Check out SunGlo. I got mine through COSTCO and got a really good buy.

While I have plenty of roses, irises, salvia, asiatic lilies, daylilies, gladiolas, and mums, I don't have any real general maintenance advice other than none of those like soggy soil, but roses and daylilies like plenty of water and bearded irises like alot less than them. Iris can be grown almost zeric, although they bloom better with some water. I don't usually deadhead my iris, lilies or daylilies. I should, but don't always get around to, deadheading all my repeat blooming roses, but they still bloom quite well. I started pruning the roses a month ago and am still pruning them. So, if I understand right - you're into water gardening? My water garden is probably my easiest and prettiest garden. FWIW, there's a pretty nice water garden place not very far from you - near 76th and Indiana, Enery Water Gardens. This is right next to my neighborhood.

Alamo, I'm still learning this but over the past two years, just because of so many experiments, I have developed a basic theory that there is a very strong relationship between Growing Degree Days, Daily Light Integral and the simple age of a plant. The Daily Light Integral is simple: Foot candles times a conversion factor that measure PAR light time hours of day of light. GDD is fairly simple also: daily high (sometimes capped at 90 or so) plus daily low (usually capped at 50) divided by two. Then subtract 50 (or 52). GDD has a huge impact on when plants do certain things, such as bloom! And of course, biological age. How long it has been transplanted. Where it gets tricky, and would take years of research, it determining the optimal periods. I have discovered if a plant is 60 days old but has accumulated only 800 GDD days, it is nearly impossible to get it to bloom. Depending on the variety, ideally the plant is 35-50 days old and has 1300-1600 GDD. Likewise, if a 45-day old plant has 1400 GDD but has not accumulated at least 600 mols (the measurement of DLI per day), it will have a few blooms, but most of the production will go into growing stems and some leaves to capture more light. You really want to do this and I don't blame you, I look forward to you trying it. But my grandfather had a saying he beat into me - if it is worth doing, it is worth doing right. Spend $30 or so on a basic light meter. If you can get 35,000 or so lux for nine or ten hours a day, five days a week, and keep the temps between 55-90, you will do great. One other thing to think about - insect infestation. Not that you will have one, but in a GH, where there are no natural predators, aphids, white flies and other nasties can go from barely detectable to overwhelming in a few short days. Know where to order aphids and parasitic wasps from, have a sprayer filled with water and a mixture of Neem Oil/Safer Soap ready to spray the entire plants. And keep us posted! Mike

roper2008 I ask mom where she gets her onions every year. Here's the link. They come in bunches of 60 to 80 I believe. She has always had nice onions. http://www.dixondalefarms.com/ The neighbor next door has about 100 chickens. He uses the chicken manure on his garden but mom usually gets about 6 five gallon buckets from him for her onions. Yes, chicken manure is the best. Those rows are about fifty feet long so three five gallon buckets/row. You have to becareful with chicken manure because it is strong. The rest of the garden gets horse manure because I know a man that has horses and has about 40 tons on two piles at his farm. We use to use cow manure but it became scarce. Horse manure is just about as good as cow manure anyhow. The trick with horse manure is that it needs to compost for at least a year. Horses don't digest certain plant seeds so a year+ of composting rots the seeds. I also take a large garbage can (35 gal I belive) and put in two five gallon buckets of horse manure. Fill with water, about 30 gallons, and add one cup miracle grow and two cups epsom salts, stir and let it set for two weeks, stiring it every 4 or 5 days, before using it. We use that mix mostly on tomato and pepper plants..one quart/plant/week..but that mix is good for all garden plants IMO. disneynut1977 I planted 6 plants last year in three holes to try it. I got good results and besides I have to dig half the holes and planting this way takes up half the space. Think about it, there's no downside to planting two in a hole. When planting seeds we use 12oz cups. We buy clear cups at Walmart. I take a stack of 6 or 8, turn them upside down and poke five holes in them with an ice pick. We fill them with potting soil about 2/3rds full and plant two tomatoe seeds about 3/4" apart about 1/4" deep ..no more. As the plants grow keep filling the cup up with potting soil to cover the exposed stem. The hairs on the stems will grow roots. The more roots the better. I built mom two grow lights. She also has a wood/coal burner in the basement utility room where the plants are. That room is generally 80*. The perfect temp for growing new plants. Plants love the good light and warmth to grow. Another thing..never feed new plants plant food..just plain water and not to much..just keep the soil lightly moist. The clear cups will aid in looking at the moisture and you can also watch the root growth. We let the plants grow to 9 to 12" before we pot them. I go to restaurants and ask them for or to save their plastic mozzarella containers. These are great for potting. These pots are I believe 1.5 quart containers 6"X6". I have about 150 of them I keep on hand. Store them away from sunlight when not in use and they will last several years. I stack them about 5 deep upside down and poke about 6 holes in them with a ice pick. To prepare the pots, I take a 12oz cup and fill hit hard packed with real damp dirt. I enclose the top with duct tape. I take the large pots and fill the bottom with a good one inch of dirt. I place the 12oz enclosed cup and place it in the middle and fill and pack dirt around the cup..pull out the cup. When we are ready to repot we just take the plants out of the 12oz cups and drop them into the large pots..compress them in, fill to top and lightly water then we put them into the greenhouse I built. I buy shish kabob sticks at Walmart for supports..98C for 100..tie them with knitting yarn. Remember ther are two plants in each pot. When planting to the garden we try to bury at least three inches of the stem for good roots and we prune off any branches touching or near the ground. As the plants grow I prune off the bottom of the plant up about 12". I start pruning off bottom sucker, not all, as the plant grows and towards the top after they start reaching five feet. If you prune alot you get fewer but larger tomatoes..limited pruning gives you more but smaller tomatoes. I take a middle ground. We had plants this year that I punned off the tops at near seven feet. If I wouldn't have they would have easily been eight feet or more. Two years ago we had a cherry tomato plant that reached 9'4" and was just loaded with tomatoes all summer. Hope this helps. Grow lights. Almost all the plants were in the greenhouse by now. End of the year. The plants colasped from the weight and my failure to tie them up properly to the stakes. The blight had taken over too. It's an ugly seen but we still harvested well over five bushel from those 12 holes, 24 plants even with the too wet and cool summer. Years ago Mom used to just give all the extra away. Two years ago I told her no more of that..too much work especially for someone going on 89 now. At least she gets someting for her efforts and mine now even if it comes out to 25 cents an hour. You just gotta love it. One thing is for sure, there is NOTHING like fresh food from a home grown garden! Here is a link that might be useful: Mom's Garden