Planting Flowers ~ need help!

If you want things to come up again and again, you will need to plant perennials.  But don't plant seeds.  It will take much longer for them to grow and they may not bloom for a couple years.  Your best bet is to get perennials at a garden center or Lowes, Meijer, or someplace like that.  Good  sun loving plants for a novice are day lilies, shasta daisies, and coreopsis.  I like to plant things in 3's.  So you might consider getting three pots of day lilies and planting them in a kind of triangle pattern about 8 inches apart.  Do the same with the daisies and the coreopsis.  If you buy yellow day lilies, the daisies and coreopsis will look great together.  Coreopsis is yellow.  I like Moonbeam coreopsis, but you can get whatever variety looks good to you.  There are two basic varieties--threadleaf, which has really think feathery leaves, and the other stuff, which has broader leaves.  I like the threadleaf varieties better because you don't need to pinch the spent flowers off of them.  They bloom all summer, starting in mid-June.  Day lilies usually come on in July and bloom for about a month.  So do shastas.  I would put day lilies and shasta daisies behind the coreopsis, so you could plant the shastas and lilies in a row and then put the coreopsis in front.  I like to fill in with annuals.  Marigolds will go with all of these and they will give you color from day one through to the first hard frost.  Put the marigolds in the same "line" as the coreopsis.

For shady areas, nothing works better than hostas.  These are planted primarily for their foliage.  Pay attention to size.  You will find that information on the little tags or white stake things that come with the plants.  Put taller hostas in the back and shorter ones in the front.  Sometimes I like to fill in the spaces with impatiens, which are annuals.  They need water, though.  But they will give you color throughout the summer.  Astilbe can grow in the shade and they are perennials.  There are a number of colors ranging from white to deep red.  Again, pay attention to size.  Astilbes need more nutrients, though, so if your soil isn't very good, go with hostas.  Basically, if your soil is dark dark brown, it's good.  If it's lighter, it might not be so good. 

They now have some wonderful varieties of coral bells.  Some of these require more shade than others, so  look at the little tag or stick that comes with the plant.  These send up slender stalks that have tiny flowers on them.  I picked some last summer and plunked  them in a vase with no water.  They dried and stayed in the vase all winter.

All of the plants I've mentioned are easy to find.  I'd be happy to answer any gardening questions you have!!

Songer