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It's become clear to me through posts and PMs that there are some gardeners here just waiting for the chance to discuss gardening!

So, I was thinking... how do you use gardening, or how does it affect you if you need a break, need some respite, need to relax, need inspiration....how do you use it as a therapy tool in caregiving?

What are your activities: Do you go out and pull weeds, read a magazine, design new beds? Look through garden catalogues? Go to garden stores?
And what interests have you added to your gardening? Visit estate or garden displays? Do you go to garden shows?

Does anyone design and plant Knot Gardens? Raised bed planters? Assistive gardens? Pollinator gardens (and have you thought of ways to help the bees and butterflies?)

Are your gardens primarily for pleasure or food, or a mix of both? Do you grow plants for medicinal purposes? Which ones, how do you harvest and process them? Any suggestions?

Do you grow plants that can be used in crafts, such as grapevines for wreaths and lavender for lavender wands? Do you make herbal products such as creams, lotions, chapstick?

What else can you share about gardening and the means in which it nurtures your soul?

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My neighbor builds amazing bird houses. He’s really talented in woodworking. He gets so angry when the squirrels eat the bird seeds.

He started placing metal sheeting around the trunks of his trees so that the squirrels can’t get to the bird houses.
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I've never successfully grown sunflowers here, if the squirrels don't dig up the seedlings they climb the stalk and destroy the flowers.
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Nacy,

I would gladly take it. I would swap some of my peppers for a sunflower! 😊
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There like dwarf sunflowers. I put one each in a medium sized pot, a long the walk way going to my gazebo, looks really cute. Heck with friends I like them to much 😁.

I'd give you one though needs. 😊 If I could.
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Nacy,

I love sunflowers! 🌻
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I grew from seeds teddy bear sunflowers. They are starting to bud, I'm expected, grew them once before, planted them to young, and a critter munched them down. .

Bought some pots yesterday, going to pot them separately, and give one to my friends and neighbors.

Hopefully they are as cute as they look on google
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Today I've been focusing on the dirt inside, instead of outside. 😂
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I am most definitely glad all the planting is done, my flowers are getting heads on them. My tomatoes are growing, and moms flowers look great. 😊
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Thanks.

I am not going to wait until they turn red. I can’t wait to taste my peppers!🫑

They aren’t quite ready to pick yet. I know what I want to make with them. Stuffed peppers.
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Im pretty sure they do also
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Yeah, green peppers are just unripe peppers, most will turn red but some will turn orange, purple or yellow.
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My husband asked me about red peppers. He wanted to know if we let the green peppers continue to grow, do they turn into red peppers?

I told him that I think that is the case but that I wasn’t completely sure of my answer.
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ITRR,

I am sorry that you lost your tomato plants.

7 years is a long span of time. That’s fabulous!

I really want to try my hand at growing tomatoes. We do get our fair share of rainfall.

My favorite tomatoes here are creole tomatoes. They are absolutely delicious! I love creole tomatoes, Roma tomatoes and cherry or grape tomatoes.

My dad grew tomatoes. Grandpa too. Grandma would can them. I know nothing about canning.

Grandma had a fig tree in her backyard. I ate the fresh figs right off the tree. She had so many figs that she canned fig preserves. The preserves were good too.

Are tomatoes prone to insects? I wish that I would have let daddy teach me about gardening when I was younger.

He offered to show me shortly after we moved into our home. I wasn’t as interested then. I was busy with other things.
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Cwillie, I know, it's our nemesis in other parts of my yard as well.

Need, there's an older neighborhood in Vero Beach, FL that is full of live oaks and it's such a pretty drive. I'm up in Zone 4... I'll look up the jasmine ground cover.
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Creeping Charlie is my nemesis 😠. But it is kinda pretty when it's in bloom 🤷‍♀️
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Needs , you have the most amazing beautiful oak trees down there!!!
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Need, next I would encourage you to try tomatoes. I had plants that lasted for 7 years and the fruit got better each year. Then we had an unexpected freeze, or they would have been covered, and I lost all of them.

That was my most rewarding gardening adventure, keeping plants that are treated as annuals, which we live in climates that allow perennial life, alive and producing for years.

The smaller the tomato, for my climate, the better. I'm guessing you have more rain and can do the bigger ones easier.

All of mine were in 24" minimum pots, just FYI.

Enjoy your harvest!
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Geaton,

Here we have huge live oak trees. They are gorgeous but grass will not grow underneath them. The roots are massive!

It’s common for us to plant Asian jasmine ground cover, which is lovely and extremely hardy.
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I have a spot on my property where I just cannot grow grass in all the 38 years I've lived here (deep shade, poor soil, competing with mature tree roots). So I decided to do an experiment and I sowed mirco clover in one section and then transferred creeping charlie to another area. They are both growing nicely. Now I will sit back watch which one will choke out the other, sort like Godzilla vs King Kong. It's in an isolated area where it won't come in contact with the rest of my (or my neighbor's) yard. And even if it did, I'm not sure I care anymore. My summer water bill has gone up and up. We don't even have to mow it. And the pollinators definitely will like it.

When I posted my experiment on Nextdoor.com to see if anyone else had done it, it got 6K views. I had no idea there were so many other frustrated yard warriors, like me.

Have any of you tried micro clover as a replacement to grass?
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Needs, it is exciting to grow, and use your own vegetables, put them on the table. And say "I did that" 😁
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Nacy,

I am excited because this is my first attempt at growing peppers!
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Needs, that's awesome 😎
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Y’all should see my bell peppers! 🫑 They are looking good!
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I miss reading about Glad’s garden. She was an avid gardener.

I wonder how she and GardenArtist are doing.

I hope that GardenArtist was able to move to her dream retirement residence like she wanted to.
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Send,

Everything blooms so beautifully in California! I also think the palm trees are lovelier in California than they are in Florida. The ground covers, the flowers, the produce, etc.
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Oh sends that sounds so pretty
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Needs, lol smart would have been figuring that out a year ago. 😆

For those who grow any vegetables in pots,
I really like the pots that are a clothe like felt material, then when the plants get bigger and you don't have baby them as much , the roots come out and they actually plant themselves into the ground. , when that starts to happen I put potting soil around the pot and then you pretty much have ground plants
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The cactus are blooming throughout the neighborhood-some really beautiful flowers!
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Nacy,

Very smart!
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I put my tomato plants in pots and put them in a garden cart, now I can move the cart around into the sun, and pull them in the garage if a storm is brewing. I'm like why didn't I think of that before!
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