The Easy Garden

[MeanQueenNadine]

Thought it would be interesting to find out what plants ya all find to be easy. Here are my top 3:

1.) Sunflowers - the birds love them, they replant themselves, are fairly drought tolerant (helpful for my zone) & they look so cheery. I love the skyscrapers. I plant those in the front of the house and in the fall strip them of their leaves & pop the heads off. Then I am left with a big "stake" in the ground, come Halloween I just stick a skull on top & you get a nice effect. Looks like back in medieval times....like what they did in reality to William Wallace (Braveheart).

2.) Holly Hocks - the hummingbirds love them, again they readily reseed and are fairly drought tolerant. Downside is their leaves tend to get chewed up by earwigs and the like - strictly a backyard plant for me - but they give nice height to the annual beds.

3.) Allysum - nothing for the birds but I love the smell, they provide quick ground cover to help with moisture retention. When I pull them up in the fall and walk them to the compost bin I just shake it where I want it to grow next year, so again - readily reseeds. However I found that they only came back white unless I hit them with some fertilizer high in phosphorous (P) (that's assuming of course that I had shaken a Purple one not a white one to begin with, if you shake a white one the phosphorous obviously will not help - have I confused the issue enough?).What I mean is, if you shake a purple one/reseed and it comes back next year white & you want it to be purple try the P fertilizer to get it back to being purple.

So what are you "Easy" favorites & why?

 

[patandchickens]

Oh, this is a fun topic!

My fallback, low maintenance, 'can't kill it with a stick' plants are:

-any kind of perennial blue sage. This year I like Blue Hill the best, but I seem to change my mind every year.

-daylilies. I buy them very cheap because very small, so they sometimes sulk for a year or two, but once you've got them you've GOT them. I avoid the modern polyploid "fancy" types because they require too much dividing, though.

-spring bulbs! little ones like crocus and scilla in places where I don't want to have to be nose-to-nose with big yellowing foliage halfway into summer; daffodils in places far enough away from the house that I can avoid noticing the dying mess

-and for groundcover in part to full shade, no matter how dry, I plug in some Lamium (deadnettle), the ones with the mostly white leaves. I like "White Nancy" because of the white, rather than purply-pink, flowers, but I've got various other kinds too and they're all fine. It grows like crazy, can come back from near death an infinite number of times, and although it is a vigorous self-seeder and rooter, it is really easy to weed out when I get around to putting something more worthwhile in the space

Looking forward to hearing others' easy favorites,

Pat

 

[Southern Gardener]

Here are mine:

Daylilies
Lantana
Louisiana Iris
Dianthus
Hardy Orchid

Ive had these plants for years and they all do so great. I also love gladiolus, they are so easy I just wish they bloomed longer!

 

[Smitty's Farm]

I love low maintenance plants. Usually native perennials always a good bet. I love Purple Coneflower, Butterfly Bush & Russian Sage.

I also like the seeds that you can sow directly in the ground and they grow prolific. Here's some of my favorite to try that way (Sunflowers, Zinnias, Scarlet Runner Red Green Bean -vine- attracts humming birds, Hyacinth bean - vine grows like a weed to cover a trellis and has pretty purple flowers and purple seed pods.

Morning Glory are easy, but once you've planted them you'll have them in your garden forever......everywhere.

I like the surprise volunteers that pop up in the garden. Usually the sunflower volunteers are much healthier, taller, and thicker stalks than the ones I plant from seed.

 

[Rio_Lindo_AZ]

I love low maintenance plants. Usually native perennials always a good bet. I love Purple Coneflower, Butterfly Bush & Russian Sage.

I also like the seeds that you can sow directly in the ground and they grow prolific. Here's some of my favorite to try that way (Sunflowers, Zinnias, Scarlet Runner Red Green Bean -vine- attracts humming birds, Hyacinth bean - vine grows like a weed to cover a trellis and has pretty purple flowers and purple seed pods.

Morning Glory are easy, but once you've planted them you'll have them in your garden forever......everywhere.

I like the surprise volunteers that pop up in the garden. Usually the sunflower volunteers are much healthier, taller, and thicker stalks than the ones I plant from seed.

I do the same as her

 

[digitS']

Nope, I can't see any perennial as easy unless they can form a mat so tight that no weeds can squeeze thru. It's weeding that I consider the difficult part of gardening - everything else is mostly just fun!

I'm willing to spend the Winter looking at a bare flower bed - nothing's goin' to bloom anyway and half the time, the ground is covered with snow. Then, I can plant annuals or Summer bulbs with the new growing season.

In fact, I consider my dahlias the easiest blooming plants I grow. "Oh no! But, they need to be dug up every year!" Well, yeah, but the beds are never walked on so I can almost lift them out of the ground with my bare hands. Drop the roots in a bag or box of peat moss and down they go into the basement.

After they are back in the ground and when these beauties "power up" come Summer - - almost no weed can compete. Further, the soil has been thoroughly cultivated just by lifting and replanting the roots. And the best part, the blooms are gorgeous!

Steve

 

[Rosalind]

Annuals:

Nasturtiums. Never had a problem growing monster nasturtiums. They seem to enjoy neglect. They look nice and taste like watercress, so they do double duty.
Green beans and yellow pear tomatoes. I plant 'em, every year I get a zillion of 'em. I know that theoretically it is not possible for a single seed to make more than one plant, but somehow I always get way more than I planned for.
Scarlet runner beans, also grow like mad, attract hummingbirds, make edible beans for baked beans and stew.

Perennials:

Raspberries. They grow wild around here, so all I have to do is mow the weeds around 'em once in a while, and make sure they're growing more or less along the fence. Serve double duty as security shrubbery, the neighbor kids don't want to shortcut through our yard.
Lilacs. I think I pruned mine once. That was about five years ago. Don't see any reason to do that again.
Blue spruce. Seems to grow in a decent pyramidal shape without any intervention on my behalf. Does not grow horribly quickly. This time of year, I use any tatty-looking lower branches for Xmas decorations.

 

[peeps7]

Roses
Daylilies
Cactus (The MEAN kind, the one that sticks in you and you don't know it until later)

 

[cknmom]

geraniums
margareet daisies

Monica

 

[silkiechicken]

The only thing I can get to flower are tomatoes and peas... OH! Iris!