:Oops:, Koala .. I did NOT know that ... :eek:

sure - go ahead .. scare the beejeebers outta me! :yikes:

can I grow plants in the big house, tho?? will have 3 squares a day, wear orange (for MS, tho) .. get 100% medical (no copays, no premiums and NO deductible) ... and get 100% school funding to be anything I want to be?? and a roof over my head ... and police that protect me 24/7 ... and only those that care will come and viz ... LOL :D

have to get some top soil (for the garden part) and some black plastic bags to kill off the grass for the 'english' garden part - and I found some small little leaf vines in the woods when I dug out a tree the other day - so, I have them in water to start rooting them for my 'living' wall ...

it's been cold and rainy ... but, I'm enjoying my little plot of ground ... and being a rebel planting all the trees and cutting back the lilac bush ... I was a bit sore today ... but, I'll get over it ..

take pix of your garden - so I can dream of being there!!

Vonn, there is some type of matting that can be used instead of the black plastic and it breathes and lets in the water. I'll go look for the name of it.

OK I looked.

lol I guess it's just called "weed matting". ;)

This is from a gardening show here. Burke's Backyard (I edited to take out the actual link because it was filled with ads for nasty chemicals and such. eeek)

OK....I got out in my garden with my trusty instant camera and tooks lots of photos of my flowers and shrubs. I did get a few done yesterday before strong winds sent me inside, and then today I took more between sun showers.

Looking back over the photos and seeing how many different types of blooms I have makes it look like I have a huge garden, but that's not true. Some are single plants and quite a few are trees or flowering bushes.

I've started naming the flowers and have done all those on the second page, but I've yet not tackled todays download. :eek: Most of those I'll have to search the internet before I can even put names to them. Feel free to name any flower that doesn't yet have one.

I've not deleted the awkward photos yet, but I will. I simply dowloaded all I took.

The first 4 pictures are just for Vonn. 1 & 2 are from the Net, and 3 & 4 I copied from a magazine. I wanted to show different examples of how you can use your small garden space to advantage.

Here's a link to my garden photos:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/album.php?albumid=495

Sorry Vonn.... I deleted the album. I'll send the 4 photos I mentioned via PM.

thanks, Lara & Koala ... it's raining out now ... so, I'm stuck inside - CLEANING!! :eek:

planning out my garden for spring ... the bulbs that I bought the other day (purple tulips and purple hydraengeas) ... I gave to my girlfriend yesterday for her garden! now, I need to get more for me!!

finally turned my furnace on!! WOW .. what a difference!! LOL

what can I buy in spring to start inside plants (I need to know this now - sorry .. so I can budget for March!) .. thanks!

Just a note about the weed matting that I mentioned...

I've just had a gate and a small area of bamboo screening put up and a retaining wall fixed that had fallen down from excessive flooding earlier in the year and to get to it all some of my plants had to be removed.

I've just been out there now preparing the area for replanting. I've ripped up as much of the weed matting that I could. I've decided I don't like it at all! So I got into the earth and mulched it all out in preparation. I think the weed matting was stopping the water getting into the soil actually. hmmmnn

I agree about the weed matting/plastic sheets that people lay down. I didn't have any in this garden thank goodness, but did in the last. I spent ages ripping it up, trying to get the soil back in a reasonable enough condition to plant anything. Not only was it rock hard because no moisture could get down, but it was really sour.

I ended up digging lots of mulch and fertiliser in, and I also mixed it with good, rich soil. If you want to do that and you can't rob Peter to feed Paul (soil-wise), once you've dug it over...mix in a large bag of good potting mix. I had to end up doing that to one area when I ran out of other options, and I got a really good result that pleased me a great deal.

I'm sure that some of our other gardeners will have other ideas for you. Happy gardening.

http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...ucket/h058.gif

:Wave-Hello:

Exactly. After I ripped up all the matting (which coincidentally looked quite porous, but obviously not) I noticed that the dirt under it was like a totally different planet entirely from the soil on the surface. It was so dry and none of the years of mulch that I've put in over the years was in that dirt obviously.

I can't physically get lots of new soil so I use the potting mix as well. In fact I even topsoil my little area of lawn with a very fine potting mix. Some have sticks and things in them, which is fine for the garden but not for topsoiling. I've found a really good cheapie that is quite fine and I can get that delivered in manageable size bags.

It's a bit warm out there now so I came inside again and lay under a fan for a while . lol eeek