Low-to-No Maintenance flowers
 

Okay, I want to plant some flowers in the pots that are on my stoop and maybe some flowers around the bushes in my front yard. However, between cheerleading, summer track and my goal to get my health in shape once and for all, I don't have TONS of time. I would love some suggestions for what to plant. My front yard gets a lot of sunshine, we get a decent amount of rain here and surprisingly, I don't have a ton of weeds in the front lawn.

ALSO,for Father's Day, I came up with idea of having my crew make little herb gardens for their dads. Any suggestions on what I should be looking for to plant for those are also welcome.

Tiki.

Boy I just can't wait til I have a house with a yard. I always had a lot of success with things like daisies, zinnias and dahlias. They grow pretty quickly and are very colorful. I don't know about what's really easy to take care of or not, but I didn't kill them which is a miracle, so I'm thinking they probably do alright. :)

For herbs I like to think of what I would actually use - what type of cooking does he do all the time? I think good staples are mint, thyme, sage, rosemary, chives. Gotta be careful with mint though and put it in it's own pot or it will stifle everything else.

Happy gardening! :)

Basil is one thing I plant every year :)

About the only thing I can't manage to kill is spider plants, and whatever the other green plant in my kitchen is. :lol: It is really nice, and started from a friend's plant, so I don't actually know what it is.

I don't even have much luck with spider plants & faint in horror when people bring me plants as gifts. The guilt! :shrug:

I agree on the houseplants. I think those bamboo things are neat, I am pretty sure I could keep one of those alive. What about some of the more attractive cactus plants or succulants. I've done pretty good for those ones inside.

Ivy is also no maintenace but it will take over everything so it may not be what you would want to do...

Plastic flowers. Low to no maintenance. :)

I live in a very hot climate and I often stick plastic flowers in pots in the summer on the porch, as real ones just get fried here. :)

Tiki, I wish you were closer... I'd have a ton of plants to give you!
Get some dahlias. They're really colourful, and they spread out nicely. :yes:

I have very bad luck with anything indoors, so I still stick with low-maintainence outdoor plants. I even killed a spider plant once.

But outdoors, I have had good luck with Sunflowers, Cosmos, Zinnias, and Azaelas. The Sunflowers and Azaeleas grow quite big -- as much as 6' tall by 4' wide for the entire plant. Azaeleas though, smell wonderful once they've bloomed.

My favorite herb to grow is Spearmint and Peppermint. They look nice and you can eat them! I love putting a Peppermint leaf in my iced tea. Lavendar, sage, basil and chives are also fairly easy to grow and maintain. I haven't killed one yet, so that says something.

I just planted some spearmint, chives, basil and parsley. I love fresh herbs! :T

Tiki- I am a first time gardener and have planted some day lillies, some daisies and a clematis plant. Keeping my fingers crossed that they survive :crossed:

Tiki, how's the gardening doing?

How about everyone elses? Mine is looking fabulous! Although there are so many mosquitos back there, I can't get at it! :rolleyes:

I am going to plant my tomatoes this morning before it gets too hot :)

My herbs seem to be doing well and the front garden is coming along nicely. I can't wait until Tuesday when the tree service comes to take care of the trees and stump removal.

Yeah, I bet they'll have a hard time getting those stups up! :lol3:

Mauvais, your front yard is looking fabulous, dahling! :yes:

Thanks ellis! :) BTW funny girl, stumps is spelled properly now :p my fingers type faster than my brain can think sometimes :dizzy:

Mmmmm..tomatoes. I lOVE, love, love fresh tomatoes. Even the plants smell yummy! Mine are getting huge! I have to go buy some heavier stakes today, I had no idea they were going to get so big! They are up past my windowsills! Another easy plant that a lot of people forget about is petunia's. They are not my favorite but I'm really poverty stricken this year. They are quite cheap (I got mine for 99cents a piece at Home Depot over 4th of july weekend, on sale) and they spread out a bit. They will bloom straight through until Fall. you do have to remember to water themm too. A note on sunflowers, easy to grow but I did not realize until last year that you often have to stake them or string them to the wall or something...they fall over because they have such huge blooms. Maybe that was just the kind I planted? Was a pain! I'm having great luck with my black eyed susans. They are very drought tolerant, nice big flowers & get huge.

DawnLiz: I Loooooooooove Tomatoes ! I'm lucky enuf to live in NJ, where we are known for our Jersey Beefsteaks ... I'm envious of your plants LOL!
Your garden sounds so lovely! . But I planted Portulacas (Rose Moss) a few years back, and took the seeds each time the bloom died and scattered the pods. This year the portulaca took off.. They require ABSOLUTELY no maintenance, have such dainty brillant color roses on them. My soil here is crap. No matter how far down I dig it's just that dense red clay, even when I replace it with good soil and peat moss..next year MORE BLOODY CLAY! So I do well with succulents like rose moss. My Veronica's are hugical this year.. and the lavender smelled so lovely in May.... Petunias are great and easy to grow too.

Schatzi, I've grown portaluca when I lived in Florida. It does take off...I found I had to pot it up & stick it on the porch during our rainy season to save them from drowning. It's popular here too. I'd like to use some sort of ground cover to replace my lawn but this is a rental so I'm not going to waste the cash. Ground covers are so much easier to care for & better for the environment than a pretty, lush lawn. Our problem here is not clay, but sand. I live two blocks off the beach so I have to buy bags & bags of soil when I plant. My petunia's died off because we had a few days with heat indexes of 110 when I forgot to water. (bad dawn!) so I replaced them with some sort of fuzzy purple flower that did not have a name tag but was cheap. The rest of the garden is doing just great though, filling in nicely. And my tomatoes are just loaded. I've already harvested all the jalapeno peppers & a few cherry tomatoes are ready to eat every day.