Starting Your Own Garden - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. If you are just beginning to garden, and you do not have a lot of time and you do not know where to start, do not feel bad. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people just like you. You probably have a beginning house or a condo, or maybe you are newly retired and you finally have time. So my first suggestion is take a look at where you live, and choose what is most important to you. Do you want to fix up the front entryway so it looks nice for people coming? Would you rather work on the patio behind your house where you like to spend time with a cool drink when you get home from work? And concentrate on that first. So we are going to assume and say I want my front entrance first to look good. So number one rule: Let's get rid of all the weeds and stuff that looks bad in the front yard on the curb. This is called curb appeal. And this is good hard work, but it is like getting a room ready to paint. You have got to do that prep work. Then let's plant some pretty flowers- whatever kind you like, along the walkway going up to your front door- and then we like to have people do what we call a Three Pot Combo. Now, we have three pots here for you. They can be any kind of pots. They can be old clay pots, they can be nice pots, they can be any kind of plants. But you need to remember, is your entryway shady, or sunny? So when you go to your garden center, you can give them some honest advice, and they can help you pick the right plants. A three pot combo is like this: You have one tall thing in the background. In this case we used a black coleus. And then you have a stair-step down. This happens to be a mirror plant, or coprasma, and it is wonderful because you can use it for cut flower arrangements, it grows easily, never fails, and it comes in all sorts of colors from pink and green to light green to this gorgeous lemon yellow one. And then here is the low one. Any kind of a low plant that is going to go in the front, to bring the eye from one, two three. This happens to be a new plant called Gold Dust Megadontia, and it blooms all year long here in southern California and gives that bright yellow. So you have got three pots, you have got a minimum amount of work, flowers along there, and you are not spending much time on it. You are just remembering that every plant needs water. They need consistent water, and later on we will do our lesson on how to tell when a plant is dry... Oh, yes, the plant is talking to you! All plants need to eat. People forget that, so our soil in most places does not have much nutrient in it, so you need to provide those meals with any kind of good liquid fertilizer, or slow release if you are really busy, or whatever you are choosing. So here is your three pot combo! If you are doing your patio, or maybe you are doing a vegetable garden, maybe you are saying, "I want some money out of this. I want to be able to go out and pick my own tomatoes and my peppers and not have to go to the store and spend $2.98 a pound." Then go look at your back yard, pick a sunny spot. If you have bad soil, do some raised beds. So let's get some wood: 1x12s or 2x12s, and bring it up, so you have good soil and you do not have to fight the weeds, and then put in your vegetables. And we have all sorts of hints that your garden center can tell you, about which vegetables are going to bring you the biggest return. In other words, I might not plant green peppers, I might plant those baby bells, or the red or the yellow peppers, because that is what costs the money at the market, you know. I do not plant corn, because you do not get enough return on your investment, but tomatoes are wonderful. So then you have got your vegetable garden and probably a couple of hours a week getting out there and making sure you get fertilized and are pulling out the weeds. Weeds you need to attack when they are young. Do not let them get ahead of you, taking a good hard look! And when we get to another segment we are going to talk about the Four D's of Successful Gardening and you will learn something from that too. But pick the place you want to live in the most. Fix that up first, start your gardening there. Never buy more plants at the garden center than you can plant in the next two days. I am going to say that again. Never buy more plants at the garden center than you can planted and watered in the next two days! And then you will be a successful gardener!