Love this topic as I am excited for spring. I have many, many hosta, columbine, cone flowers, day lillies, yarrow, Dianthis, Coleus, daffodils, Astilbe, bleeding heart, ferns, and last year I went to New Holland, Mich and bought some tulips bulbs, planted them different ways to see if the 'varmits' will stay away from them and let them live. Have Iris, roses and I love coral bells, hen and chicks, peony bushes, I could go on but won't - I belong to a garden club. Am going to try planting herbs and other things in old tires this year. Also have given away a small round grain bin and the bottom is sandy. I added a bit of black dirt last spring to a small area and planted 3 strawberry plants. WOW they did well so I will plant more strawberries and some watermellon.

I do a lot of gardening. Each year I pick one thing that is different. This year I purchased petunia seeds. i put these in containers.

Needless to say, it was like buying fabric. I need one of these, and one of those......

I only plant bushes. Planted couple flower beds one year and fought with them and animals who loved to sleep in them and neighborhood cats who loved to pee in them and kill them. I have an aloe plant (coral variety), honey suckle (coral variety) and rose bush that grows like a weed but no one can figure why it won't bloom (for the last 3 years). We have red photinia. That's it.

This year I plan on planting a few veg. Around my flowers. Our HOA said we are not allowed to plan a garden. I want fresh off the plant food. A tomatoes plant here, green peppers there. Cumcumbers mixed in with some lettuce. My space is small but I think I can make it work.

We have shade on our big porch, so I plant impatiens, coleus, spider plants, and ferns in planters and hanging planters. Our deck is sunny, so geraniums, petunias, other sun-lovers go into those planters. I winter the geraniums in the basement. Some of them are 15 years old. I need some suggestions for other sun-lovers - especially some that will 'trail' out of my planters. We lost a BIG part of a maple that shaded the deck a couple years ago. Before that, I planted shade-lovers in the deck planters.

20/25 years ago when I started planting things, I decided that the yard would be mostly trees, shrubs, and perennials. We made our house blue with a red door (vinyl siding, color will not be changed) and I always buy red ivy geraniums for the porch.
I tried pots of annuals on the deck but that idea didn't last very long!

I have a really odd shaped front yard, that had 8 inches of bark dust when I bought the house. I got rid of the "beauty bark" that wasn't beautiful, and have been planting hollyhocks along the house wall, and allysium (sp?) all along the lower edge. I have used multicolored holly hocks, and red and white mixed allysium. I have a riot of flowers all summer and fall. Kind of looks like a drunk's English garden. Very funky, very me!

I learned that the Impatiens throughout the country has been stricken with a blight. I had beautiful Impatiens last year (here in St. Paul, Mn) and my cousin in Milwaukee lost over 100 plants (his favorite) due to the blight. I talked to our local nursery and I told her I wanted a specific kind and she is ordering them for me (Impatiens - Cranberry - sort of a brownish red) but suggested that I plant something between the Impatiens should they get the blight and die off. Good Idea!!!!! Now what do I plant that spreads like Impatiens and possibly have to remove the in between replacement plants because I didn't get the blight? Just thought I'd tell you what is going on with Impatiens in case you want to change your mind. I'm not going to change my mind. I have a new deck going up out front as soon as this stupid snow melts - another lambaste last night - and the cranberry color will match the colors of the deck decorations.

I will probably do some tomatoes, zinnias, marigolds, some hanging petunias. Whatever! I love 'em all. I do want to get a plant, though, that I got last year in Wisconsin. It is a wire plant. Really neat - ground cover, very very thin stem with little leaves and the stem looks like wire. It just creeps wherever it wants to go. Love it! I have Correopsis, Sidalcea (white - gorgeous - has a black throat - reseeds itself) and Calendula in yellow and orange (reseeds itself). I have mostly Impatiens, however, because the yard is shady (Thank you next door neighbor with your two huge Ash trees - with all respect to the Ash, maybe the Ash Borer will attack it this year). Don't get anymore grapes, no sunshine, it's just sad! I don't like ash trees anyhow. I have my Ginkgo out back and cluster paper birch out front. And this year I will be watching for my white Magnolia to bloom. Got it as a memorial from my sister in law when my husband died last year. It was beautiful last Spring. Now I just hope for this spring. It is still covered in about two feet of snow.

Excuse for babbling on. Gotta get back to sewing my quilt now. Have a nice day, all of you. Edie:)

As I get older (69 now), I plant more and more perennials. We have lots of landscaping and so need many plants.
Straight line winds almost 3 years ago took out about 15 large oaks, so our once shady yard became an almost
full sun yard. We have flowering shrubs (hydrangeas, forsythias, azaleas, rhodies) and colorful long-bloomiing
perennials (lilies--my favorite--coneflowers and who knows what else). I start most of my annuals under lights in
the basement--impatiens in February, petunias in early march, pansies and geraniums in early January, and zinnias
in April. Usually buy the plants for our many planters so I can have a nice variety. Will be on the garden tour this
year, so I hope my perennials made it through our very harsh winter.

we have mostly perennials & fill in with a few annuals in the flower beds. We also have an herb garden & plant a large veggie garden each year. Last year DSIL planted a second garden - just corn, squash, & beans in the pasture behind the hen house. Last year we also started trying to plant one of the pastures in wild flowers what we did last year was beautiful - we can't wait to see how much of it comes back. We already have the see to sow another big strip. This will be a project that will go on for years probably - doubt if I will live long enough see it finished but the start of it was fantastic.