1. Where should I start?

Find a place and start planting.

    

    2. How often do I need to water?

When your garden needs it. Stick a finger in the soil and see if it's dry. People want a schedule, but nature doesn't work on a schedule. It either rained or it was hot. Plan your garden so that a lot of it can survive on rainfall once it is established.

 

    3. How often do you recommend fertilizing?

I recommend feeding container plants every four or five days. Early in the season, switch back and forth between a nitrogen fertilizer and one that's lower in nitrogen but higher in phosphorus and potassium to boost blooms—except for plants you're growing for their foliage. Once the plants are in the flower-production mode, by mid-July, use just the flower booster, assuming the plants are the size you want. Never fertilize when the soil is dry; it can burn some plants.

          

    4.  Why my PLANTS keep dying?

If a plant dies, it's telling you something. You might want to replace it once, just to make sure the first plant wasn't damaged in some way. But if the replacement also dies, that plant clearly isn't suited to that location. Move on, and plant something else.

 

 

    5. Any ideas for spending less money on plants?

Besides saving seeds and dividing perennials in late spring, take cuttings of annuals and tender perennials in the fall and root them in water over the winter. I take cuttings of geraniums, high-quality impatiens, dragon-wing begonias, sweet potato vine, coleus, bloodleaf (Iresine), and a new kind of oxalis called Molten Lava, with chartreuse leaves.

 

    6. Do I need to replace container soil every year?

The soil in your garden is thousands of years old, but it still grows things because it gets enriched. Treat container soil the same way. Some of mine is 30 years old, but every year I add compost. And every year, my container plants grow and thrive, creating a little tropical paradise around my house.

 

  7. How do I come up a good idea for my gardens?

Go on garden tours and study the gardens you gravitate toward, whether formal or more relaxed. In general, I think a garden with wide, curving borders works best. Just don't try to cram too much drama into a 2-foot-wide strip. Get bold and make borders or beds 6, 8, or 10 feet deep.