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GARDENING Basic gardening |
By Learnzat.com Many people say they have no luck at all with a wild flower garden. But luck has nothing to do with it. It is about understanding, for wild flowers are like people and each has its own personality. What a plant has been used to in nature it always desires. In fact, when removed from its native living conditions, it gets sick and dies. When choosing certain flowers from the woods, notice the soil they are in, the conditions and surroundings. Suppose you find dog-tooth violets and wind-flowers growing near together. Then place them that way in your own new garden. Suppose you find a certain violet enjoying an open situation; then it should always have that room to grow. If you desire wild flowers to grow in a tame garden make them feel at home. Trick them into believing that they are still in their native area. Wild flowers should be transplanted after their blossoming time is over. Bring a basket and a trowel into the woods with you. As you take up a few, be sure to take some of the plants own soil with the roots which should be packed around it when replanted. The bed in which these plants will go should be prepared carefully before this trip to gather the flowers. You do not want to bring those plants back to wait over a day or night before you transplant them. They should go into their new home at once. The bed should have soil from the woods, rich and full of leaf mold. The drainage system underneath should be the very best. This way plants are not going into water-logged ground. Some people think that all wood plants should have water saturated soil. Not true, since the woods are not water-logged. You have to dig your garden up deeply and put stone at the bottom. The top soil should go over this. On top of that, put a new layer of the rich soil you brought from the woods. The soil should be watered well before planting. Then as you make spaces for the flowers, into each hole put some of the soil that belongs to the flower with it. It would be a rather nice plan to have a wild-flower garden giving a constant flow of bloom from early spring to late fall; so start off with March, the hepatica, spring beauty and saxifrage. Columbine, tiny bluets and wild geranium in April. For May there are the wood anemone, the dog-tooth violet, false Solomon's seal, Jack-in-the-pulpit, bloodroot, wake robin and violets. June will give the mullein, bee balm, bellflower and foxglove. For July, choose the gay butterfly weed. Let turtle head, Joe Pye weed, Queen Anne's lace, and aster make the rest of the season splendid until frost. |
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