Help!


  #1  
Old 08-10-02, 07:48 AM
meg1199
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Help!

Hi there!
New to gardening?????? Yep, that's certainly me!.......now that much of my garden has finished blooming......what now???? Do I cut back a lot of the perennials, or is that only done for certain perennials?
Thanks!
Meg
 
  #2  
Old 08-10-02, 06:21 PM
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Smile Clean up time

Hi Meg Welcome to the DIY Garden Forum

If I were you the first thing I would do, is take an inventory. Draw out a small sketch of the way the garden is now.

Your first task is to clean up. All the dead wood and flowers thinking like, you must clean up all body parts of plants. Weeds rotten mulch etc. This will remove many pests eggs waiting for next season.

Once you have everything cleaned up it is time to see what you have & if it needs marked for deviding next Spring.

It's like this you start with 5 Tulips & before long you have 10 and each year some bulbs & tubers or roots need to be devided so as not to choke the group out.

Every plant has it's own rules. Iris gets devided when it is in flower. Tulips get devided in the Fall when they are dormant & will flower next Spring.

So other than a good clean up right now. You need to put a name to the different plants. There are no one method fits all, when dealing with plants.

You have in front of you a vast pool of information on plants and their care throughout the seasons. That is of course after you get the names of the different plants.

Some things that would help are. How long has this plant been here with out being devided? Do you like the layout? Or would you rather have these tall plants behind those short plants.

Don't let it overwelm you, the plants are in the ground so if it takes one more Summer to get the names at least you will have everything clean, and healthy going into next season.

One good source is the seed & plant catalogs, the pictures are great & many of the Companies have tons of info about how to care for your plants.

I hope I have given you a starting point, just go at your own pace & allways remember that Gardening is good for escaping the husle busel of life. A place to find yourself in the natural world.

Marturo
 
  #3  
Old 08-14-02, 06:10 PM
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Hi Meg,

Marturo gave you some great advice here. Do try and identify the plants that you have. Things like purple coneflower and black eyed susans I usually leave up for the birds to eat the seeds. Tall sedums also look nice peeping through the snow. I usually wait until the first hard frost to do a clean up. You could dead head or cut in half anything that won't have seeds for the birds. Many plants need the green growth to nourish the roots for next year. Also, cutting them back now might cause a new flush of bloom. That could be a good thing at this time of the year.

If you can, get back to me with the names of your plants that you aren't sure about and I'll give you specifics as to what to do with them.

Most of all, keep asking questions. That's one of the best ways to learn.

Hope this helped,
Newt
 
 

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