Water your plants in when you first plant and a few times if there is no rain. In a drought don't water every day, water less often but deeply. It draws the roots down where the water is better held. Water early morning NEVER in midday. Evening is ok, but morning is best.
Mulch!
Start a compost pile. Good for the earth, good for the soul, good for the garden!
Plants vary greatly from one gardener to the next, it seems. Echinaceas are a staple here because they bloom so long. I also love daylilies, which really pack a punch but don't last as long. Roses bloom forever if you get the right ones and don't have to be high maintenence.
Have fun. -Ais.

1. I wish I'd known how many and varied salvias there are. By now I would have had a lot more of them.

2. There is nothing more important than amending your soil and preparing your beds - before you even think about plants. All the time and money and effort you have to put into improving the soil (texture, nutrients, drainage, etc) will save you later on.

And I'd reverse the order of 1 and 2...FIRST see to your soil, then enjoy the plants.

Salvias for any soil, water, and sun level - so many! Want them all. 4 o'clocks were a nice surprise - not as invasive here in my zone 7a garden as further south, so very manageable - deer don't eat them and jap-beetles eat them and die. Love it. I would take the NCBG native plants for each season first - never started enjoying natives or knowing what to discard and what was a lovely native before I took classes - even trees. I'd start GW earlier, because I've swapped plants with locals and swapped seeds all over the U.S. to get some of my very favorites plants.

Gecko - I know that morning watering is best, but you consider watering in the evening better than midday?

Seems like that would hasten mold/fungus more...do you suggest that so as to avoid leaf burn?

Yes to avoid leaf burn midday is bad, but also because the water evaporates so fast in midday that a lot of it is lost. You are right about mold/fungus or mildew though. On susceptable plants I try very hard not to water in the evening even if it means watering closer to midday. But even in shade where leaf burn isn't an issue, evaporation is. Obviously morning is best, but some people have to get to work. Not me (SAHM) so I have no excuse, but then there's the kids breakfast, and school when it's in, and my morning coffee to drink... sonds like excuses, doesn't it? -Ais.

Yeah, that's what I figured you were aiming for. With a work schedule though, now I won't feel too bad about watering in the evening!

Seriously, I was actually referring to hand-watering, so that might be the difference. I generally hand water with a water-wand, and only soak the base of the plant avoiding the leaves/foliage altogether. So mid-day watering would be fine in my case, probably better than evening watering considering the mold/fungus aspect.

As for watering the LAWN though, you want to try to do that as early in the day as possible...preferably with a timer in the wee hours of the morning (before shower water usage is high). That way you avoid mold/fungus, *and* the evaporation issue gecko brought up.

#1 Lesson Learned
If the deep shade parts of the yard don't even have weeds growing in them - then nothing I plant will grow there either!

#2 Lesson Learned
It really is ALL ABOUT THE SOIL. Good dirt grows good plants. To get good soil you have to work on it all the time, all year long, every season. Its not hard work. And it pays off every growing season with exceptional plants.

My 2 cents - there are plenty of plants that you would want to cool down by watering them midday to get extra growth. Many plants stop photosynthesising when the temps get really warm (different threasholds for different plants - but you know how some tomato family plants look wimpy when it gets in the nineties). The high heat is the signal for them to shut down. You can encourage more growth by watering them with a fine spray to cool them down which will kick them back into high gear. If you don't want the extra size then this wouldn't matter but if you do - it is one of the tricks of plant physiology.

I'll mention a plant since the basics have been covered pretty thoroughly. Impatiens. Easiest annual to grow here bar none. Re-seeds beautifully. Propagates beautifully. Plenty of color and combination possibilities. Workhorse from Spring until frost. Common in this region, yes, but who cares, so are azaleas, dogwoods, flowering pears and hostas. They all work well and can provide a sort of living hardscape/bones from which to experiement off of.

Tip #24567
Just because a local nursery or big box store is selling something doesn't mean it will grow well in your zone. I used to work up near the Monrovia nursery (many plants come from them) and trust me when I say it's a hot, smoggy, dry section of So. California, not humid/hot/sometimes freezing Carolina.
-Nan

amend the soil and lasagna gardening. and that there is a $30 seed house that is a great, cheap substitute for a big greenhouse.

when i moved down here i was going to (a) get rid of all the grass and (b) let the plants deal with the soil, why on earth amend it? (a) is working, (b) has changed. soil conditioner is *awesome*, and i have seen *such* improvements from amending soil.

my life also became a whole lot easier when i realized that rototilling was way more efficient than hoeing.

i like to use a really easy lasagna base for my gardens now, and i frequently cover ground with burlap bags or lots of newspaper a season before i want to plant it. makes the ground a lot better, and if you start at the beginning of the summer then the heat kills a lot of the weeds.

your garden *will* eventually start looking like your imagination, but it might take a while. for my first 2-3 years, every bloom was a treasure but now i not only have individual blooms, but also am getting enough depth and growth that it's starting to look like a cohesive whole. way cool.

plant: melampodium. absolutely love it, and i used to refuse to plant annuals! oh, and sedums! nancedar got me started, and tammy gave me some at the spring swap that are absolutely enchanting.

where are you living/gardening? there isn't a lot of info on your member page.

arwenlurks,
-what is lasagna gardening?

-You really did get rid of your grass? I'm thinking of doing that since it's all weeds anyway! Actually, since our front yard is large, I'll probably try to limit the grass.

-How deep does rototilling go? Do you have to worry about hitting the water lines, etc.? Did you buy one or rent?

-I have seen some improvement with our landscape just by fertilizing some existing plants (I do not think they had been fertilized in years). We live in the upstate of South Carolina.

i haven't gotten rid of all the grass yet, but i think that if i lived here for 10-15 years it would happen. i'm only on year 4 now but i have progressively less grass...

lasagna gardening -- layer on top of the ground vs digging everything in. start with some newspaper, then start making layers of organic decomposables and dirt and paper and so on and so forth... there is a whole lasagna gardening forum on gardenweb, i think.

get your lines marked before you rototill so you know where they are. my dad did hit a cable line (fortunately defunct) while rototilling. but i would recommend starting to throw burlap bags down in the areas where you have water or gas lines so you get an initial decomposition, then after a couple months of heat or in the fall check and maybe do a light hoeing or raking (i have some evil runnning grass so i have to watch for roots and runners and the hoeing and raking are worth the effort). then either throw more burlap bags on or start lasagna with a pile of newspapers. fyi, these "smother the grass" methods work best if there is weight on the ground as well -- rocks or several layers of bags...

arwen

Three things (after agreeing that soil is primary):

Place the trees and shrubs first. They take the longest to mature so while you are adding the rest of the plants they are happily getting bigger.

If you can see dirt or mulch you don't have enough plants (and you will have tons of weeds to contend with).

Use ground covers and thickly growing plants to replace ALL the grass lawn you can possibly get away with if you are in a devlopment and no excuses if you aren't. Grass serves no purpose other than to pollute the earth with the stuff you have to maintain it with = various -cides and gasoline - let alone pouring water on something you get nothing back from. Think what the US would be like if all the grass lawns were replaced with food crops!

Examples: sedums (hundreds of varieties), ice plant, creeping jenny, daylilies, several kinds of irises, spiderwort, native ferns, green and gold Chrysogonum, thyme, oregano or marjoram, liriope, red-hot poker, beauty berry, salvias galore, strawberries, blue star creeper, ajuga, peacock moss, and if you want to cover big areas quickly - mint, oenthera, violets, and lemon balm will all take over grass and weeds, even summer crops of pickling cucumbers and pumpkins make great groundcovers, and don't forget that pebbles, rocks, and sand are ground covers too.

Nancy the nancedar

Don't you have toads to eat those mosquitoes? :)

Nancedar, you wrote: "If you can see dirt or mulch you don't have enough plants"...no, honey. I don't have enough MONEY or time.

lindakimy - That is what the members' trade listings, the exchange pages and the plant swaps are for! No money needed when there are so many avid gardeners who love to give anyone starts of everything we have and mostly don't expect much back. The time involved would be just in planting them once and then watering en masse with the rest of the stuff you have.

Nancy the nancedar

I second what Nancy says about the swaps. If you can make it to the Raleigh swap you will leave with more plants than you can imagine. Since I started going there has not been a single day that I have not had more plants than I had time to get in the ground. Another thing to check out is your local Master Gardening program if there is one- get on the email list. Our county's has sales once a year of plants they have propagated from their gardens at very low prices. I left with a trunk load one year(before I discovered the swap) for ten bucks.

I rooted hundreds of plants one year from cuttings off my originals and grew them over the winter in the garage.
About half of the pants lived, thrived and gave me lots more. Layering plants is the easiest way to get more too although it takes a while.

I've never been to a swap before.

I have a large butterfly bush in the backyard rooted from a 6" cutting taken at a botanical garden two years ago.

I'll put in a good word for lawns. They are not evil. Grass filters pollution and impurities out of water before the water returns to aquifers. Grass traps dust and other particles from the air and reduces air pollution. It is great for slowing run-off and reducing erosion. A lawn is second only to trees for cooling the air. So people who enjoy lawns (and don't dump a million chemicals on them) are improving the environment. So if you like lawns, have one. If you don't like them, dig up the grass and plant something else.
Some valuable things to know when you start gardening:
1. You're going to make mistakes - lots of them. Don't worry about it. You'll eventually move everything anyway.
2. Making compost is really easy. You just need greens (grass clippings) and browns(leaves). In the fall, blow all the leaves onto the lawn and mow it all using the mower bag. Add grass clippings, coffee grounds, manure, more leaves during the year. Nature does the rest. (If you're morally opposed to lawns, you'll have to go beg clippings from neighbors - hypocritical, isn't it?)
3. Find a really good nursery - local if you can - for the backbone of your gardens. When you have more experience, you can fill in from the box stores. Nothing replaces a good nursery to help you get started.
4. Try your hand at propagation. Never too early to try. It gives you something to trade with others, stretches your budget, and it's exciting when it works.
5. Along with everyone else, I agree that good soil makes good gardens. All kinds of ways to improve soil - local gardeners are a great source of info for this.
6. The more gardeners you know, the better your gardens will be, and the more fun you will have gardening.

I do compost without grass clippings so I guess I'm not a hypocrit :) Leaving the grass clippings on the lawn is good for it, actually, as long as it's mowed often enough.
I agree with what you are saying though, sugarhill. They aren't bad if you don't pour chemicals on them and water them overly during droughts. However, wouldn't other closely spaced plants provide the same cooling effect? You often see the cooling effect compared to bare dirt or asphalt, but I wonder how it compares to other plants and groundcovers. I'm not anti-lawn (though I do want to rip more of MINE up for more flowering plants). But I cringe when I hear them call golf courses "greenspace". It takes a lot of water and chemicals to maintain lawns like they do. Anyways, there are lots of good reasons for and against them so sugarhill is right and you should do what you prefer. -Ais.

Hey AIS, I don't know about lawns compared to dense plantings. I didn't mean to be so grumpy in my response. I was already in a grumpy mood. I could have much more politely made the point that lawns are good and people should choose based on what they like. I have learned so much from reading your posts - sorry to have been snappy.