Trial and error here. Reading and reading and reading.
Making lists of whats good for my area.
Going and seeing other people's yards and gardens helped me a lot.
Picking other gardener's brains. Meeting them, and hanging out with them. It rubs off on me.

I've finally figured out to not buy a single plant unless I know exactly what it is and have a general idea where I'm going to plant it.

Every now and then I have to put myself in time out. I don't allow myself to buy or get free another plant until everything I have in pots or holding places is in the ground.

I figure its a lot like cooking. If you can read, you can cook. If you can read, you can garden. It just takes longer to learn and have something to show for all your efforts.

You know you have a problem when you have to hide the plants from hubby and sneak them into the beds.

Well at first it was all about trying to keep the bean alive in elementary school. Once I did that, I decided that I wanted it to produce more beans. My mom always replenished her pothos by taking cuttings and she taught me how to do that. After that I learned to vegetable garden by using steel-tough veggies for texas like jalapenos and tomatoes. Im just now getting into the concept of sleep, creep, leap that perennials offer.

Buying plants because I liked the way they looked at the nursery with no thought to their requirements and size was my biggest mistake. I'm still a collector, but every spring I go through a massive rearrangement to get size, color and water/sun requirements met :-) I used to buy and plop a lot more than now. I try not to buy or swap any plants if I still have 3 in pots looking for the 'perfect place'.

Pam

I think I have always gardened--one of my first memories was weeding the garden with my dad when I was about five. However, I am still learning. I learn from books mostly, since I don't know any other avid gardeners (except on this forum!).
I have learned not to buy plants from a big box store unless I know what it is and what it needs. I've learned to seek out a good private nursery and ask questions and follow advice.
I've learned not to listen to "it won't grow here" until I research the plant myself.
My only plan is to find a congenial spot and plant something there. Landscaping? Ha! I call it a cottage garden look, most people just roll their eyes.
I have not learned to control my urge to buy every rose I see, and to plant a vegetable garden that would feed most small European countries!
Your idea of carrying a notebook is a good one! And you're not nosy, just curious and that is a good thing. Happy gardening!

Welcome

I started following my grandfather (Papa) around when I could walk and he lived to garden and could grow any and everything and I believe he did, lol
I am still learning and probably will be always, lol
because even one plant can change how it grows just by moving it but mostly because my memory is so bad now, LOL

As far as a plan, I always start an area with a plan but I always end up plunking, usually because a gopher or vole changed things up and I have to adapt
but I am happy with the way it looks and that is what is important

Pasadena, just have fun with it, you have come to the right place to learn. I love TXgardenweb and the members
jolana

marlingardener -- "I have not learned to control my urge to buy every rose I see" -- If you figure out how to control that urge, let me know. This spring I have added 24 roses and replaced two that died. And it's not like I have a large yard or anything. or help. or money.

Hi, my name is wilo and I'm a rose addict. . . .

I've been growing things for years, but still consider myself a newb!

I always tried to have a few containers, but didn't always have great success, or know what I was doing. When we had a rent house with a small sized yard, I learned about weeds and lawns and groundcovers. I ended up with a St. Augustine lawn that Lou would be proud of. I also tried a few roses and irises.

Now that I have my own piece of dirt, and the choices are endless, I feel like I'm just learning everything from scratch. I've been reading everything I can get my hands on for a year. I ask a LOT of questions at the garden centers. I hang out here and read old threads. I found my county extension site, and have emailed them questions. And when in doubt, I'll buy a few plants, and just give them a try.

Also, I *sometimes* have a plan. At least a general idea about the size or color of what I'm thinking I need to plant, but as I learn/try/kill more, the plan evolves.

I thought of two other things I've learned recently. When buying containers, try to stick to the same color family, like all terra cotta, all brown/tan, all blue and green, etc. That way, when you decide that a plant would do better on the side porch, rather than the front, you can move things around without it looking like a flea market.

And this is a big "duh" for me. Don't plant edibles with ornamentals. I have a very large area that's planted with crape myrtles, roses, perinneals, annuals, etc. and I threw some herbs in there. Well, now that greatly limits what, if any chemicals I can use for weed control, bugs, etc. As spring continues, I can see how this is going to be a huge chore, trying to work around all of the herbs.

Oh, and one more! If you hear from several sources, over and over again, the same thing, like, "don't plant this" "that won't grow here" "these do really well in this area" then it's probably true. :)

So, it sounds like trial and error seem to be the recurring theme here. And roses. I'm ashamed to say that I only have one rose bush right now, but I do have some previous experience with antique roses. When I lived in the mountains of Maryland, we moved into a house that had an antique rose bush with large dark red flowers. It had huge thorns, and it grew with no particular shape, but it was pretty, and I liked trying to figure it out as I went along. Now I have the teacup roses, and smaller thorns, but I think kind of regretfully about those antiques, as they were rather unique. Now I know more about growing healthy roses though, but helping them out with coffee grounds, etc, and I'm having a lot of fun.
I also started a garden journal using Microsoft OneNote.

What Melvalena said, I could have written myself. (Although not so elopquently!)

I was raised gardening. We had a vegetable garden and canned and froze the food, and we had many flowers so it was a "learned" thing with me. As soon as I started feeling settled, I started with a small garden then eventually when we bought a house, a large garden and and herb bed along with flowers. Now, I have a small garden (I miss the big one) and experiment with different varieties of plants and flowers.

I learned about Texas gardening through hours of reading, lots of research on the internet and this great site.

My family lived in Kansas until I was 12. Just like Texas, Kansas gets beastly hot (gotta bake all that wheat dry so it can be harvested)...the difference is that up there it also rains. The garden my dad's parents had took up a third of their yard and they kept it going until their mid-80's. My grandmother on one side and great-grandmother on the other grew beautiful flowers and had houseplants taking over their utility rooms. My parents landscaped their house (I remember forsythia, lilacs, peonies, phlox, portulaca and roses) and my dad put in half a dozen tomato plants every year, mulching them with grass clippings. We always had tomatoes coming out of our ears. Mom canned them till she couldn't see straight and then we kids were dispatched up and down the street to give the remainder away to the neighbors.

All of that to say, I come by it naturally. On the other hand, my family kind of had to start over when we moved to Texas--gardening is just so much harder here. It took us 20 years to see the light and go (mostly) native.

I view my current yard as a test garden of sorts; I'm trying out plants to see exactly how they do and whether I like them. Someday I hope to move to the country and I figure any plant for out there had better be pretty hardy; I don't want to be hauling hoses out hundreds of yards from the house. The only future factor I can't currently duplicate is deer, but I'm sure I'll learn about dealing with those when the time comes.

Sorry, long answer...

Forgot to say, I do a lot of internet research--the information is out there, I might as well use it. When I see or hear of a plant I'm unfamiliar with, I look it up. If it sounds like it might really work, I'll try it.

As several of the others have mentioned, though, I really need to stop buying plants on whims before I've looked them up and duly considered them. :-/

I've learned though trial and error, and through reading. I've always had a plan, though sometimes the plan was to re-do the plan I had before! For example, when I first started, I planted all perennials in a very large bed out front. Absolutely hated the way it looked in winter. Hated the way I couldn't get to the back to weed. The soil was horrible, I needed shade, and the plants needed structure. So I started over - completely. An expensive mistake, but it taught me more than the 100 books on gardening that I have devoured.

So, after all that, I'm a pretty fair gardener and a pretty fair designer, though I'm still improving on both. :) I've also learned that gardens take time, and not to try to rush the process. And to enjoy the journey. Good luck with your garden!

We moved to the Dallas area when our children were young. With two landscape architects in my husband's family, their yards looked like something out of a magazine. By the time we bought our first house I knew I wanted to garden, but not in the "professional" style, so, not having an artistic bone in my body, I proceeded to start flowerbeds, planted trees in the wrong spots, killed lots of plants that either were not meant for this area or needed more sun or shade, did a few things right and learned a bunch! Probably the most important thing I learned the hard way was to take the time and effort to amend this concrete-hard clay. The only "planning" I have done (sort of) are the antique roses, otherwise it's just a little of this and a little of that, and if it doesn't work, just move it!

Good luck, and have fun!

How funny Mel, I use to think I was getting away with being sneaky but now DH asked Oh is that a new plant LOL.
For me I have done a little gardening most of my life nothing much, some maters, corn that the ants LOVED back in 1983, flowers.
I've learned a whole lot from our friendly fellow gardeners right here on the Texas garden web. No better place to ask questions no matter what the question is, plant ID, what to plant where, if it can be asked you will get an answer although some of us are jokers and like to have fun and give silly answers at times :)
Like What is the name of this bug, and someone will pop up naming it Maggie or something.
Don't ask people at home depot or lowes on gardening they may work there but 99% of them don't know squat about the plants they sell.

Did you know that banana peels are good for roses? Just bury one about 4 inches from the root just enough to cover the peeling.
Also if you have a fisherman or woman in your live, take the heads and gut's and bury them with plants. Remember in school about Indians burying fish with corn? But don't do this if you have dog's or's cat, they'll dig it up.

With gardening you'll be learning till the day you die I think, there is always something to learn about, something new to try.

I am adding veggies this year and redoing the front beds. So gardening can be a never ending adventure if you want it to be.

Happy gardening and welcome to the family

thanks - enjoyed this thread.

I do it by trial and error! Lots of error! I wanted a garden from the time I was a teen (we moved alot, I wanted to put down "roots" lol), but didn't get the dirt ownership to do it until we moved to TX in 1998 and bought our home in 2000. I had someone put in beds, and I tried a lot of stuff with the help of TX gardening books. I had full sun, all day, so I learned just what is tough, what claims to be tough, and what is a great big wimp and should never ever be planted in TX.

I have a new home and new light requirements but this time I got a professional watering system and my garden now looks like I always dreamed of. It's green! LOL

What a great thread! I had to wait 47 years before I had my own dirt to start a garden in. In my 30's I knew I wanted a garden. Divorced with no kids, I bought my first house in Dec. 2007. The back yard was covered in weeds and rocks. (She had dogs, but no green thumb). I've since added a koi pond, St. Augustine, and in no particular order, esparanza, plumbago, shasta daisy, aspidistra, confederate jasmine, zennias, and tons of butterfly plants such as bee balm, butterfly bush, star lithodora, paparika yarrow, just tons of stuff. However, it's all still experimental. Trial and error. I do a lot of reading and hang out at local nurseries. I like to support the local, but when I do find a better plant I do purchase it at the big box store.

Thanks for a great topic.