After many years of wishing I could do it, I've finally convinced my neighbor to let me commandeer her back yard. She has an enormous sunny yard with nothing in it. It's been fallow so long that the soil has become one giant slab of brick. Even weeds have trouble rooting up in it. On the other hand, I have a great little garden but almost no sunshine, certainly not enough to have any food crops. So, we got together and she got her chocolate on my peanut butter, so to speak, and we decided to share the garden space.

I've been over there the past month pickaxing, hoeing, spreading gypsum, fertilizer and compost. Now, it's ready to go!

I'm wondering how far to take my victory garden this year, now that I have some room. Should I stick to heirlooms that were around during the war years? Should I sneak in a few modern varieties with better disease resistance or higher yields? Has anybody got some suggestions for what sort of beautiful beans or squash or something I should add to the garden for edible loveliness?

I want to hear what all of you gardeners will be doing this year. I'm so excited about having such a big plot of land for once!

We have no such luxury, being in a tiny first floor flat.
A couple of years ago we took on a huge allotment, that had not been tended for years. Unfortunately the bindweed had taken hold and it was just no fun.

So, just a few pot plants for us (no, not pot; that stuff does me no favours).

I'd love to grow a few varieties of chili and in theory I could stick some pots outside in the 'communal garden area'.

Well, after a few years in the house and working mostly on the inside, I'm hoping to get the yard in some kind of order this year.

We have a nice lilac bush and a small-ish rose bush in front, and the daffodils are up and so is my hyacinth.

What I'd like is a LOT of lavender, so I plan on that. My back yard is nice and flat and square, and the Kid has a HUGE football (soccer) goal at the back of it. So. I usually only plant grass back there and try to keep it nice and short.

There's a small spot with a bench, that I'd like to do something, but I have ZERO landscaping imagination...

I'm finally going to have a yard to start a garden when we move. I had mostly planned on herbs for now and see how that goes. I'm hoping I'll do better at outdoor gardening. Everything I've ever planted inside that wasn't a succulent or cactus has died a fairly speedy death. Lavender is on my list, as well as basil, chives, rosemary, sage and thyme.

The important part is lots of sunshine. More sun = tastier herbs and more flowers. I get people all the time who wonder why their rosemary isn't growing well in the living room or why their flowers are dying when they water it every day (too bad their pot doesn't have a hole in it for drainage). Well, no one is born knowing this stuff. We all have to kill a few plants before we figure it out.


Mimi, is your bench in the shade or in the sun? And do you get snow in the winter?

I'll try to once again bust through the clay in our yard and pray to the garden gods that something shows up edible! Last year I went nuts with the garden catalogs and threw some whacked up stuff in the dirt.

This year, it's back to good and safe peppers, tomatoes and strawberries...if I can keep the rabbits out of the strawberries!

Until we have something more than a windowsill to garden in, its the old weed in the pot.

The bench area is at the corner of the house,and it does get some sun. Not all day, though, about mid-morning and for a few hours. There are a tons of Tiger Lillies that come up every year just next to it, on one side.

It isn't a large spot that's open, but I thought something colorful would be pretty there.

Things seem to grow well in the dirt we have, I just haven't really put anything out much. Did some Vencas last year, and they were fine. But they don't come back each year...

OOOh I LOVE Tiger Lilies! Are they orange? I have Tiger lilies growing out of a bed of bright indigo Lobelia. Looks great. Maybe that will work for you too?

Last year I finally put in a raised bed for herbs and vegetables. I tend toward heirloom plants that I get at Plimoth Plantation. I had good luck with lovage, savory, thyme, basil (just finished the last of the frozen pesto), and some fun tomatoes. Less fortunate with chives (something kept digging them up), squash, and calendula. I also have some wormwood in a pot that I raised from seed. Plans for this year include fava beans and Concord grapes to take advantage (and hide) the ugly fence the neighbors put up.

The front garden has a sour cherry tree and I'd like to put in a quince. Most of the flowers are in the front, but they're not particularly abundant or exciting. I'm slowly replacing the front lawn with low-growing things that aren't grass. I hate mowing!

Y'know, I really like the silky look of the calendula petals but I don't really know what to DO with them. I mean yeah you can make face cream with them or put them in your rice, but they don't taste like anything and they don't do much other than color your liquid, so...what's the point? They spread out nicely, though. I dunno. Maybe I'll try some next year.

I noticed that this year I'm definitely leaning toward purple things. Purple Cherokee tomatoes, Burgundy pole beans, purple carrots, purple bell peppers. I should really throw in some orange things for contrast or my garden will just look bruised.

I have the most marvelous lemon thyme called "Green lemon", and it smells like Lemonheads candy. It makes a great tea but even better cookies and it can't be beat as a green mulch. My single plant is now a dense, fragrant mat 2 feet square. No weed can find purchase! Bwa ha ha!

The lillies are orange and there three nice beds of them--on either side of the stairs to the deck, and then at the far end of the deck. I love them! They're really tall and bloom for months.

The bench is amidst one of the beds, beside the deck steps. I want something colorful to mix in, behind the bench.

What I also want, is a nice mix of color for the front bed. It's about six feet long and about 2 feet wide, just below the front porch, runs alongside the sidewalk to the back. There's a lot of the foundation showing, too, so I want something tall at the back, and then something that will fill the front portion of the bed.

Any ideas?

Yeah, lots! Is it all sunny there?

The front of the house gets the morning sun, and some amount for most of the day.

I really like a lot of color, and a lot of bang for my buck, because my budget is straining. So whatever is bright and cheap and not too much maintenance. I will work on the beds, but probably not daily. Hell, maybe not even weekly if I can be at the pool! I do pull the weeds and that sort of thing, though, and set up the sprinkler if we're having a dry spell.

[url=http://www.armstronggrowers.com/newweb/Catalogues/Hotbiscus/060105_1404%20(D)/pages/images/nightfiret.jpg]Hotbiscus[/url] is a new kind of psychadellic-colored hibiscus. Sun Parasol Crimson Mandevilla is a short vine or large shrub coveres with dark green leaves and clear red flowers about the size of trumpet vine flowers. I'd pair it with comething blue and creeping, like Dwarf Plumbago or Crystal Palace Lobelia


Sorry that first link won't code up no matter what I do.