Beginning Gardener Mistakes

[knurly]

Originally Posted by knurly

There is a community garden with plots to rent, 15$ for the season. A neighbor got in on it but gave up quickly with other things on his mind. Yesterday I went down there and took it over. It was tilled and weeded, ready to go. Big enough for two water melon plants, I went home and started 12 in little peat pots. I'll plant the best two in a week and then...

Well I was right all along. The hippies wanted me to sign a list of rules to abide by, I said no one reads the rules. I was welcome anyway. Someone wanting to be "helpful" was watering my plot. I won't be surprised if someone harvests my water melon come October. I'm sure my free-trial won't disappoint, I probly won't sign on next year when half the hippies have lost their rainbow and are bad neighbors.

[kinkytoes]

Originally Posted by kinkytoes

One of the biggest regrets I have is not keeping all my plant tags when I first moved in. I keep all of my receipts, so I was able to go back and find a few of the earlier cultivars. But some of the receipts simply say something like "witch hazel."

Which brings me to two other dumb mistakes: I bought an asian cultivar of witch hazel instead of the native I was looking for. I honestly had no idea there were other types of witch hazel which are not native to North America. Their optimal growing conditions are different. Imagine my surprise when my NOID witch hazel bloomed in the winter.

I also have a gorgeous pieris japonica mountain fire...that I am pretty sure I thought was mountain laurel! I think I was on crack when I visited the nursery. I used to ID plants and trees as a hobby when I was a hiker...and the only thing I can think of is that the leaves are similar...that and the word "mountain." LOL

Well, I moved my NOID winter-flowering witch hazel to a full sun bed, and the leaves are not happy! I wish I knew what it was. It may be a native after all! Now I think it might be a hamamelis vernalis, which is the "other" native to me...instead of one of the foreign winter blooming witch hazels.

I may break down and try to get an expert to identify it. I'll probably be playing witch hazel roulette with it this year as I move it to a shadier spot with more acidic soil.

[Linda_d]

Originally Posted by Vectoris

This was my biggest mistake and I am far from a beginner! I love this flower so much and was told how invasive it was but decided I'd "deal with it" when the time came. Well, one small plant turned into a 4 x 6 patch the following year, killing everything in its path. It's still there and I know I'm just going to have to get a spade and start digging it up. I have a huge yard though and a part of me is wondering if I should make a new garden bed and dedicate to this. Can someone please talk me out of it? lol. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the beautiful and evil Gooseneck Loosestrife:

Roundup, used repeatedly, might work.

[Linda_d]

I wasn't a beginner when I made this mistake as I grew up on a farm. Farms, though,have large fields so you can have pumpkins on one side of the field and acorn squash on the other side with something else in the middle. On a suburban plot less than a quarter of an acre, that isn't practical.

I planted pumpkin plants along the fence. I planted acorn squash at the end of my garden furthest from the fence. Apparently I had bees that were hooked on squash blossoms that invariably traveled between pumpkins (which are actually squash) and the acorn squash.

I got these very weird shaped fruit, sort of shaped like acorn squash but larger, like the size of jack o'lantern pumpkins. Worse, they were sort of a light bluish green -- sort of puffball fungi color. We called them "alien fruit".