Best Flower Gardening » Hibiscus http://www.bestflowergardening.com Tips and ideas for your dream flower garden Tue, 07 Sep 2010 06:26:53 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 The time is now – get ready to Garden http://www.bestflowergardening.com/the-time-is-now-%e2%80%93-get-ready-to-garden http://www.bestflowergardening.com/the-time-is-now-%e2%80%93-get-ready-to-garden#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:46:34 +0000 Diana http://www.bestflowergardening.com/?p=443 Most of us feel the fresh air and warming temperatures signaling the coming of spring and want to get out and start gardening. We also know that it has been a long, miserable winter and look with anticipation to those gorgeous spring days ahead. You are probably wondering why I am talking about a long winter when I live in the sunshine state of Florida. Well, let me tell you that we had the coldest winter on record here in central Florida this year. With two very cold spells that brought down our temperatures to the mid-twenties, all my flower gardens are basically dead with the exception of roses that seem to be coming back slowly. All my other plants look dead so I have lots of gardening to do this year. (photo courtesy: Breck’s)

During the month of March, most gardeners want to start planting new flowers. But be careful and watch your weather patterns carefully before you plant any new flowers. If you live in a colder region, be sure that dangers of frost are gone before planting anything new in you garden. If it is still cold in your area, just go out to your garden and start doing some clean up and get rid of plants that didn’t survive the winter. If you have snow in your flower garden that is beginning to melt, you can start removing it from the roots of the plants carefully to allow the sun to reach the roots and promote growth. Don’t do any cutting for now, just remove the snow.

In warmer climates like mine, it is time to go out there and start gardening. In my case, I need to first assess how many of my gardens survived the cold winter spells we had and start cleaning up all the dead plants. So far, it looks like my roses survived and I see some growth especially with my knock out roses. I am grateful for this as I have 16 of these planted and don’t want to loose them. The hibiscus shrubs look dead and I am surprised because hibiscus is usually very hardy. This week, I will cut the hibiscus short and wait to see if new growth begins within a few weeks. It is really sad for me to see my beautiful gardens so dead and lifeless but we have no control of weather patterns.

Once I clean out all the dead plants in my flower gardens, it is time to buy new plants and start planting. I will most likely start replacing the flower beds around the rose garden and buy colorful pansies and pentas. The next task will be to get rid of all the tropical shrubs that are dead and decide what I will plant in that area. One idea here might be to look for shrubs that survive cold weather and Indian Hawthorne comes to mind. Not sure if my clematis vines will make it as they look dead right now. What I will do here is to cut them back and wait and see if new growth starts. (photo courtesy: Breck’s)

Yes, my work is cut out for me this year with my gardening and it is time to get started. And you can do the same, so go out there and start gardening too. Also remember that if you want to plant summer flowering bulbs, the time to order them is now. Summer flowering bulbs ship in the spring and you can get a great selection at Breck’s. This is the company that I use for all my flowering bulbs and love doing business with them because of their great quality bulbs from Holland.

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