Hi Hopeful - Geranium sanguineum is a correct name, but it isn't blue. More of a purply/pink. There is a cultivar called Shepherd's Warning which is pink and a white one called 'Album'. there are a huge number of very hardy Geraniums if you like perennial gardening. But All Pelargoniums are more or less tender. The people over at Perennials will know all about them. There is also a Geraniums Forum but it's a bit slow. If you just Google hardy Geraniums you will find huge numbers of species and cultivars suitable for your outdoor garden year round. Here is a link that might be useful: Geraniums

Thanks for the compliment about my roses. This is my front yard, and I had the pergola built on the front of my house about 3 years ago, so I could grow roses on it. I also built all the trellis' for rose growing. I do have a few other vines on them you can't see from this picture. Luckily I live in a neighborhood without a HOA (hate them!) so I can pretty much do what I want, within city code, of course. It is amazing how the roses get better each year! Jackie, the pictures of your garden are always a treat and a great inspiration for me. I always look forward to seeing them!

I feel as if I'm making a confession to you all. I always loved gardens but my folks never had much money or knew anything about plants so we had the ugliest, deadest yard on the block. I always hated that. My Dads mom had a beautiful garden and my moms mom grew a few rose bushes and a big loquat tree and my moms dad grew strawberries and tomatoes. My folks bought a house with clay soil and made a half hearted attempt at planting some unsuitable shrubs then promptly gave up. Everything died but the couple of pines and the Italian cypresses. My dad's folks garden was the magic place and I adored it. I always loved the prettiest yards on the street and I would stop and look at all the different plants on the way home from school. In particular I was in love with a Japanese couple's dicondra lawn surrounded by maples and bamboo and clipped things. They were out there almost every night working on it together. I can still remember them on their hands and knees pulling little weeds from the dicondra and talking to each other in Japanese. The azaleas were so beautiful and there must have been so many other treasures that I can't recall now. In my mind it was the best a garden could ever get. So then the years went by and I got a copy of the Sunset Western Garden Book in high school and I read that book over and over and learned the latin names and began to really look at plants in a new way. I got an understanding of plants and what they like and that different plants want different things and that it isn't just magic that some people have and some don't. I started making an herb garden out in the no mans land of the front yard. Then I started growing annual flowers from seeds and working them in all the while waging war with bermuda grass that threatened to ruin all my progress. I planted seeds mostly because I was spending all my money to go to college but sometimes I splurged and bought fuschias and any other flowers that hummingbirds liked. I soon had a big fuschia collection going in the back under dads big pine tree that managed to survive the early years. I hated my job in the women's clothes section of a department store so I found another one at a local nursery run by a Japanese couple and their son. This couple was so good to me and the hours I spent sitting by Sumi learning about flowers and just being in her gentle presence changed the way I looked at the world and about flowers. She had a great wisdom and kindness. I don't think I'll ever know such a graceful and gentle person like that ever again. Sumi's brother Ken was there too and he was a wonderful man with a gentle way and great sense of humor. I wish I could go back and tell them how much I appreciate all the kindness they gave to me. I loved them and I loved the nursery and every plant in the place. I just wanted it all to grow well and for everyone who got a plant to be happy. I listened to all the growers and customers and I read everything I could read. Then came my friend Robert who knew everything about plants and loved roses. After a trip to his garden I wanted to grow roses. I thought I didn't know much after meeting Robert, but he was also very kind and wise and didn't mind my inexperience. He was also a great enabler and got me started buying roses from RoY&T. That catalog was like candy to us and we talked about it on lunch and while we were planting up flower baskets for holidays. When bare root rose season came around, Robert was always so happy. We loved getting into the big boxes of bareroots when they would arrive. After a while, I thought my humble herb patch was nothing special and started expanding. I left them all to go to the University and then I got a job at Disneyland Entertainment that ate my life. I spent many many hours during and after hours in the park and got to watch all the plantings and talk to the people in charge of landscape for the parks and the hotel complex. All that time, my garden saw me through tough times and I faithfully got up to water it before dawn when I had to go to work early or get to school and study. All along the way I met people who loved plants and I took cuttings and collected seeds to grow in my own garden. My grandma stood by me all the way, encouraging me. I loved Lord of the Rings too and Narnia. I remember when my sister and I were young and went camping in Colorado. We walked out into a meadow and I said " If I see the tents of Narnia, I'm just going to keep going" and she agreed with me that we wouldn't go back. I try to put a bit of fairyland in the yard for kids that come by and for myself to remind me of the old days.

Hmmmmm.... this is the Organic Lawn Care Forum.... This thread is titled "Moved to Florida, grass is a mess and I want ONLY organic" swflagrdnr said: "Only after a lawn is well established should you try only organic methods." Then went on to say: "start out with syntehtics and then later experiment with organic methods." Also said: "He is in Oklahoma, so his advice is not pertinent to our Florida discussion." That's just wrong. It's not true & is ill chosen advice. Since when does the state you reside in have anything to do with whether or not you choose organic practices? Since when is St Augustine grass unique only to Florida? Since when is the practice of organic gardening an experiment? Since when has plant nutrition changed exclusively for the state of Florida? St Augustine grass is grown in many other parts of the country other than Florida, including right here in Oklahoma as well as Texas and Louisiana to name a couple. Successful organic lawn programs are centered around the soil. It must be alive with wide variety of beneficial microorganisms and bugs. Beneficial microbes both feed and protect the plants from disease-causing microbes. All the organic gardener does is feed the beneficial microbes and let them do their work. Chemical fertilizers provide an "empty" type of food directly to the plants. This is like the empty calories we get from eating pure refined sugar. Microbes provide full service to the plants. They decompose dead plant and animal residues to humus; combine nitrogen and carbon to prevent nutrient loss; suppress disease; produce plant growth regulators; develop soil structure, tilth, and water penetration/retention; clean up chemical residues; shift soil pH toward neutral; retrieve nutrients from distant parts of the soil; decompose thatch; and control nitrogen supply to the plants according to need. The intensive use of inorganic nitrogen fertilizer may so overload a humus-depleted soil with nitrate as to cause it to leach into surface waters when nitrate levels may readily exceed public health standards. Leached nitrate also wastes expensive fertilizer synthesized from an increasingly diminished supply of natural gas. Apart from any other possible and yet to be established virtues, the use of organic fertilizer avoids these difficulties and holds the promise of restoring the natural source of soil fertility - humus. Lisa, in your original post you said: If someone could give me a brief step by step, just a "do this first, then this" I would greatly appreciate any suggestions :) I want to plant a "cottage garden" next but first things first. You should take a shovel and just dig into your lawn, dig it down 6 or 8 inches deep so you can get some kind of idea what kind of soil you're dealing with. If it's really really poor like swflagrdnr thinks it is, just made up of fill dirt, a calcerous, sand mix with shells and little to no organic matter, then you should consider topdressing with compost, but no where in your post do you indicate that this is new contruction & I'm thinking if this had been an established lawn, perhaps it just hasn't been looked after in a while and a bit of TLC would go a long ways. When you dig it up, if you see some bugs, worms, you know, living stuff, then that's great! Let's get your microherd some water and some food & as I posted earlier, we just treat it like it's the best lawn in the neighborhood, then one day later this year you'll look out the window and say "I've got one of the best lawns in the neighborhood!" Here's your list: 1) Identify your turfgrass. 2) Stop using chemical fertilizers 3) Begin using feed grains, right away. Then fertilize on a regular basis. 4) Depending on what's available you can use: CGM (applied @ 20lbs per 1000sqft for use as pre-M or 10lbs per 1000sqft for use as fertilizer), Soybean meal (applied at 15lbs per 1000sqft) Alfalfa pellets (applied at 20lbs per 1000sqft) 5) Follow the lawn care basics I outlined above. Good day, Dan