Gardening and Greenhouse

Green Thumb answers:

Contact your local County Extention Agency and ask about the local Master Gardening club. They can tell you what works best for where you live, from what varieties to plant to the best time- and location- to plant, prune etc. They can also offer book titles, websites, the best nurseries etc. If no MG club, the agent should be able to point you in the right direction. By the way, the second growing season is to grow a second crop. It’s wonderful to live in Southern USA!

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Have you tried putting flowers and greenery in all sizes of planters and make strategic groupings in your yard? This can be very pretty and also you can plant some vegetables this way, tomatoes. Peppers etc. I don’t know what part of the country you live in or if it is a city. You can go to a home improvement store, like Lowe’s or Home Depot. They will give you advice.

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(August is not a good time of year to start gardening in the USA except for states such as south Florida)

You are gonna love gardening, don’t try to do it all in one year. Get to know where the sun shines the most, and where the shaded areas are. Because you will need flowers for the sun areas, and flowers for the shaded areas.

Since you are a beginner, this year start your garden with plants that you get from a garden center or nursery. They are called bedding plants and come in a six pack. Look for a little tag sticking in the six pact showing directions on how to grow the plants. If the tag is not there, ask for one or buy something else. Directions are VERY important.

Seeds are not always easy to grow. And wildflowers are the hardest so don’t be disappointed if they don’t show up.

Two good things to do for yourself is to call your local County Extension Service and ask for all the information that they have about gardening in your area. They usually have a packet/kit of things for the home gardener.

And number two would be to pick up a couple of beginner books. You really do need to know about soil, compost, mulch and etc.

To keep from over watering or not watering enough, buy a water analyzer from a nursery or garden center. Be sure to read the directions. This will be one of your best tools.

Send for some free gardening catalogs and get use to the different types of plants, colors, and when to plant. They are filled with good informtion and pictures. And they will keep you company during the long winter months. Here is a list of just a very few. There are hundreds more:

http://www.waysidegardens.com

http://www.dutchbulbs.com

http://www.jacksonandperkins.com (Roses)
http://www.oakesdaylilies.com (Daylilies)
http://www.caladium.com (Caladiums)

http://www.parkseed.com

http://www.burpee.com

Other catalogs:

http://www.leevalley.com

http://www.gardeners.com

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Container/pots/window boxes needs:

All need holes in the bottem for water drainage,
Potting soil that comes in bags,
Slow release fertilizer for flowers (not for green plants), OR liquid fertilizer that will need to be used more often-read directions,
Water crystals to be mixed into the soil for holding water,
Bedding plants or full grown plants.

Here is an excellent link to check out for color combinations and plants that look good together:

http://www.fernlea.com/awesomeaccents/recipes.html

Green Thumb answers:

My first thought is do you have any landscape or horticulture experience? The big thing is to find what your overhead is along with all of your other expenses. You need to find out how much it costs you per hour per piece of equipment your using. You need to figure out your skill level and your employees skill level to determine how many hours it takes to do different tasks. There are also books you can purchase to help you figure out how much time each tasks will take. I recently graduated from a landscape program at a technical college and I had an estimating class that helped with that. As for what to target when you are first starting out take just about any job you can get your hands on. If you limit your target market to a certain house size you rfeally limit your market. I would also look at not just limiting your market to new construction or just renovation work. These are just a few things I learned at school. The books you may want to purchase are Labor &Equipment Production Times for Landscape Contractors by Charles Vander Kooi, the other book is Landscape Estimating and Contract Administration. As for an actual per hour rate it depends on the area of the country you live in. Another thing you may want to consider is giving a bid instead of charging the customer a flat hourly rate. Some contractors just base their labor costs from a percentage of their material costs but this isn’t the best way. I hope this helps. Good luck, I will be starting my own design/ build firm in a few years.

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Better homes and garden might have good ideas. I’d go to the library first and look at what they have book wise. They should have lots of books on all sorts of things pertaining to gardening and landscaping

you can also join some of the yahoo gardening groups out there for lots of help with info, advise and you can even get free plants and seeds (might have to pay postage but that’s it)

Green Thumb answers:

Hey tygrrfly I invite you to stop by the Home Depot how to website. There are a number of walkthrough’s and videos available covering everything from basic gardening to full landscaping projects. We also recently launched a DIY community that you might find helpful.
Cheers,
ChrisFixit

Green Thumb answers:

Grass seed, lilacs and large stones that you find here and there

Spread grass seed all over to help your grass, mow often and water as often as you can. Get a rain barrel for under the evestrough. I don’t know what I would do without it. Coolest thing ever.
Now that the grass is looking better, get some lilacs! No maintainence needed and they don’t look like shit like cedar trees do because they need so much water, and they give you a lovely privacy wall if you need one. They just add to any yard I think.

Now that the lilacs are planted, place large stones around them, or in a line around your property. Big round or square rocks, the possibilties are endless.

Trees like pincherries and easy to transplant, they grow fast and have beautiful blooms in the spring, and also attract many birds and butterflys.
Another beautiful thing for a plain yard is clamatis.

And when you get some money saved up, cement slabs and a pergola, awesome!

Good luck with your yard!
Anymore Questions here’s my email
lauren_maki@hotmail.com