Low Maintenance Plant in Garden
We have a small planting area in our front porch (1.5’x15′) that we have been meaning to fix up. Can anyone recommend a low maintenance flower/plant that we can put there? I hear for tulips you need to put the bulbs in before April, guess we missed that. Note that we are not experience in…
We have a small planting area in our front porch (1.5’x15′) that we have been meaning to fix up. Can anyone recommend a low maintenance flower/plant that we can put there? I hear for tulips you need to put the bulbs in before April, guess we missed that. Note that we are not experience in gardening but would like to give our house more curb appeal. Thanks
Since you mention that the bed is only a foot and a half wide, I’m curious as to what it’s bordered with? If it’s concrete, it’s leaching lime into the soil, especially if it’s newly poured concrete. This creates alkalinity which most evergreens don’t like. If you’re planning on putting in annuals or a few cheap perennials, don’t sweat it too much. If you decide to go with some specimen plantings, or lots of moderately priced plants, do yourself the favor of spending the six dollars to see what you’re dealing with in regards to the soild condition. Evergreens will amend the soil over time, but only if they survive long enough to do it and who wants to find out after their 300 dollar maple dies from chlorosis that the soil ph was too high?
Whether it should be evergreen is a good question. Holly and boxwood are good options for evergreens, and then you can add some hostas or bleeding hearts (which come back every year), assuming its a non-full sun location.
Do you want something that’s evergreen?? If so, some ivy, a holly, inkberry or many others lookk great. No need to worry about soil pH. Bulbs have to be planted in the fall. Go to John Sheepers (sp?) website for the best selection. Shade lovers would be hostas and astilbe which have nice flowers. Go to http://www.springhillnursery for a great selection and great prices.
My front porch faces northeast. I can’t tell you the amount of sunlight exactly and can’t tell the PH balance. I will check it up this weekend. A couple of my neighbors grow tulips and roses in their front porch.
Before anyone can answer that with any certainty, you need to figure out how many hours of sunlight per day the space gets. It would also be helpful if you knew the PH of the soil, which you can do using a $6 kit from Lowes. Not as important as the sunlight, but still helpful.
What direction does your porch face and how much sun does it get?