Trying to plant flowers on west side of church building

[seedcorn]

need to do it on the cheap side. I'm thinking of daisy's (will have lillies on wall side as I can get them for digging up) so my question is............can they be started from seeds, tubers, etc????

Where would be the cheapest place to get them? Any ideas or help (different plants to look at, etc) are appreciated.

 

[patandchickens]

For perennials, you'd probably want Shasta daisies, which at least some varieties can be grown from seed. (Dunno how hot the W side of your church gets, though, they aren't big on serious heat). Other good heat-tolerant relatively low maintanence perennials with a fairly long bloom period would be yarrows (easy from seed), daylilies if you don't mind the shrivelled droopy old flowers (church members may be able to contribute divisions, otherwise you can get inexpensive nonnamed mixes - do not try seeding, takes way too long), and perennial blue (really purple) sage (you'd have to buy plants, or buy 1 lg plant and take cuttings or divide). Probably also other things i'm not thinking of offhand (what zone, and is this a sunny w side between church and parkinglot or what?)

If you are willing to start things from seeds and from very small plants, expense should not be a big factor unless this is a very long large bed. I mean, a few bucks will buy you a good number of yarrow or shasta daisy seeds; you can often find people with daylily divisions to give away, even perennial sage cuttings you could start, and even if you had to buy those as plants you could find small ones (which will easily grow into large ones within a year or two) for like $2 apiece.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[beefy]

how about echinacea? looks daisyish..

 

[seedcorn]

echinacea; like the looks, tell me a little about them? Starts only, seeds, etc. Hardy, summer bloom?

 

[patandchickens]

echinacea -- easy from seed (just the normal muddy-purply-pink species and one or two cultivars such as Magnus -- for the new fancy orange ones, and the big hybrid yellows, you have to buy the plant$). Won't bloom the first year IME but are very reliable and hardy. Don't start blooming til later in the summer - you'd want something else for earlier color - but will continue til frost up here, dunno what they do way down south. Foliage is insignificant.

Also what about perennial Rudbeckia (e.g. Goldsturm) (you have to make sure to read fine print to avoid the annual varieties). Black eyed susan type thing. Some come from seed, the others you have to buy small plants, they grow fast, may bloom the first year from seed IME, and have a longer bloom and brighter colors (and less muddy) than echinacea. Very hardy and can't-kill-with-a-stick.

Pat

 

[seedcorn]

thanks for the help.

dunno what they do way down south

I'm the south??? made me laugh as we think of ourselves as being in the north. everything's relative.......

 

[patandchickens]

dunno what they do way down south

I'm the south??? made me laugh as we think of ourselves as being in the north. everything's relative.......

Actually I don't remember where you are at all ... that was just a disclaimer *in case* you are way down south


Pat