fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2674 ]

[ SECRET POST #2674 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2674 ⌋

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I wish I had a garden, but right now I have a tiny little fenced off "patio" (4' by 6' if that), with a tall-ass fence and small children and small deer to worry about if I plant outside that fence. D:

If anyone knows anything that deer don't like/is "safe" for children, and can be planted on a East-facing wall/in containers in shade, I would love to hear it!

As for you, OP, try some tiger lilies? They definitely add a pop of color, and if you treat them right, they'll show up again and again!

Also, if you're looking for nice smelling things, this site let's you do an advanced search where you can filter out roses by their smell/color, if you like roses?

Are you looking for flowers, herbs, vegetables? The shade is the toughest part. Most veggies and herbs prefer at least a half day of sun. Mint grows well in shade, though and it smells wonderful. Lettuce is easily grown in containers and can tolerate shade.

I'd like some flowers; I wasn't going to get herbs, because I just don't really use them a lot in cooking at this point in time (maybe someday when I have more thyme, but right now...?) I'm thinking about getting a hanging tomato plant, so that it's out of reach of the small children(aren't the leaves bad for people?), but I'm worried about deer. D:

I'll looking to the mint, though. :3

Okay. Well, flowers that do well in shade are a bit more limited and usually less showy, but you can try annuals like impatiens or pansies, or perhaps some wildflowers which naturally grow in shade, like columbine, phlox, or cranesbill geraniums, which come in a lovely shade of blue. I don't know how anti-deer any of those are, but the wildflower suggestions are very common in nature so they're probably not that tempting. :)

Tomato leaves are mildly toxic, but I think you'd have to eat a lot of them to get truly sick so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Cherry tomatoes are great for container gardening, but they too need half a day's sun at least and plenty of room and fertilizer. Lots of compost.

I'm cool with that, and I'll look into those! I love shades of blues~

Ah, good. I was thinking about hanging a basket of tomatoes, maybe from the patio above mine, and hoping that it'd be too tall for them, but maybe I'll be able to just put a couple in the dirt area in front of my fence? :D

I think it'd be okay. If they taste anything like they smell, I doubt they'll have much appeal to kids and they're sort of prickly-fuzzy as well. In general, tomatoes do better in the ground, even one plant needs a lot of space because they can get fairly bushy and sprawl all over. You'll need at least one of those wire cage thingies to prop it up, preferably with a wooden stake to reinforce it. You'll want to amend the dirt with plenty of compost. A couple of sweet 100 cherry tomato plants can yield a pint of tomatoes a week or more, plenty for salads or just eating plain. Nothing beats a homegrown tomato. :)

When I gardened in Texas, my front porch faced north so it had a bit of morning sun then was hot shade the rest of the day. I had pots crowded along the steps filled with torenia (aka clownflower) and as many different kinds of coleus as I could find. Coleus loves heat & shade but is also fine with milder/cooler weather too. I've seen it used as a landscape planting in western Oregon. Not sure if the deer will eat it -- deer will eat pretty much anything if they're desperate -- but I don't think it's poisonous. It's ridiculously easy to grow, too. Just break off a piece, stick it in water, and it'll have roots within a week. (I confess, I only bought about half my coleus plants each year; the rest I got by surreptitiously snapping off cuttings at display gardens & from public landscaping & rooting the cuttings.) I also had really good luck with vinca -- not the vining/runner kind but one that makes a small, bushy plant. They like shade & bloom like crazy even through a Texas summer.

I've heard that deer don't like lavander, but I'm not sure that will grow in the shade.

Is lavender safe around small children?

(My problem is basically that there are between four and six small children that run around our "front yard" at the apartment complex, and have, in the past, creeped in "my" (fenced) area/gone up and peeked in my windows/played with stuff that wasn't theirs, so I'm worried about them getting hurt, and me getting in trouble. ^^;)

I've never heard that it isn't, but I've also never checked.

Yeah. You can eat lavender, it's even an ingredient in herbes de Provence. It's just that it tastes like... well, lavender.

Depending on where you are/how hot it gets where you are, violets, violas, and English violas are all good for shade, and some smell good. Violets and English violas are perennials in most places, and violas will self seed in areas with enough winter chill and rain. They'll flower better with some sun, but they don't need a lot and make good ground-cover. Woodland strawberry is like the native American version (actually a couple related species, I think) of the European alpine strawberry. It makes teensy red berries instead of supermarket monster fruit, but it's like the taste of a big strawberry got condensed down into a little tiny fruit. Unlike alpine strawberries, woodland strawberry spreads by runners and doesn't need a lot of sun, so it's another good ground-cover.

I don't know if deer like violets or strawberries, but even if they like both, given the right growing conditions (enough water, mostly) they're hard to kill. If you live in the right climate zone, lily of the valley is pretty, smells nice, is poisonous so deer won't eat it (I doubt kids would either unless you've got toddlers that are at the taste-test everything stage) and also borderline invasive in the right conditions. There's a pink flowered version that's supposed to be less vigorous. It's not cold enough in winter for it to naturalize where I am.

I've never seen that rose site before. helpmefind.com/roses is my go-to rose reference site.

Seconding violas and their cousins pansies. They do fine in shade and, if your summers are mild, will last a long while. In hot climates, they're planted in fall for winter & early spring color -- I've seen them shrug off snowstorms with no problem -- but in cool climates you can keep them going.

I know a bit about roses -- I had over 50 different antique/heirloom varieties in my yard before the combined heat/drought in summer 2010 killed a bunch of them -- and none of them really appreciate shade. There's a type of heirloom rose called "Hybrid Musks" that can take more shade than others, but most of them tend to be a tad ill-behaved, throwing their long, lanky canes around and sprawling a bit. They prefer warm climates -- I think Zone 7, maybe Zone 6, is their limit -- and tend to flower better in fall than in spring. Another thing to take into account -- deer like roses. On the plus side, though, planting something thorny might keep your neighbors' roaming kids out of your yard (where they don't belong). If the area you want to put one gets at least a half day of sun, I'd say go ahead and try it.

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[ SECRET POST #2674 ]

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?

Re: How does your garden grow, FS?