(Gardeners Anonymous) FINAL PROJECT PRACTICE WITH LINKED GRAPHICS and alt page loading LWQ Planting Instructions

THE BROWN THUMB

IF I CAN GROW IT, YOU CAN GROW IT

Welcome to the BROWN THUMB. This webspace is designed to serve those of us who love flowers, vines, green growing things and vegetable gardening but who, sadly, consistantly kill one plant after another.
If you also suffer from this affliction we hope to provide shelter from the falling limbs and withering branches of your previous efforts. We hope to accomplish our goals by identifying as many user friendly, drought resistant, neglect thriving living plants as possible. The more the merrier so check back for additions regularly.
We hope to hear your glorious success stories but if nessesary we will cry with you over your glorious failures. Under construction is a GA confession site (Gardeners Anonymous) so that we can log in and unburden ourselves and share. Now, go get dirty.

VINES	GROUNDCOVERS	HERBS	ROSES
BULBS	A FUNNY cartoon	CONTACT THE AUTHOR	RELATED LINKS

VINES THAT YOU CANNOT KILL

CYPRESS VINE ATTRACTS

HUMMINGBIRDS
BUTTERFLY'S

MORNING GLORY
BOTTLE GOURD

These birdhouse gourds are astonishingly easy to grow. They produce big shady leaves, white orchid like flowers, and will climb on anything at an amazing rate. Each vine can produce up to five nice gourds. They weigh a ton at first and dry out to a few ounces. Once dry you just paint it with a design of your choice and cut a hole. All your green thumbed friends will be shocked and amazed, they may even think you are one of them!

GROUND COVERS THAT WILL SURVIVE YOUR GARDENING SKILLS

Strictly speaking, these plants are not technically official groundcovers. To me if it;

LIVES
GROWS
GETS NO TALLER THAN SIX INCHES
COVERS AT LEAST 12 INCHES OF GROUND
It constitues a ground cover. So for our purposes I have thusly categorized the following plants as GROUNDCOVERS.
I might like to add that the SPEARMINT listed under herbs and the THYME also fit the above description of GROUNDCOVERS and both get very nice purple flowers to boot.

a drawing I made of leaves because I couldn't grow any

HERBS THAT REQUIRE IGNORING

Unless you have lots of great dirt all around, just begging for an herb garden, you can grow all of these herbs in window boxes or flower pots on your porch or deck. That keeps them near the kitchen for both cooking purposes and for admiring by your green thumbed friends. The advantage with outside herbs is that once they are established they do not need a lot of watering. Window pots on a deck outdoors do need a lot of watering. Particularly hard to kill window box subjects are basil and black seeded simpson lettuce.That lettuce can take frost, heat, and whatever else you can think of. Herbs that do better outside in the ground are spearmint (likes wet), chives and thyme. I would still start the thyme in a pot and then move it later.

**ROSES, YEP THAT'S RIGHT, ROSES, THAT EVEN YOU CAN MAKE LIVE**

The following two links lead to images of roses I have actually kept alive for four years now with a minimum of effort. They both are of the climbing variety. Now and then you have to spray them with a rose spray. It is easy to find because it says on the bottle 'ROSE SPRAY' and is just right for them. Also a little rose fertilizer usually is sitting right next to the rose spray on the store shelf. Sometimes they are even poly wrapped together which makes it easy on is brown thumbers. This is the most intense I get as far as spray and fertilizer go. Also I heard it said once by a green thumber that when roses are grown on their own rootstock such as in the case of 'LANDSCAPE ROSES' they are very hardy. I haven't tried it yet, though. So this is garden hearsay.

BULBS THAT DON'T VANISH AFTER THE FIRST YEAR

These bulbs I am recomending I have grown myself, seen them emerge from the ground as leaves, progress from there to produce flowers, die back into the ground, and like a miracle, peep back up the next year bigger with more of them! You know, just like the legends they told us about flower bulbs. I know we all thought they were cruel lies to get our hopes up, or to make us buy more bulbs to keep the legend alive (Planting them in the dead of night to hide our brown thumbedness from our neighbors) . Well I am here to tell you that it CAN be done. Part of the secret begins with those onion weeds that I know even we can grow. You see it turns out that ALLIUM actually means ONION. Yep, these are onion flowers. As for the crocus and the daffodil, you got me there. I have no theory as to why they live, they just do. As a bonus for your efforts you can pick the little red stamens out of the saffron crocus and dry them for use in recipes.

FREE SHAREWARE BUTTONS FOR YOUR WEB PAGES!!

backyard butterfly

HERE IS A LINK TO A PLANT NURSERY
TO A GOURD WEB PAGE

A LINK TO A funny cartoon

BACK TO THE TOP VINES GROUNDCOVERS HERBS ROSES BULBS A FUNNY STORY PLANTING INSTRUCTIONS
(Gardeners Anonymous)