Figuring out the garden...

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Gardening in Houston has never been easy, but I more or less knew what I could grow well on my 3rd floor balcony…geraniums and roses did well, lantanas and moss rose, petunias and sweet alyssum, all of these I could count on. And then there were those plants that though I love them, I could never sucessfully grow: impatiens and caladiums, caladiums and polka dot plants, coelus. And then I moved to my first floor apartment, and nearly everything I had died in the great drought of 2011. I re-planted and the plants died yet again. So I decided to wait until we at least got some rain. Once that happened, I started out very slowly, trying out plants. My one rose survived though it has yet to flower, mint and strawberries died, as did the alyssum and the cottage pinks. But the lantana has perked up and is showing new growth, and I have two geraniums that are doing reasonably well, well enough for me to risk getting a third one. And I have planted impatiens and they are growing and blooming! Because my new plant space is much wetter (though not necessarily cooler!) and has more shade, I decided to try caladiums and one white polka dot plant, as well as the petunias and the white geranium. I wasn’t going to buy more petunias than the hot pink ones, but the unusual shade of this deep purple nearly black petunia (called a pinstripe petunia) was too much to resist! We’ll see how it does. So here they are some,of my new plants.

• 1 Apr, 2012
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