You and your garden - getting to know all about you

Well I voted so it is to late to change it now. In addition to gardening on the deck which you can do almost all year round here in Tejas I do a lot of house plant gardening. I try to cultivate plants that eat bad stuff in the air.

Thank heavens it worked! I get all the flak for your polling glitches. :-(

I have a small veggie garden out in the back yard. I have a bit of a forest too but I don't touch that area. The portion of the lot that is "yard" is plenty enough to deal with - especially now with the leaves dropping...

phew! this one stuck!

It was kind of weird, because when i was setting up the options, all the options from the other one i created (lord only knows where it went) were in the pop-up options.

fishin' - what do you do about leaves? do you leave them be where they are til spring? do you pile them up to protect stuff? do you rake them up tidily and send them away? do you compost them?

Well, I voted for yard in summer cause that's when I do most of my gardeing, but I also start my plants in the house starting in January (no basement, though, so that choice is out). This polls is kind of like the choices they give you when you call tje cable company and get their list of phone choices (i.e. press '1' for...) and absolutely none of the selections is what you're looking for. Oh, well, I did the best I could.

bandylu - i thought i'd start with these and then try to fine-tune the next one - if we have enough 'summer gardeners' who also do winter prep work, we could do a thread about the garden planning we do in winter - garden journals - stuff like that.

I'm on a 3 acre lot with 1.5 acres wooded. I usally rake them up and use them to cover my flower bulbs in the front flower beds for the winter and as weed control around the veggie garden out back. Come spring I move the ones from the front flower beds to the veggie garden and till them in...

errrrrr, the basement choice is really meant for a very particular kind of gardener - the b.c. bud/fluorescent light kinda gardener - they've got particular concerns

thanks, fishin - that really helps in starting to figure out what kinds of gardeners we've got here

If anyone does any water gardening please speak up! I'm debating on putting in a smallish pond out in my back yard come spring.. I'm looking for some pros/cons and ideas!

fishin -- we have a small pond (the prefab type) in our backyard and while I absolutely love the way it looks, it's a lot of work (a real lot of work) because we have fishies, too. That means two filters which have to be cleaned regularly and worrying about the winters (prefab ponds aren't really deep enough for a bad winter) and the leaves have to be cleaned out and the sticks and one year we had a mallard trying to swim around in it (and knocking over the potted plants in the process).

And then you have to make sure the water is moving around or you breed mosquitoes. Want to hear more?

One of my best pals here has a small pond in her yard. Her biggest problem is the raccoons getting into it and destroying all her decorative objects. The cleaning and maintenance issue is also a bit of a bugbear. Given the West Nile concerns, you'd have to be absolutely sure to keep the water moving at all times and/or incredibly clean.

I leave the leaves where they fall.
On Friday, they are putting in an above-ground oil tank, at long last.The above-ground tank is to go under the front porch and is horizontal.
That means, I can really start on planning an un-lawn.
What can I plant?
The area is sunny, shaded only by a Japanese Maple.
I want to stop mowing the grass, but I want it to look good, too.
II have thought about a mix of these huge flagstones, ornamental grass, and some bulbs.I love the look of Wild Tulips and this is about the only sunny area I have left.I live in zone 6.

Actually, we've had the pond for five or six years and I loved it for the first four or so. Then I just got tired of cleaning out filters. If I had it to do over again, I think I'd skip the fish in such a small pond (they reproduced extensively and though I gave away oodles I still have too many which is one reason my filters get dirty so quickly).

Ooh, Bandylu said the same thing right in front of me! Gorgeous pic of the pond, Bandylu.

Great question, jeanbean. I know that Bandylu is quite a knowledgeable gardener, and I've got some experience in de-lawning in zone 6. Back later, if the ISP is in a good mood.

Oh, and then there's the algae. In the spring it turns the entire pond murky green and nothing (and I mean nothing) they sell really works. Once the plants start growing and give some shade and use some of the nutrients, it does clear up, but for a while it's plain ugly.

jeanbean, I don't know much about wild tulips but I would imagine they are spring flowers. To get some color all summer, you could try some stella d'oro daylillies:



They're perennial, bloom all summer long and maintain a compact habit. I have them in with some dwarf blue fescue (about 12-15" high, compact, and stays blue-green all winter, too).

Maybe some nice rocks mixed in, too. Will think some more and get back if I can think of any more flower ideas.