i’ve just discovered Annie's Annuals & Perennials - Totally Useful Plant Lists . her website is really wonderful! lots of pictures, specializing in cottage garden plants for zones 8-10. i’ve just ordered a bunch of flowers which will keep me busy in the garden for quite a while!  GET HER CATALOGUE! It’s FREE!

i am not an expert gardener but i do spend a lot of time in my garden....if you would like to ask me a question about gardening or share a story, click here:


What should i plant? i get asked this quite a lot. no maintenance? little maintenance? this great website, do it yourself landscape, gives free answers!

free! landscape and design ideas!i found this terrific website that provides garden plans. it tells you what to plant (photographs!) and where to plant! just click below, then “let’s take a look now!”

Garden Plans for sale (scroll down page)

Want Beautiful Plants? KNOW YOUR SOIL! my soil is compact (clay) so i add compost.

Catalogues

Heirloom Roseshttp://www.heirloomroses.com/order-catalog.htm
Park Seedhttp://www.parkseed.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?storeId=10101&catalogId=10101&langId=-1&mainPage=CatalogRequest
Nature Hillhttp://www.naturehills.com/new/product/catalog_request.aspx
Annie’s Annuals&Perennialshttp://www.anniesannuals.com/plant_lists/browse_catagory.asp?account=
Klehm’s Song Sparrowhttp://www.songsparrow.com/
David Austin Roses Ltd.http://www.davidaustinroses.com/american
White Flower Farmshttp://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/cgi-local/cataloguerequest.pl
Vintage Gardenshttp://www.vintagegardens.com/index.html
The Garden Doctorhttp://www.bhg.com/bhg/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/bhg/story/data/garden_doctor_11132002.xml&ordersrc=rdbhg0197&_requestid=233420
The Garden Helperhttp://www.thegardenhelper.com/
American Rose Societyhttp://www.ars.org
Backyard Gardenerhttp://www.backyardgardener.com/plantsearch.html
Roger’s Gardenshttp://www.rogersgardens.com/caresheets.asp

Ask the Pros

How do you find out what kind of soil you have?http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_soil_water_other/article/0,1785,HGTV_3635_1370983,00.html

and USEFUL LINKS

Garden Crossingshttp://www.gardencrossings.com
Dutch Gardenshttp://www.dutchgardens.com/
High Country Gardenshttp://www.highcountrygardens.com/
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June

Reporting says that we’ve had the coolest April in this country in 124 years! It has been wonderful if one lives in Southern California where the Santa Ana winds can kick up enough heat to kill anything. In the midst of “June gloom” we await the searing heat of summer. I’ve dead-headed everything, continued to deep water (at least an hour) about once every two weeks and have kept ahead of the weeds!

This is my “Eden” climber at right. A group of little girls with cameras (a photography class, i guess) asked if they could take pictures of these roses! I have since dead-headed all these blooms but it is a repeat bloomer so I will have another batch soon!