Can Miracle-Gro Rose Feed be used for different plants as well?
Roses like at least 4 hours of sun and a good soil. There are plants that like the same nutrients as roses and I suspect that on the label that's on your fertilizer container will have a list of plants that you can use it on. You might need to remove your soil and replace it with soil that roses like or plant them in a raised bed.
Do I need to till my flower beds?
If it is heavy clay yes you should till it. It does not matter if there is plants already in there because with heavy clay like dirt they will not bloom and grow to their fullest potential. Use peat moss and new soil. First till than add peat moss. Turn it over well. Add fresh top soil and more peat moss and turn over again. The peat moss will help the clay break up and breath for your new plants. There is plenty of plants that thrive in full sun. You can do Iris, Tulips and Daffodhils for spring bloom. You can get every color Lily for summer bloom. Red hot pokers love full sun. Butterfly bushes are great as well. There is tons of things you can do. Try to stick with things that come back every year. Mulch when you are done planting. That will help keep the weeds down and it gives the final look.
Is it OK to lay black trash bags below mulch on flower bed?
Okay, I have to rant--I HATE WEED MAT! I don't care what method you use, be it actual weed mat or plastic bags, none of it works. The problem is that, as one person said, the plastic bags hold in moisture and can cause a mold problem near the roots. Weed mat has small holes that will 'breathe', so that is a little better there. My pet peeve kicks in when you shovel your mulching material over the top of the weed mat---that stuff breaks down (as it should) and the weeds will grow ON TOP of the weed mat! What a waste of time and money! I have never, ever, EVER had a good experience with weed mat and I would never use it. As a professional, I would caution you against the investment. Leave the soil alone and just WEED it. Actually right now is the optimum time to apply pre-emergent, so do that and save yourself the hassle. Good luck! :-)
How large should my raised garden bed be for 3 red Raspberry bushes? How about 3 Raspberry and 3 blueberry (full sized)?
Blueberries need a more acidic soil so if you plan to grow them in the same bed, it had better be a big bed with something between both types of plant, at ground level and beneath.There is a lot of information about this online. I suggest that you Google ‘grow raspberries and blueberries together’, it will give you more information.
Can you plant flowers when it's raining outside? How about mulch?
It's not a good idea to plant flowers when it's raining. If you plant when it's raining, the soil will become muddy & compress around the roots. When this compressed soil dries, it hardens & there's not enough air spaces in it to let the plant get enough oxygen...which can cause plants to suffocate & die. Working in muddy garden beds can damage the structure of the soil: “Working the soil when it is too wet causes its clay particles to bind together. The result is rock-hard clods. And, if you use a tiller, you may actually cause a hard pan to form just below the soil surface...As a general rule, soil is too wet to work if you can press a handful of it into a muddy ball. It’s okay if it’s a little cool and damp, but crumbles.” http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/news/sty/2005/s... http://gardeneryardener.blogspot.com/200... You can mulch in the rain if you're careful not to walk on the soil around your plants. This can be done if you have stepping stones or some type of path to walk on. If you have raised beds, you can walk on the paths while spreading the mulch, & never step on the planting bed. Good luck!!! Hope this is helpful.
How do I plant raspberries in a 4′ x 8′ raised garden box?
Don’t waste the Real Estate. Raspberries are hardy growers. Plant directly in the ground. They will expand year after year, creating more and more canes that you can transplant to create more raspberry ‘bushes’. They probably won’t get much benefit from a raised bed. Save that for veggies and annual herbs. Just dig a hole 12” deep and 18” wide, place the raspberry plant in the middle, and then fill in the hole. You will get berries the first year. Give it 3 years and you will be impressed how much it will have grown.
Why would I want to build a raised garden instead of just planting in the ground?
It also helps prevent soil contamination. In a lot of inner city areas there are trace chemicals and lead in the backyards soil and you can’t prevent that soil from blowing onto the garden bed if you are using a backyard veggie patch. A raised garden bed helps prevent the soil from being cross contaminated - especially important if you are growing veggies.Check out this blog if you want to know how to check/deal with issues of soil contamination: What to Do if your Soil Has Lead ContaminationAnother reason you want to keep your garden patch above ground is so that trees will stop pilfering from your fresh premium soil’s nutrients. Container gardens particularly are good for stopping this from happening as they are airtight.A raised garden also helps with soil aeration meaning you don’t lose the soil’s nutrients as easily. If you have a protective garden bed cover over your raised garden bed even better for stopping dried out soil from occurring.
What would you plant in the center of a 25' diameter circular flower bed in a circular driveway other than a tree? I want this bed in general to be a cutting garden. USDA Garden Zone 7a.
Except for the specifics of what plants are good for cut flowers in your climate, I think you’ve answered your own question on what you should plant in the circular bed in the center of your driveway island.As a landscape architect, my first thought would be to ask myself if planting anything that might be a focal element inside a drive loop would create the sort of space I would want there. Sometimes, enclosing the outside of the loop space with trees and shrubs does a nice job of creating an outdoor room or drivecourt. At a building entry, this is a nice space to create. Anything placed in the center island draws attention to itself, and divides the space, separating it into smaller parts. A high branched tree does this subtly, with an overhead canopy bringing down the scale of the space. A low branched tree or shrubs create a more substantial subdivision. Plants you can see over, like those in a cutting garden, are sort of in-between.As others have noted, many plants that produce great flowers for cutting produce lousy looking landscape plants, especially once the flowers are cut off. If this is a highly visible location, you might want to reconsider this function at this location. I hope the location you end up selecting is very sunny (at least 4–6 hours per day) and has great soil. Flowering plants used for cutting require a lot of energy to grow fast and produce flowers. To do so, they need good sun, soil and water to flourish.
If you were a gardener what would you plant in the soil to grow a new rose?
I worked at Eagle Lawn and Garden which is now Lowes and I learned a "rose trick" that I still use and has never let me down. We would get pallets and pallets of roses in and during their stay with us, some of them would die, or look like they were dying. Management let me buy these roses for a buck or two per plant and I would take them home, dug the required hole and before I would plant the rose I would throw into the hole a handful of dried blood, a handful of bone meal, and a banana peel - no chemicals to worry about! Every single rose bush bounced back beautifully - I had about 25 of them. Which, when I sold my home, I donated to the local nature center. Btw, nowadays growers a lot of times won't allow the stores to sell the TLC plants at a discount and make sure these perfectly good plants are thrown into the trash compactor instead of sold cheaper or donated to a good cause because they make more money from the insurance company than they would selling them at a discount. America - home of the wasteful. Finally, fyi, the best window cleaner I have ever used is one part water, one part vinegar and one part rubbing alcohol. Bomb. It's the only thing I will ever use.