the weather. Soak the soil once or twice a week, and let it dry a bit in between waterings

to strengthen the roots. Mornings are the best time to water; the afternoon sun may cause too much evaporation, and an evening watering may promote disease.

9. Deadheading. This is a convenient term that also describes how you'll feel after you've engaged in this activity. Forget all my lofty talk of color and texture--one of these years I'm going to design a flower garden that consists exclusively of flowers that don't need to have their ugly brown heads plucked off to keep the rest of the plant healthy and productive.

One of the best ways to deadhead is with a preemptive strike: cut flowers off while they still look good, bring them into your house, and drown the stems in a vase full of water.

10. Dig 'em up and move 'em out. Disasters happen--vacation watering arrangements fail, plant partnerships don't work out, your friend's gift of a feverfew transplant turns out to be a garden-devouring tumor in disguise. Gardens aren't static creations. If something doesn't work, get rid of it. Try it in another spot, throw it on the compost heap, or give it away. (If it's really nasty, share it with the person who gave you the feverfew.)


Some good ideas I've learned the easy way (from other people):

For a multi-season, dependable dash of cheerful yellow, mix daffodils and daylilies in the same bed. Daffodil bulbs don't mind nestling in the midst of daylily roots, and the daylily foliage will spring up to cover the daffodil leaves just as they begin to fade.

Mix a few herbs and vegetables in with the flowers. Many tasty things have beautiful foliage.

Sharing cuttings and dividings with a friend is a fun and inexpensive way to grow your garden. Plants that do well in a local yard will probably do well in yours, too.


Some unpleasant things I've learned the hard way (from personal disasters):

Just as birds migrate south for the winter, gophers migrate toward the roses in the summer.

The only way a goat and a flower garden can coexist is with a sturdy chain (and a sturdier collar) or a maximum security fencing system (check with your local prison for construction details).

Compensating for neglect with extra fertilizer doesn't always work. No one wants The Incredible Shasta Daisy Hulk terrorizing the lavender and small children.

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Our favorite childhood books and TV shows

Books - Trixie Belden and Little House on the Prairie. Read them till they literally fell apart. TV show - my family used TV shows to unwind. Favorites were SWAT, Charlie's Angels, Dallas, Dukes of Hazzard, Barnaby Jones, Quincy. Hmm, no wonder I like romantic suspense. - Mary Fechter

Books - I loved all of the Little House on the Prairie books, Island of the Blue Dophins, Julie of the Wolves and The Swiss Family Robinson. TV shows - Once again, Little House on the Prairie. Tales of the Gold Monkey, ChiPs, Gilligan's Island, The Love Boat. The Waltons, reruns of Gunsmoke and Bonanza, and all the historical mini-series like The Thorn Birds, Shogun, Marco Polo, and North and South. - Trish Milburn

Do I have to admit I read the encyclopedia? There's no way I'll admit to reading the dictionary. There is no torture evil enough to force that out of me! Actually, I can't remember a favorite book because I read everything I could find to read, even old books in my parents' library they had kept for years because they intended to read them someday (just like my TBR pile today). By the time I was a teen, I was fascinated mostly by fiction about ancient history, and The Egyptian comes to mind first. Ben Hur, The Robe, all those religious books. I read lots of others, but those captured my fancy most. Historicals, always first, even now. I'm not a TV person, and never was. We had no TV until I was a teen so I have no favorite kid shows. I did like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone, and later, the early Star Trek. I haven't seen a sitcom yet that kept me sitting through the whole thing unless I was too sick to do anything else. And I'd rather stare at the dark screen than watch a soap. - Delle Jacobs

Book - Alice the Cat Who Was Haunted. TV show - I Dream of Jeannie. - Dani Collins

I loved all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Also enjoyed Little Women. My favorite television show...probably Happy Days or Laverne & Shirley or Three's Company. - Janice Lynn

Favorite TV show was The Man From U.N.C.L.E. - well, one of my favorites anyway. I had about 50 favorites all together. Favorite book would have to be a series. Nancy Drew. Read 'em all, loved 'em all. - Pam Payne

My TV fave was F-Troop (I am one of the few people who knows who Larry Storch is). I also loved a totally sappy and moralistic book (similar to Little Women) called The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, which I read over and over. So my tastes were equally shaped by satire and sentiment, which might explain why I like Nora Ephron films so much. - Kiki Clark

I was transformed by the book Little Women, which I read in about fourth grade, although I am still angry that Jo didn't wind up with Laurie! I was so enamored of this book (I still have it!) that I pined for a "Beth" doll for Christmas. My parents gave her to me, a beautiful Madame Alexander doll that a few years later I gave up to the Thrift Shop, one of my huge regrets in life! For TV shows, there were a whole slew of them in the late '50s, early '60s, produced by Warner Brothers - 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye, Bourbon Street Beat, the incomparable Maverick (I can still sing the theme song) and, my top favorite, The Alaskans, starring a very young Roger Moore. Sigh! The heroes in these shows sparked my childhood romantic fantasies and probably formed my ideas of what a romantic hero should be. - Diane Perkins/Diane Gaston

I read anything I could get my greedy little hands on. I loved all the Black Stallion books, My Friend Flicka, Black Beauty. I read Jane Eyre when I was 10, and that was my first love affair with a romance novel. Gone With The Wind, ALL the Victoria Holt books, and when I was 13, I discovered Barbara Cartland. Started babysitting to feed the need. As a youngster, I never missed The Monkees and I Dream of Jeannie. My brother and I loved to watch The Jonathan Winters Show, and Laugh-In, and Wild Wild West. I still remember watching Bonanza and eating ice cream with my dad. When I was older, I confess, I liked The Brady Bunch. That Jan - what a whiner! But everything always ended happily, and I imagined that I'd grow up and have a gigantic, happy family like the Bradys, find the kind of true love Barbara Cartland's heroines found, and ride across meadows on the back of a black stallion. Turned out, I only had two children, not six, and I drive across Texas in a black SUV, not on a horse, but I did find true love - so two out of three ain't bad! - Stephanie Feagan

I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, Victoria Holt as I grew older, Charlotte's Web, and Judy Blume. TV: Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days, Mork and Mindy (when I was really young, 2nd grade, I had a pair of Mork jeans with the suspenders), The Brady Bunch, and if my grandma from San Antionio was visiting, we got to watch Days of Our Lives, Another World and As the World Turns along with the Price is Right. - Priscilla Kissinger

My favorite show on TV was Little House on the Prairie. For books, I devoured anything by Judy Blume. - Jill Monroe

My favorite books were Trixie Belden (loved her better than Nancy Drew), Nancy Drew, of course, the Little House books, the Three Investigators Series, and the Mad Scientists' Club. I also loved the books by Willard Price - Gorilla Adventure, African Adventure, Cannibal Adventure - about two brothers who were the sons of a zoologist and had to go on wildlife adventures. And the Boxcar Children. And...the witch books by Ruth Chew. TV shows: The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Little House on the Prairie, the original Scooby-Doo, Gilligan's Island. My brother was a dead-ringer for Gilligan! Every Monday night was "Little House Night." My dad would make a big bowl of popcorn -and he would melt an entire stick of butter to drizzle over it! The entire family would gather in the living room and watch it. It was the only night we could stay up until nine o'clock! - Colleen Gleason

For TV, The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Also Little House on the Prairie. When I was younger, The Wonderful World of Disney. - Debra Holland

TV: Gilligan's Island, Lost in Space, Flipper and a favorite for all Aussies, Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo! Who could forget that unforgettable dialogue?:

"tch tch tch tch tch"
"Oh hi, Skip, where have you been?"
"tch tch tch tch tch"
"What's that Skip, someone's hurt?"
"tch tch tch tch tch"
"A tourist, down at the pass?"
"tch tch tch tch tch"
"And they've broken their leg and the creek is rising?"
"tch tch tch tch tch"
"And if we don't get there they'll drown - or worse! Hang on Skip, I'm on my way."
– Trish Morey

When I was growing up, any night that had more than one cowboy show was family night. I remember gathering to watch Maverick, Palladin, Rawhide...it instilled in me a love of the cowboy genre that's with me to this day (did you see Tom Selleck as "Monty Walsh"?). - Karen Potter

As far as favorite books, I wasn't much of a reader when I was young. My mother read to us before we went to bed. One book I loved that she read was Old Bones the Wonder Horse about the 1918 Kentucky Derby winner, Exterminator. I realized after I started teaching elementary school how many wonderful books were out there for kids. I wonder why none of my elementary teachers ever introduced all these wonderful books to us. Oh, we had our weekly trip to the school library, but we were pretty much left to our own devices to pick out a book to read. I never found any that made me want to read and read. Some I never finished. I read the Little House books as an adult. I loved them and wondered where were these were when I was a kid, especially since I lived about 50 miles from DeSmet, S.D., where several of the books take place. If I had been teaching there, I would have been all over those books. I didn't watch much TV when I was a kid, either. For one thing, we didn't get a TV until I was about 7 years old, and we lived out in Montana where we had one channel, and it was only on from about 6 p.m. until midnight maybe. When the programming wasn't on, there was a test pattern. I guess biggies for me and TV were Bonanza, The Fugitive and Ed Sullivan because he had the Beatles on his show. - Merrillee Whren

My favorite books growing up were the Trixie Belden mysteries. I still have my Trixie Belden fan club card, signed in pink felt tip. I also loved - and still do - the Betsy-Tacy books. They were set in my hometown, and I used to have a weekly paper route where I delivered papers to Betsy's, Tacy's and Tib's old houses. TV shows: I used to watch religiously, along with my parents, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and M*A*S*H. - Charity Tahmaseb

Off and on, through most of my adult life, I searched for a book I had read as a child. All I could remember was "Laura Mason Potts." From time to time I would check used and antiquarian books stores, in various cities, with no luck. After I started using the Internet, I periodically tried Google, also without success. Last summer I Googled it again and, to my surprise, it brought up a review on Amazon. The reviewer had also been searching for "Laura Mason Potts," but the real title is Loretta Mason Potts. For many years, this anonymous reviewer and I had been searching for the wrong title! The author is Mary Chase and the book had been reissued in 1989, so I immediately ordered a copy and was thrilled to finally rediscover a childhood favorite. It's a wonderful fantasy about a girl and her siblings who travel through a tunnel from their closet to a secret world. They're not always good little children but eventually they discover the importance of listening to their mother! - Lee McKenzie

 

To read last month's Top 10 article, click here

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