The Perfect Garden

[gardenubon]

Hi! in april last year i started to but a few plants to brighten up my patch of dirt! this ended up being somewhat of an obsession. my garden is now full of palms, bird of paradise, succulents and some small fruit trees. i never knew anything about gardening and still dont know much...so...anyone have a mature garden and if so do you use chemical fertiliser? organic? or just water?

any tips on gardening would be sweet!

cheers

[toptuan]

I've had the same experience. From a brown-thumb, kill-every-plant-I've-ever-touched, to an obsessed gardener. After moving into a newly-constructed duplex, I also had a small sterile-looking patch of light-brown construction dirt next to my house mixed with chunks of brick and concrete residue. I expected to have to haul in a ton of good soil to be able to grow anything.

However, I noticed every time I ate a piece of fruit and spat its seed out the door, I had a fruit tree in a few months. Now I've got this lush garden of seven papaya trees, two mangos, four lumyai, a 15-food banana tree, three lemon-grass bushes, sweet potatoes, two 40-foot Indian Plum trees, Holy Basil bushes, Poinsettias, orchids, four Desert Rose bushes, three Lee-La-Wadee trees, flowering vines over the windows, and goldfish growing like weeds in a lotus basin.

OK, not all those came from spitting seeds.

Having never grown an ornamental garden in my life, and actually having had a brown thumb, Thailand is a paradise for gardening idiots. Everything grows here with so little effort.

A few tips I've learned over seven years....

1) Don't over-water (my besetting sin); some plants only require a weekly watering and others every other day. Just a very few water plants require a daily small dose of H2O. Over-watered plants usually show evidence by leaves slowly turning a pale yellow and eventually dying. Evidence of not enough water usually shows up much more quickly, by green leaves quickly curling up and dropping off. Of course, the bone-dry soil (scratch a bit below the surface) is a dead give-away.

2) An occasional bag of cow manure from the local plant nursery, spread around most of your plants and trees does wonders.

3) Monthly, I sprinkle a little bit of plant food around each shrub/tree/flower. It comes in little blue pellets, and primarily introduced nitrates into the soil. Plants seem to love it.

4) Constantly thin out your jungle. So many tropical plants compete for sunlight, that you have to help selective evolution a bit by thinning out less-wanted plants, or pruning down existing ones. I've never killed a plant by even brutally cutting it back. The garden that will not die.

One of the great benefits of a lush garden is that it has brought wildlife back to an area where new construction had driven it out. Lots of little lizards, snakes and wonderful-sounding song birds seem to love sharing my garden, and I welcome them. Lots of shade provides a wonderful place to cool off in the afternoon to relax, have a cold drink, and read a book or listen to my iPod. It's my little patch of Heaven-on-Earth. My own little Garden of Eatin'.

That was advice from a complete amateur. I'd also welcome more tips from the REAL pro's out there!

Good luck!

LeeLaWadee, my favorite flowering bush. The leaves remind me of Rhododendron bushes in my native country.

Edited March 1, 2010 by toptuan

[esbkk]

I've had the same experience. From a brown-thumb, kill-every-plant-I've-ever-touched, to an obsessed gardener. After moving into a newly-constructed duplex, I also had a small sterile-looking patch of light-brown construction dirt next to my house mixed with chunks of brick and concrete residue. I expected to have to haul in a ton of good soil to be able to grow anything.

However, I noticed every time I ate a piece of fruit and spat its seed out the door, I had a fruit tree in a few months. Now I've got this lush garden of seven papaya trees, two mangos, four lumyai, a 15-food banana tree, three lemon-grass bushes, sweet potatoes, two 40-foot Indian Plum trees, Holy Basil bushes, Poinsettias, orchids, four Desert Rose bushes, three Lee-La-Wadee trees, flowering vines over the windows, and goldfish growing like weeds in a lotus basin.

OK, not all those came from spitting seeds.

Having never grown an ornamental garden in my life, and actually having had a brown thumb, Thailand is a paradise for gardening idiots. Everything grows here with so little effort.

A few tips I've learned over seven years....

1) Don't over-water (my besetting sin); some plants only require a weekly watering and others every other day. Just a very few water plants require a daily small dose of H2O. Over-watered plants usually show evidence by leaves slowly turning a pale yellow and eventually dying. Evidence of not enough water usually shows up much more quickly, by green leaves quickly curling up and dropping off. Of course, the bone-dry soil (scratch a bit below the surface) is a dead give-away.

2) An occasional bag of cow manure from the local plant nursery, spread around most of your plants and trees does wonders.

3) Monthly, I sprinkle a little bit of plant food around each shrub/tree/flower. It comes in little blue pellets, and primarily introduced nitrates into the soil. Plants seem to love it.

4) Constantly thin out your jungle. So many tropical plants compete for sunlight, that you have to help selective evolution a bit by thinning out less-wanted plants, or pruning down existing ones. I've never killed a plant by even brutally cutting it back. The garden that will not die.

One of the great benefits of a lush garden is that it has brought wildlife back to an area where new construction had driven it out. Lots of little lizards, snakes and wonderful-sounding song birds seem to love sharing my garden, and I welcome them. Lots of shade provides a wonderful place to cool off in the afternoon to relax, have a cold drink, and read a book or listen to my iPod. It's my little patch of Heaven-on-Earth. My own little Garden of Eatin'.

That was advice from a complete amateur. I'd also welcome more tips from the REAL pro's out there!

Good luck!

LeeLaWadee, my favorite flowering bush. The leaves remind me of Rhododendron bushes in my native country.

Where are the photos?

Like to see some as I am a very struggling gardner myself.

[toptuan]

Where are the photos?

Like to see some as I am a very struggling gardner myself.

Sorry, I posted them, but somehow the link was removed (violation of forum rules?)