Congratulations!
Man , I know this feeling. You only ever make that mistake once. In my old garden I planted two kinds of mint in a couple rows, cause' who doesn't like mint, then 5 years later I'm wondering where all the garden space has gone and where all the mint came from. I did like how many wasps and bees the mint attracted though, late summer you could literally hear all the buzzing. The patch was fun to look at, because it had such a diversity of insects feeding on the nectar.
Come on now! This is an investment in your future self's enjoyment of home.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that care instructions are mostly worthless. There are variables that they never take into consideration like humidity, and they often don't specify if the instructions apply to indoor or outdoor plants; like I could use potting mix to grow Hoyas indoors but if I use potting mix for outdoor Hoyas they will absolutely die. (Because indoors I can control the moisture level and it's not quite as humid, but outdoors humidity and moisture level can be 100% so the poor things just rot if I use potting soil mix.) I eventually found that a mix of bark, perlite and sphagnum moss worked for my outdoor Hoyas.
fml. Thanks for the heads up! I had assumed that things bought locally would have locally relevant care instructions. I know there is still a lot of trial and error, and room for interpretation of those instructions- like "water once per week in summer" isn't really that useful til you figure out how much that weekly watering should be.
i feel like it's never stressed enough just how much gardening is learning to play
And "learning to play" full stop.
i don't fucking get deer browsing habits. in july i was this close to strangling the local herds with my bare hands because they kept taking bites from every other plant -- including mountain mint and hibiscus -- unless i went down there every day with liquid fence, but now they're not even touching the hydrangeas with all their ~tasty new growth~. my only guess is that it was one or two pregnant/new mom does who were just eating whatever was in front of them until their fawns got big enough to graze.
I was going to be a smartass and suggest you redesign your entire garden but plant only onion species. Then I did a quick search and found that in some instances, well....
If it's really just moles, you get beneficial nematodes, spray them everywhere and enjoy mole free life
Uhm, no, actually.
A couple months ago this would have surprised me, since potato leaves are toxic and should be deer resistant but now that I've moved to my new house nothing related to deer surprises me anymore.
Unfortunately so do they.
I've heard the best strategy is to mix deer repellent plants around the garden as well as plant things they actually do like to eat, so they eat those instead of your garden.I don't mind the deer so far because I haven't tried to plant anything yet (and because they're keeping the yard clean of fallen apples), but I'm planning my fall planting of spring bulbs and I realized I won't be able to plant tulips. And I love tulips.
I've heard that too, but I've also watched the deer walk over ripe apples to chow down on the pyracantha.
