i haz a yard

[keryx]

O friendslist, do you contain any gardeners?

Specifically gardeners who might have ideas about things this slacker could plant this fall in Virginia, things that ideally would stick around through spring? Strangely the internet does not seem readily able to answer this question unless I want to read all about gardening.

I want to plant some decorative grass and something floral.

Comments

[moongirli.livejournal.com]

I don't garden, but my boy is grounds crew, and a good friend of mine has an amazing flower garden she put together in her backyard (after 4+ yrs of work).

I know for sure that hastas (hostas?) require very little light and water, but that they are not flowers, just greenish bushy things.

[cyprinella]

Hostas do flower, generally late summerish, with sort of a spike of purple flowers. But yeah, they're mostly used for their folliage and shade growing properties.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

It seems unlikely that my citified plants would be munched by deer.

[cyprinella]

Slugs in my yard. They looked like swiss cheese before I dug them out.

[turbogrrl.livejournal.com]

Important to remember that hostas *really* can't deal with direct sun. They are definite shade-dwellers.

Irises will grow well in sun, and don't need much work beyond planting them properly. Lilies bloom early and then have tall grass-like foliage the rest of the year. Roses are a pain in the &^&%$!!. The best thing to do is determine if your soil is more sand or more clay (high drainage/low drainage), and then just wander out to the local garden center and say "hi! I have a yard with (sandy/clayey) soil, and with predominantly (shade/sun), and I'd like to plant things. Got any recommendations?" If you're lucky, you'll get a really enthusiastic plant person, and you can have fun fondling green things.

[cyprinella]

I've found roses to be pretty easy - except for black spot which I figure is just a factor of the humidity up here - but then again, my main rose is one that survived at least two years of being cut back down to the ground because my bf didn't know what it was and no idea how long it had been there before that. My other rose is from Freecycle and has survived being moved twice in the last two years so it's a tough bush.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I think this area is more rose-friendly than many. I remember my parents' roses going crazy in Norfolk when I was a kid, and one of those bushes is still huge with no effort whatsoever after being transplanted to Maryland.

My dad talked about giving me a cutting from that, and one from a decades-old rose of sharon from his grandmother's yard.