Garden Coach's Blog for Gardeners

GCoach
These are excellent informative lessons to learn.
If I could add. Its seems very nice that the big box stores offer no questions asked when you want to return a dead plant. Just remember that no questions lead to no answers and repeated failure.
If you purchase a plant from a family owned busines that does not recieve the luxury of returning a plant to the supplier,When that Garden center employee starts asking you questions about the placement and care of your dead or dying plant,they are not trying to blame you.
That family owned nursery worker is trying to figure out what went wrong so your next plant selection and its care rewards you with success.
If the customer is successful the business will be successful too.
And please remember to ask the proper employee for advice.
When you buy a roast at the Supermarket do you ask the cashier for advice on the meat? Or do you ask the butcher?
Same goes at the Garden Center.

Thanks for your post GardenCoach.
I look forward to more.

I am all too notorious of doing some of the things you describe, but I have been learning! My problem is, I purchase plants with the notion of exactly where I want to put them, but unfortunately when they arrive the beds I wanted to plant them in aren't ready yet usually due to laziness. Thus they sit in thier shipping container, doomed to an ill fate. Now I try to have the beds prepared prior to even ordering my plants, which greatly decreases loss!

Now I just have to remember to keep the dang things watered!! LOL!

Thank You again for the great read!

I am also a lover of plants and flowers and I even have my garden printed out using cheap printer cartridges because it is so lovely. One important consideration that must be remembered is to carefully assess all of the present elements in a place before deciding to plant. It takes some effort and time to garden and for sure you wouldn't want any of these to just be put to waste.

Greetings greenthumber Susan, and nice to meet you!

Really excellent advice and taken to heart. I live in the Caribbean, and we sometimes get this notion that because our growing season is essentially all year 'round, that we can plant anything at any time. Nope.

I had occasion recently to plant open-pollinated Aussie tomatoes. I tried to treat them like regular tomatoes, and they wilted, and they almost died. I'd made a beautiful curved trellis for them to grow upon, and it was even partially shaded from the brutal midday sun. Nothing seem to work, until, in complete exasperation, I just let them go.

Turns out they were expending most of their energies (or so I presume) toward growing over and past all my obstructions. Once I left them alone, the grew like vines toward a small tree about seven feet away and roamed around that area, setting fruit and becoming quite bountiful. No cracking or crazing of the fruit, and true to the claim of the species, they require very little water. ... ... they just have to be allowed to go on walkabout.

I bought several citrus trees (Seville oranges) from the local agriculture department. They were very difficult to keep alive, so I started moving them around the property, looking for where they'd be happy. Of the six, I killed two before finding out that they wanted morning sun and not much else. The remaining four are doing great!

Companion planting also serves us well down here, and I suspect nearly everywhere. Sometimes a plant will grow when teamed with something else, where it would not be happy alone.

Appreciate your advice and words...... and now you're added to my favorites. Really look forward to your next offerings!

Crab

p.s. really miss the Bay Area. Be glad you're not trying to fight the muses and grow things in Walnut Creek. :D

p.p.s.s. Okay, I'm prone to verbosity; sorry about that. Regarding water conservation, perhaps you could speak to us about including soil amendments that help plants? I make coconut oil, so I use a LOT of cocopeat. I have no idea what the rest of the world uses. I think most of us want to use things that are sustainable within our environments, without having to buy expensive soil amendments.

Cheers!

Some good info here! Unfortunatly I live in Ireland so the weather is pretty much the same all year round! We do get a summer but its not amazing! Ink cartridges

Thanks, this info about climates has been very helpful.
Bill
Castle Ink