I am writing from IOWA, zone 5. Can I plant peonies, daylilies, lavender now or do I need to wait until spring? I have never lived in winter climates and so am anxious to get started on my new landscape projects but I want the plants to be as healthy as possible. Please advise.

Thanks for joining us Susan! The main purpose of this site is to share our garden pleasures with others and to enjoy meeting flower lovers from near and far. I love visiting gardens from around the world, no matter their location - and apparently many others do too, even if we can't all grow the same plants the same ways. As of this date, our visitors have come from 44 different countries ! It would be so enjoyable to all of us if more of them would post here or on the guest book! So I'm really glad you have :)

You may have missed all the references I make to our Texan location in the weekly entries under Come Stroll and elsewhere. You might want to search the net specificly within your zone and especially connect with your local Ag. Extension Service for specific planting dates. Of course, the most enjoyable learning always comes from experienced gardeners within your area.

Any of our readers are welcome to contribute to Susan's entry. Keep us updated on your progress Susan, we especialy love hearing from transplanted gardeners that have to re-learn on a new piece of the planet!

Hi Maggie, I live to garden. Nothing makes me happier than having dirt under my fingernails and a trowel in my hand. Last year I had decided to aim my garden in the English direction, but this year I decided that the butterfly garden was what I wanted. As I started to dig deeper, so to speak (pun intended) I discovered that they are so similar that I need not veer too far off my chosen path at all. I am pleased with my choices and now, if I can just make it look as good in the yard as it does in my mind's eye. lol

Lacydee, where does your garden grow? I love the butterflies flutterin' in my garden too!

Welcome Lacydee, to this gaggle of other dirty nailed happy folks, also sometimes known as the No-Hosers! Those clean nailed, hosed souls don't know what they are missing, do they? It's a much more glorious world, for those of us who get to live in a garden!
I know what you mean about pigeonhole titles for gardens, because I have decided that if you have healthy blooming borders ... you have a butterfly garden, right? And the rest of the canvas is yours for the making!
Feel free to cyber garden with us anytime and if you like, share pics of your haven with us too. Instructions for posting images are in the navi bar on the left of this page. Anyone is welcome to – just hit ‘Formatting’, then scroll down to ‘Images, Attachments, and Clipart’. As incapable as I am at this stuff, I have actually managed to pull it off a few times on my own!

I am thinking Lacydee, that if you 'are pleased with your choices now'... that it will soon become that which you see in your mind's eye, as it matures. Foresight is such a key to border making; putting in the newbies with the ability to see into the gardens future developement, and its sounds as if you have that knack. And no matter what theme a garden maker aims to, the results are always a very unique, personal expression of the individual. You will have the 'Lacydee Garden', beyond whatever else it may be deemed by any others!

hello. i am a novice; but i want to learn. i thought about starting simple...like planting a few things in some of my already made beds and filling some pots. i have almost 2 acres..it is already landscaped, but i want color. i love english gardens, but i live in austin and the soil is very rocky. i purchased my home and i dont know what has been planted or what will come up. where do i start. can i plant now? i do have pansies.

Hi JD, How about an annual bed for a quick and easy beginning? Mature nursery-bought biennial hollyhock plants could go in the back. (The 4" pot size would not bloom until next year and the larger size might bloom this year, depending on their age.) Sow larkspur and poppy seeds next, then nasturtiums along the front. You can plant the lark and pop now, but nastie seedlings would need covering if you get a late freeze. When these early annuals decline in June, you could yank their bodies out to sow zinnias in the middle for summer color and verbena or lantana where the nasturtiums were.

If you want it to evolve into a mixed border, you could start adding perennials after the summer annuals finish. If so, be sure next spring, that the reseeding annuals do not grow over the perennials next year. When your perennials are a mature size and you are sure of their dormant locations, it is possible to include annuals between them, in subsequent years. One of my upcoming articles is on using 'cool season annuals among the perennials' to take advantage of our amazingly long growing season.

I have the same terrain as the Austin area - so I know it would be good to enrich it with lots of humus and natural foods thru the year, if you plan to make it a mixed border. Or you might decide to bring in more bedding soil, which will still need nurturing for the best flowers possible - whether you want wild, posh, passalongs or mixed plantings. We post Gail Morris' monthly 'Organic Guide' here on the site that will take you from white rock to black gold by next fall.
I hope you take before-and-after pics thru the year, because you will enjoy them for years to come (and we would all love to see here on the forum :-) Here's wishing you a very flowery garden year!

It's great to have more gardeners join us at Maggie's. You'll love it here - it's a friendly place!

Susan, I'm surprised you can get a shovel in the ground now. I'm in zone 5 in the mountains of WV(but I think of it as zone 4) and we're still under snow. I envy all these TX gardeners and their winter gardening. Where was your previous warm climate gardens?

As to setting out plants now - I think I'd wait at least until May. Do you know your last frost date yet? My plant out date for annuals is June 1 - because of my higher mt. elevation I have to wait longer than some zone 5 gardeners. But I'm always out there in late April preparing beds and in May I begin moving the tough perennials like daylilies around. And to help with that gardening itch in the early months of the year, I start seeds under the lights. I have some germinating now!

Feel free to e-mail me - I definitely garden in a cooler climate. I'm not an expert, but I'm always glad to share my expierences.

Hello JD. Welcome to the forum.

When we lived in Ft. Worth, the soil was a very few inches of clay on top of limestone. The attached pictures are of the little worthless area between the fence and the house common to surburban lots. This one was on the north side of the house, thus very little sun except in mid-summer.

My dining room, breakfast room, and kitchen windows all overlooked this area, so I had to do something with it. We built raised beds. The one in front of the dining room window we did in 2 levels.

The pics are of the first year. I used a fast growing annual vine to go up the fence, and whatever I could find cheap to put into the beds. Notice the Easter lilies that were from previous Easters which I had planted the Fall before.

I didn't bother trying to dig out the beds, except as needed to get the boards fairly level. I put down layers of newspaper on the ground and dumped compost with a little potting soil mixed in into the beds. Then planted.


I added perennials as time went on. My suggestions to you would be:

Reading list:
"Landscaping with Native Texas Plants", Sally Wasowski (and just about any other book by her)

"Howard Garrett's Plants for Texas", Howard Garrett

"Herb Gardening in Texas", Sol Meltzer

"The Texas Flowerscaper", Kathy Huber

Additionally, take some field trips in your area to:

Fredericksburg Herb Farm

Wildseed Farms, Ltd.

The Antique Rose Emporium (in Brenham and San Antonio)

Be sure to keep us updated on your progress.

Thanks for sharing your advice and pics with us Caro. It is especially nice to have pics for keeps, when we have to leave our gardens behind, isn't it?

Our Books page, home page and others have links to Amazon where you can order any of Caro's listed titles. Any books bought thru amazon are credited to us whether we have the titles linked on our pages or not. Its doesn't generate much support (pennies really), but we also like to provide the convenience to our visitors.
I am so glad to have MK with us regularly now, to help us out with cold winter gardeners enquiries! Thank you MK for sharing your experienced knowledge. oxoxo

thanks you all for all the encouragement and advice. i will let you know what i plant, what i kill and what survives. i cant wait to get dirty!!! i will take pics too; great idea. thanks for reading material. i ordered seed and some plants from park seeds online. guess i will just "do it"