How to Choose Plants Wisely

Learn your soil type, because some plants won't grow in clay soil, and some plants do badly in loose, sandy soil, if they need a lot of water. They won't get it because water can spread away from where it is applied farther and faster  in loose soil than in clay soil and not be accessible to your plant for as long, and also can evaporate most easily.

Know where you have sun and shade most of the day, because these cannot be compensated for. It's almost like the difference between water and air for fish and land animals. Information about sun requirements is usually available wherever you acquire plants or seeds.

Decide how much you want to water. Some plants are stressed and won't thrive if they spend too much time in dry soil. Others do just fine, and some want to be bogged. And..some can't tolerate "wet feet." Their roots will rot. Low-water plants save water, time, money, and weeding. The less you water, the less you support weeds, too.

Know the ultimate size of the plant! Not having to control size is a big part of a low maintenance garden. Roses are fabulous flowers but horrendous shrubs. They're ideally cut back to a candelabra look once a year, or they'd be sprawling monsters and not bloom as much. There are varieties meant to be self-maintaining, but the flowers won't be the best.  They're called landscape roses.

Size is especially important with trees. There aren't many small trees. If you don't want the shade or to block a view, think about very large  shrubs instead. All trees are "messy." there are no exceptions, but there are degrees. Fruits and seeds that stick to shoes or hurt bare feet can ruin a sidewalk for the whole neighborhood for 100 years, so bear that in mind in a front or side yard. In a warm climate, Coral trees are pretty non-messy, and certain evergreens are not too troublesome for colder climates.

In choosing plants, consider pollinators (bees? birds? bats?), fragrance, toxicity, and food production, including herbs.  You don't hear much about serious cases of poisoning from garden plants, but I wouldn't grow Castor with children or pets around. Just in case. You can mix ornamentals and edibles in the same areas, and some edibles are nice-looking, such as artichokes.

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*There's Wistaria in Sierra Madre, CA, that has been allowed to take down a house. It is the the world’s largest blossoming plant, and weighs:
a) 450 lbs
b) almost a ton
c) 250 tons

Sierra Madre's Giant House-Eating Wistaria

The Basics of Starting a Garden

Every garden is located in a climate, and every climate has a name. You might not know what yours is called, but you know things like how cold it gets in winter and when it warms up in spring. As a gardener, you must know these things, because plants are very sensitive to climate. Like snakes and lizards, they cannot regulate their temperature, but unlike those animals, they can't seek shelter from extreme weather.

Temperatures affect viability and performance. Whether a plant will thrive for you is strongly related to its cold tolerance and sun/heat tolerance. Cherries, apples, and pears need cold winters to make fruit (performance). Citrus and avocados will freeze to death or at least lose their crop if it freezes significantly (viability and performance). The amount and form of yearly precipitation is also important to plants, as is its timing. As gardeners, we can make up for inadequate precipitation, and many plants don't mind too much precipitation if the soil they're in drains adequately. Plants available in nurseries and garden centers near you are likely to be suitable for your climate, so you don't have to be an expert when you begin making selections. Of course the same is true if you exchange plants and seeds with your neighbors and friends.

If you're embarking on an outdoor garden for the first time, don't let any bad results you might have had indoors get you down. In a small pot, with only the light available through a window, plants kept indoors are somewhat like inmates of an inadequate institution. Failure to thrive might technically be your fault, but the conditions are set against you.

Still, you might want to keep things simply when it's time to make something of an expanse of bare soil in your hard or community plant, and for that, you can do no better than sow wildflower seeds. You will get a beautiful display out of a few ounces of wildflower seeds. They grow quickly and of sold for your local market, will be tolerant of the weather, no matter what it does. It's all good with wildflower seeds! Most climates will allow wildflowers to grow in spring and summer, they're low maintenance and their good for birds, butterflies and bees.

With a little help from you in the beginning, planting wildflowers will help to suppress weeds. A week or so before you sow your wildflower seeds, start watering the soil to a depth of a few inches. Don't let it dry out completely, and you'll soon see many green spikes poking up through the soil. You must ruthlessly kill them all! They're weeds. (What is a weed? A plant that likes to grow more than people like to grow it.) Pluck away weed seedlings as soon as you recognize them. If you don't, they will bloom and set seed, or spread horizontally with  runners or other fancy footwork.

Pay attention to the appearance of the weed seedlings. If you can recognize them you will always be able to eradicate them while preserving the seedings of the plants you want in your garden.

Keep those weeds at bay for a week or so, until the day comes when very few new seedlings appear to replace the ones you killed the day before. Then you may sow your wildflowers. If it's already hot, do it in the evening so they'll have all night to absorb water from the soil and can germinate in good condition when the time comes. It will just be a few days at most, and only a few weeks before something is blooming.

Plunk a few sunflower seeds here and there, considering the height when you choose their places. They are trouble-free, and definitely one of the happiest plants you can grow.