START A LANDSCAPING PROJECT FOR YOUR GARDEN WITH FREE CUTTINGS --Fast growing choices by Anita Sands Hernandez

PINK geraniums, from cutting to bloom, just a few months. Then they are perennials but stay bush like for years. They are not invasive. EASIEST to replicate. NOT ONLY PINK! Wherever you walk the dog, keep an eye peeled for them. Build window boxes for outside kitchen if son or hubby is handy.

Make them of some simple JUNK WOOD. Every alley has some. Throw a window box under every single window on the house.

VINEY / SOLUTION /  FOR / TRUNCATED / dead TREES

A row of truncated cypresses or ancient hedge plants do not have to be dug out. Leave the central stems. They will be less glaring, less 'stick out' with soft, green vines Weave vines among the upright wood. The Madagascar Jasmine is an outstanding vine for fences.

In SPRING, PLANT  MORNINGLORIES most varieties are annual.
Morninglory vine is usually an annual. But not always. The annuals have seeds in Autumn, replant themselves in spring but you can gather seed to give away.

MORNINGLORIES are SO STRIKING!

I grow them up all trees, up all fences. Ask me for seed. Some of mine are blue, dark blue some pink. Most have stars like these. I don't have the HEAVENLY BLUE hybrid. Mine are Vintage seeds.

ANOTHER VINE: I recommend the MADAGASCAR JASMINE. Fragrant all summer long. Tall but not invasive, will cover part of a ten foot tree but not impede fruiting. Here is a first year potted one.

ALSO, SEND Mexican or African chayote vines up into trees, onto roof.  This squash is FOOD. Seek chayotes at the Mex or Asian Market, maybe even in any produce dept of a regular super market store -- PICK THE FRUIT with a little tail. It has to have a tail sticking out. Of course at the chayote factory, they keep those themselves, to take home, or the farmer keeps them.

GROW YOUR OWN FRUITS!

Plant berries from the dumpster, even if rotting. you will have tons of BLACKBERRY PLANTS to donate. Good markets have the MAUI PASSIONFRUIT, most delicious fruit ever. A single 'egg' of the Maui costs a dollar but you'll have hundreds of plants to sell for 15$ each if you have pots and soil and water for a year.

Get  bags of SUPER SOIL, best brand, add peat moss, (soaking first,) sand, manure and keep all green trash, from green cans ...yours and neighbors, in a pile which you pitchfork around once a week, to make fine, black compost. Then, your potting soil is free. Add some good sand, not builder's sand. GARDENER's sand.

Dig a long bed and throw a four inch layer of compost on it, Dig it in, break up clods. Find a wormy area, and throw a worm every inch into ground. Now, Plant your geraniums, berries, morninglories.  One can mix them..... rather than separate beds.  BERRIES kind of demand to be all in one area on poles and wire. Whatever you plant, every six months put a new four inch layer of compost on it, so keep on taking everybody's GREEN can on trash nite. And you have to start a new pile each week. Get chicken farmer to give you a lot of cans of waste for each pile. Put all kitchen scraps (not meat or fat) in the latest pile.

FENCE COVERS. Every fence should have glorious, flowering vines on it, honeysuckle is invasible but the bouquets are worth it. As trumpet vines are 15$ each or more, and morninglories are free and do the job
faster and taller.......consider this glamorous vine instead of trumpet vine. Honey suckle grows from cuttings. Dedicate many flats to 'rooting' process.

If you are in L.A., I have a thousand cuttings to give you. Also an alley to take you to with a trumpet vine which I believe WILL replicate.... Hey in my section of the VALLEY, if we wander a few alleys we'll find lots of trumpet vines. Just not the mandevilla you probably want. Take cuttings in your local alleys, or find  trumpet vines

The ART OF TAKING CUTTINGS IS LEARNED BY DOING IT.

HYDRANGEA BUSHES are LUSH! This CUTTING SYSTEM works bigtime on these lusty flowerers. They require ACIDIC soil, pure compost and sand, no clay.

http://www.hydrangeashydrangeas.com/propagation.html

The cheapest thrill is HOLLYHOCKS. * * *
I have a ton of seed for you, all colors. write astrology at earthlink dot net

<===BACK TO THE GARDEN INDEX PAGE