I'd like to introduce myself as the world's laziest gardener. Lots of things are growing in my so-called garden, but that's because these are fool proof plants and vegetables, not because I had anything to do with them. My way of gardening is to plant and water and hope for the best. Lately I've been rethinking this approach, which is why I'm here. I obviously need lots of help and my plants will be so grateful. This spring has been fun. I finally finally finally got serious about a fence to keep the deer out and because of this, everything this year is growing like crazy except the corn but including the weeds. I usually have a couple months in the springtime when I get crazy about planting things, then the rest of summer sort of degenerates to just watering. But this year has been non-stop with planting, weeding, watering, pushing soil around, weeding, watering, moving plants, weeding, watering, and pulling the weeds morning, noon, and night. The next thing I need to do is thin some plants - why didn't anyone ever tell me Shasta daisies got 5 1/2 feet high and crowd everything else out? Anyway, I'm sure I'll be asking tons of questions and I hope to get to talk to everyone here!
Welcome, errrr, ... @rodentraiser ???? So, you raise rodents, do you? Anyways, we have a few folks from PNW here who post daily so, you will have lots of help with planting the right plants for your corner of the world.
Welcome to GardenStew! Gardeners here are all over the globe. There are several in US PNW, including me. I also had that experience with Shasta Daisies! Another one like that, common milkweed Asclepias syriaca. Beautiful, unusual very sweetly scented flowers, butterflies and bees love them, but very vigorous and very aggressive, and very difficult to kill off, once established. Fence was also the only way I had to keep deer away from the kitchen garden. 7 foot tall chain-link. Another big help for me is drip irrigation. I still have challenges with my system, mainly my well water is full of particles and the emitters clog despite the filter, but I am learning.
You are certainly not alone in your approach to gardening my friend. Everyone here knows my approach is to ...dig a hole, stick something in it, and wait. My maintainence is drinking beer and watching things grow.
Hi @rodentraiser how nice to have another from the PNW. I live in the Columbia river gorge for my whole life. I love every nook and cranny of the pnw! Welcome! I'm new here too
I used to raise fancy mice but not anymore. I got too attached to them and they only live a year or so. People usually call me Ro or Kelly. I'll even respond to Hey you, Nit Wit, yeah you! Yep, wouldn't you know it would be me, I have four milkweed plants. Three of them aren't that bad, but the purple one is about as tall as the daisies. But I'm keeping them all because I actually saw a honeybee on it the other day. Now we have bumblebees all over the place, but in the 5 years I've lived up here, I've never seen a honey bee until now. Maybe we're long lost siblings. Except for the beer. I'm a lemonade fan. LOL Thank you for the welcome, everyone! And guess what I found on my property the other day. A wild butterfly bush! I plan on transplanting it to somewhere more visible.
