New home owner; HELP!!!

[Erica Hawks]

Hi there! New to the forum and I need help! I just recently bought a home. The previous owner did a pretty good job with this flower bed, but it's getting a little out of control due to the fact that I have not been trending to it. Now that the boxes are all unpacked I am ready to tackle the garden. I've never had a garden like this before and I'm a little overwhelmed! Where should I start? What should I do? How do I get rid of that darn prickly pear that I keep getting stuck with?! Thanks all!

 

[Beth_B]

Welcome!

Yeah that is kind of a mess. Where do you live (helpful in responding with suggestions.) I'm assuming somewhere pretty warm and dry if you have cactus. That probably has shallow roots so you should be able to chop it down and dig out the roots fairly easily.

If you want to keep those roses maybe a trellis and some pruning to make them tidier?

If you have a (NOT big box but independent) garden center nearby that would be a great resource too. Go wander around and ask questions. A handy strategy for a flower bed is to choose perennials that come back every year, interspersed with annuals you can plant in between for extra color.

 

[MaryMary]

Welcome to the forum!!

Hmm...where to start? I'd trim back everything flopping on the sidewalk, then I'd wait for them to stop blooming before I did anything else. You might as well enjoy them.

Before you dig out the cactus and pitch it, you might ask the neighbors if they want it, or even advertise it on Craigslist, with a disclaimer that they dig it out!! (If you dig it out, please don't just pitch it. Put it in a box with a FREE sign on it; someone will probably take it.)

It would also be a nice way to meet the neighbors, if you want to divide or give away any of the plants. I am still holding a grudge against my new neighbor who killed all of the old neighbor's plants. I'd have taken half of them if I'd known he was just going to mow them and attack the bigger things with a chainsaw!

@Beth_B, we've had prickly pear in our backyard for about 4 years now. It bloomed for the first time this year. Pretty yellow flowers I meant to get a picture of, but put it off too long.


http://www.bhg.com/gardening/flowers/perennials/growing-cactus-plants-in-cold-climates/#page=0

The champions of cold-hardy cacti come from the prickly pear family, known botanically as Opuntia. There are many kinds of cacti in this family, but two of the toughest are Opuntia fragilis, hardy to -35 degrees F, and Opuntia poryapantha, hardy to -25°F. The eastern prickly pear (Opuntia compressa), native to most parts of the eastern United States and southern Ontario...

 

[marlingardener]

To get rid of the cactus, you need a digging fork and a pair of barbecue tongs. Dig the cactus up, pick it up with the tongs, and dispose of it. I live in Texas, and I know this method works! Be sure to get any pads that fall--they will root in.
That is a very narrow flowerbed, and the previous owner overplanted it. Decide what you want to keep (the rose on a short trellis, perhaps?) and move or remove everything else. Replenish the soil with some compost, and plant a few perennials. The bed will look sparse the first year, but will fill in without taking over the sidewalk.

 

[mgmine]

It looks to me like there was no planning when the garden was planted. Decide what you like looking at then dig everything else out and start over. The rose bush looks nice but it's so over grown it's hard to tell whet condition it's in. Where you live and what variety it is will dictate when it should be pruned. You might be able to transplant the flowers but they may not be worth the effort. The cactus add nothing so I would ditch them.

 

[NatalieW]

It looks poorly planned out. I would pull everything except the rose bush. Trim and prune the rose and train it up a trellis.... then do neat low growing mounding plants that go with the rose's color in front of it... you can do some salvia ... something that adds purple and is easy to care for. To put some height and an architectural point to the bed, put in something conical like a cone shaped boxwood or pyramidal holly off center towards the opening end of the bed, then again, do low mounding plants around it to fill in the empty spaces, choosing colors that work together. Artemisia is a nice easy plant to consider, and you can place bulbs in the bed to come up and bloom in the spring (tulips, daffodils) .... mulch the bed once everything is placed and looks neat.

 

[cas]

That rose bush is beautiful. If it were me, I would remove the yellow flowers around the rose and then mulch the area. I think this will make the rose stand out even more.

 

[Corzhens]

The prickly pear is a rarity here and the fruit is even rarer. I wish I could have that prickly pear for our garden. But for your sprucing up, you have to choose which plants to leave and which to remove. All weeds have to be pulled by hand so as not to damage the plants. And the way the plants looked, I guess it needed some trimming - pardon me if those plants are not for trimming, they look alien to me.

 

[IcyBC]

I would trim everything first to see which one needs to get dig up, and then space them out. The rose bush is nice but I would worry about the roots growing in to the house and under the foundation.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

I would trim everything first to see which one needs to get dig up, and then space them out. The rose bush is nice but I would worry about the roots growing in to the house and under the foundation.

those roots not that strong. a needless worry.