Last year I started my first cutting garden. I planted: several types of zinnia asters larkspur bachelor's buttons veronica foxglove ammi majus nicotiana stock delphinium cosmos coreopsis yarrow mexican hats sunflowers sweet peas verbena bonarensis lavendar carnations echinacea bellfower shasta daisy rudbeckia dahlias & glads Everything was from seed/bulb & I had mixed success. This year I'm doing a lot of the same plants, but wintersowing. My flower garden is in a 15' x 12' bed which gets morning shade on one side & some afternoon shade on the other. I had pretty good germination on my seeds. Most of my dahlias came up, but I didn't notice any blooms. Almost none of my sweet peas came up, & although most of my glads came up my mix from Lowes gave me only two colors (& not the ones I was hoping for). I'm a west-coaster still getting used to an east-coast garden. I saw plans from gardner's supply for a small cutting garden with the plants pretty tightly packed & thought that would work here, but we have a much longer season & more heat. Some things didn't do so well, & toward the end I had a lot of mold on my plants. The stand-outs were the zinnias, cosmos & the sunflowers. I'm hoping that the perennials that survived make a showing this year. Actually, the stock already is - it just started blooming last week! I thought the nicotiana was lovely in the garden but not good for the vase & I ended pulling it out. I'm not sorry I did, because not only did it re-seed like crazy, it spread by its roots & I'm still finding it poking up all over from little bits I left behind. Around Christmas I pulled out all the bulbs & moved some of the perennials. Then I planted a bunch of bulbs I got at Lowes at 75% off. They are coming up now & I love to go out in the morning & see if any new ones have poked their heads up. So far the dutch irises, freesias, paper whites, & ranunculas are up. The daffodils, tulips, bearded irises & glads are just starting to show. I filled in some empty space with two discounted flats (one dianthus & one violas) while I wait for my seedlings to be ready to plant out. I have some sweet peas up this year, & will be starting more this month. I read a post here on the gw about surface sowing, & I'm hoping that will help my germination rate with sweet peas. Currently I have I think all of the above mentioned plants sown in milk jugs, along with calendula, lupine, love-in-a-mist, bells of Ireland, snaps, & ballonflower. I don't really have enough space! I wish I had more friends here who like gardening. The thing that I enjoyed most was sharing the flowers with my dd. We were constantly filling little vases (made by my mother when she was a girl) for her & she loved having her "flowies." Next I loved seeing all the butterflies & birds, & even a hummingbird from time to time. The garden was full of butterflies - mostly black swallowtails. They then flew to the other side of the house & laid eggs on my parsley, & when the caterpillars had eaten all that they ate the leaves off my pepper plants. This year I am trying to plant some cat food in its own spot. We couldn't believe the number of cats crawling all over that small bed! I've read up a little on the butterfly forum to figure out what to provide, & will do my best, but boy - they show some dedication over there! I wish I were a better gardener, but I tend to go in fits & spurts, with other areas of life taking over my attention at different times. I'm great at planning & getting things started, not so good at the tending over the long haul. I envy all the lush gardens I see in photos on gw. However, I'll keep at it. One day you'll see my lush garden in photos here! :)

I recently posted this picture in the Shade combo thread. I think the foliage of these hellebores looks good even without bloom. The foliage also holds well from spring to late fall - this area still looks just as fresh as the picture right now in late October. The Corsican Hellebore is iffy in my zone but does well in this sheltered location against the house wall. The leaves in the upper left are from a burning bush. Upper right and bottom right, fine deep green foliage is H. foetidus (Stinking Hellebore), it has upright limey yellow green colored blooms, like a stalk sticking straight up. Middle is H. argutifolia (Corsican Hellebore). It has serrated shiny green foliage with a somewhat yellow caste to it compared to the others and small lime green flowers above the foliage that show well. It grows much larger and taller than the other two. H. orientalis (Lenten Rose) has dark matte green foliage and flowers like the others in very early spring here after the foliage has taken a pretty bad beating from our winter. As a result the flowers are more prominent that you might think. I also cut out some of the bad looking foliage to show off the flowers. The foliage promptly grows back and looks good until snowed over. Closeup of angustifolius Closeup of flower on unnamed Lenten Rose in early spring

Hhmmm...consider raising the pH in your garden to above 7 toward 7.5. Phosphorus is not readily available at low pH and thus you will not get flowering like the folks in the midwest as GA is about 5.5 or LESS!. In the alternative make sure you provide "available P" at the correct time in the plants' development with a foliar spray. Try a hydroponics supplier...or, simply adjust the pH in your soil for it to occur naturally with normal soil fertilizers or high P fertilizers like bat guano.

A week or 2 sounds just right to me seeing as I have a limited attention span. I certainly would not put up with months and months of dull foliage, whatever the colour, shape or form...which forces me to admit that flowers always have, and always will come first and foremost (even in the wood). Then again, I have a home pot garden (with many handy hideaways) and various other garden projects to amuse myself - when one is looking down at heel, I avert my eyes and ignore it - but fully understand this is not gardening as is done in most of the world but more a sort of permanently temporary sow and show spectacle which will never pass muster for a garden design of any merit. Literally thousands of plants have passed through my hands with a tiny minority surviving more than a few seasons. I do look, sometimes enviously, at other people's mature and elegant vistas - compared to my ramshackle collection of pots. tubs and trays - but....so many plants, so little time. I have perfected a sort of short-sighted squint which handily renders most of the picture vague and fuzzy, while focusing solely on each particular specimen - as far as possible from a fully integrated scenario which gives most people a headache but gives me profound delight. Which is also one of the reasons there are never any pics of my gardens on this forum (as they are mostly rubbish). Cannot do variegation either. I recently signed up for a botanical art course, thinking this would chime nicely with my preference for close observation of single specimens...but I swear it is the most boring thing ever. Hours and hours spent drawing every minuscule detail on a single leaf...am planning to subvert this at every opportunity with 2 inch paintbrushes and great sweeps of indian ink.