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Old 05-11-2014, 05:14 PM
 
Location: Madison, AL
3,297 posts, read 6,266,015 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HB2HSV View Post
Well... let me show you pictures (as they worth thousands of words )

My Peonies earlier this spring. Growing among my garlics.


close up


Best of all, you can bring them indoors and the fragrance is wonderful
Ok, well just head on over to my house and plant some for me

Seriously...give me tips. Where to plant, do they need full sun....morning sun.....afternoon sun? Shade? Any tips would be appreciated because I absolutely LOVE peonies!

I need the Planting Peonies for Dummies version.

And you grow garlic? How hard is that? Share your tips! I love garlic, I use it a lot.
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Old 05-11-2014, 05:17 PM
 
Location: Madison, AL
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Becky2517 View Post
Niiiice! It'll be interesting to see if mine come up & how long until they actually do something - a fellow gardener on Dave's has several Peonies & she lives right here in the area...so I'm thinking it's absolutely doable! I love, love the fragrance that so many of them have...especially Festiva! Grabbed a watering can last night, so it's time to do some serious fertilizing...I'm amazed how quickly everything came up & how fast they are growing - interesting difference between VA & here, with pretty much the same zone & soil! Btw - those who have figs, in the ground or in pots??

Fig trees grow well here. My grandparents had a huge fig tree in their yard growing up! There was a house on the market in Madison last year in an older neighborhood that a client was looking at, it had two HUGE fig trees in the yard. I loved going over there just to eat the figs off the tree! I was hoping they would buy it so I could harvest some, but alas...it did not happen, they bought a fig-treeless house
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Old 05-11-2014, 05:47 PM
 
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YouTube -
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GEWeE5BDE6Y

I planted mine on the front of the house, where they will only get sun until around 1-2ish - and they are coming up!
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Old 05-11-2014, 06:13 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LCTMadison View Post
Ok, well just head on over to my house and plant some for me

Seriously...give me tips. Where to plant, do they need full sun....morning sun.....afternoon sun? Shade? Any tips would be appreciated because I absolutely LOVE peonies!

I need the Planting Peonies for Dummies version.

And you grow garlic? How hard is that? Share your tips! I love garlic, I use it a lot.
LOL LCT,

This is my 2nd year planting peonies. Last year around this time of year I bought this peonies from HD. I planted it in my flowerbed at back of house facing south, so it gets full sun from sunrise to sunset. The first year it was just surviving, did not do much, and only one flower bloomed. Then for the rest of year, it did not show growth and like I said; just sat there & pout all year.

In the fall, it dies back to the ground then VOILA!! Sring is here and this gal had vigorous growth. I'd swear from the morning till I come home at the end of day, this gal grew 3 inches in one day. Seriously...

The rest was what you saw in the pics. Lots of blooms this year & wonderful fragrance. I cut the flowers to bring them indoors and they last several weeks!

As for fertilizing the plant, I did absolutely nothing other than when I build this flower bed I used magazines, cardboards, shredded newspapers, grass clippings and wheat straws from HD I was tired of digging this stubborb Alabama clay & limestones so I decided to build the flowerbed UP instead of digging down.

Growing garlic is really easy and care free. The key is to plant October/ November time & let them overwinter under the dirt. I just use the store-brought garlics and use your hands to force open one clover into several little garlics & planted the pointy side up. If you plant early, the green shoot will grow & when the winter comes, it will not kill them. Them will just stop growing and resume when the spring is here. I will give them a boost with high nitrogen fertilizer around this time of year.

Garlics need the winter "chill hours" to taste good. I also grow shallots & they need the winter chill hours as well. But onions do not. I plant Texas sweet onion in the spring instead.
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Old 05-11-2014, 06:41 PM
 
Location: Madison, AL
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HB2HSV View Post

As for fertilizing the plant, I did absolutely nothing other than when I build this flower bed I used magazines, cardboards, shredded newspapers, grass clippings and wheat straws from HD
What? Are you supposed to do this? I have never heard of using magazines and cardboard in flower beds
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Old 05-11-2014, 06:57 PM
 
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It's called lasagna composting...pretty cool!
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Old 05-11-2014, 07:17 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy Spence View Post
HB2HSV, those are nice. I planted them 4 years ago and failed. I noticed they are on the corner of the house. Is it east facing for morning sun and good sun until 3-4:00? I planted in direct sun all day and they never came back.
Hi Andy,

It is on the SW corner of the house so it gets 14 hours of sun & did just fine. What I read is that when you plant them, do not plant too deep so the "eyes" (I think that is where the new growth comes from in the spring) of plant is a bit above the soil.
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Old 05-11-2014, 07:39 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LCTMadison View Post
What? Are you supposed to do this? I have never heard of using magazines and cardboard in flower beds
Quote:
Originally Posted by Becky2517 View Post
It's called lasagna composting...pretty cool!
Yup just like Becky said "lasagna gardening". Google it. Lots of good info there.

The location of where my flower bed was full of grass.... err... weeds I did not feel like the hard work of digging up all these weeds, plus dealing with the hard, hard, HARD... did I say stubbornly HARD red clay/ limestones? Plus, when you dig the soil you will expose the weed seeds burried in the soil and they will sprout! It is a vicious cycle.

So through a bit of online search I found the "lasagna method". The cardboard to suppress weeds & the magazines & shredded newspaper provides the carbon while grass clippings provides nitrogen. You layer them with one layer of carbon, a layer of nitrogen, and repeat just like you are making lasagna. The carboard/magazine will slowly decompost along with grass clippings to make "compost", or in nature we call them "soil" . Last spring we also had a lot of rain which helped to speed up the composting process. They say wait a season for the composting but honestly I planted the peonies, plus several plants there, only a few weeks after and the plants did fine. On this bed, in addition to the peonies, I have lavender planted and garlics, green onions and japanese white radish called "daikon" planted for this year.

So... LCT, if your perspective client complaints about too much work digging for a flower bed/ garden, you can tell them about the lasagna method without the back-breaking work.
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Old 05-13-2014, 10:59 AM
 
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Default Trees...

Our backyard is completely devoid of trees & we're planning on putting some in this fall...I'd like some fast growing, shade trees...excluding Magnolias & Bradfords! Any good suggestions?
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Old 05-13-2014, 11:13 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Becky2517 View Post
Our backyard is completely devoid of trees & we're planning on putting some in this fall...I'd like some fast growing, shade trees...excluding Magnolias & Bradfords! Any good suggestions?
Would you like some fruit trees? Personally I like the benefits of shade and fruits

Around here you can grow figs, plums, peaches, apples, pears, etc. Lots of options here.

My plum trees grow pretty fast, put up about 2-3 feet a year. I prune them back every year.
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