This is a post for the gardeners and flower lovers out there. I think I’ve killed my flower bed. I thought I was doing everything right, but alas, most of the flowers I planted have been wilting to a pitiful death over the past two weeks. I didn’t take a “before picture”, but the pic below is the after. I thought it turned out really nice.

When we moved into this house back in February, the flower bed was already here, so I had no idea what would be coming up. There are four hostas that are doing great, not a dead spot among them. The bigger section of the bed had four small evergreens, a gigantic fern, coral bells (that are doing fine), a few other things I couldn’t identify, and more weeds than I’ve ever seen in such a small space. One weekend, my mom came over and helped us dig up two of the evergreens, the weeds, the fern and some other things. I planted gerbera daisies in several colors, New Guinea impaitens, a big yellow thing and some dusty miller to accent. We mulched, we watered, I talked to them. Most of them are dying. 

Should I have done something to the existing soil and mulch first? After we got the weeds out, I churned up the mulch and soil, and picked out the bits that looked bad before planting the new stuff. Should I have added new potting soil? I’m new to the whole gardening thing so maybe I should’ve done some research on this before even starting the project. We’re out about $70 in plants and that pretty sierra red mulch that I’ve always wanted. I dug up the impaitens and transferred them to a big planter on the porch, because I think they were getting too much sun. The actual flowers are looking good and starting to bloom again, but leaves are looking pretty horrible. (I forgot to mention, the bed gets full sun from about 11am to about 4pm)

Since it’s the end of June, is it too late to dig it all up and start over? I don’t know how to save what I have, if that’s even possible. I know the flowerbed wasn’t taken care of for at least a year (the kid that we bought the house from lived here that long, and didn’t touch the flower bed). So who knows what kind of shape the soil underneath was in. I’m going to take a trip to our local nursery on Thursday and talk to someone about what I should do next, but any tips would be great, if you have any! I’m at a loss.