Simple Gardening

I used to be really big into gardening, until I got tired of pulling up weeds. I decided to give it another try by converting everything into pots. So now its a potted garden. I'm even growing sunflowers in a huge pot to see how that goes. All the flowers/blubs/seeds I picked are for making flower bouquets. So I have roses, sunflowers, dahlias, Asiatic lilies, and giant zinnias to name a few. These plants usually require a lot of space so to save money on pots I was creative and bought things that could be used as a pot. Typically a huge pot runs about $25 and up, but at Wal-mart I stumbled upon some large plastic laundry baskets that were $5.

The Asiatic lilies are the trickiest thing for me. I never have luck growing lilies or orchids. I live in Florida so our climate can be too hot to properly grow them. Anyways, I will photograph the progress.

The Asiatic lilies have all ready sprouted. I bought a bag of 5 bulbs from my local Aldi's for about $3.

I tried a windowsill herb garden and it actually worked better than I thought. I have onions, lemon thyme, basil, and cilantro growing. I thought they would not get enough sun light but they are doing very well. I used some of the basil in the pizza I made in another post. I grew them from seeds so the cilantro and basil are about "2 months old" now. Fresh herbs are worth the wait.

I never buy actual annual plants. It is a rip off since they die in a few months to a year after they finish blooming or winter comes along. Any annuals I want, I grow from seed. They are very easy to grow from seed and you will have much more plants. I only buy perennials like my roses.

Tip: To keep your annuals lasting longer cut off the blooms as they start to die. An annual plant dies after it is fertilized and produces seeds. So if you keep cutting off the flowers when they start to fade/die, you keep the plant blooming longer. Since I live in Florida I start growing my seeds in February/March and I have blooming annuals all the way until about October if I keep doing this. Then I let them go to seed so I have bags and bags full of seeds for next year. If I have an abundance of seed maybe I will give some out for free? Just remind me in October if your interested.