Need Advice - Flowers or Flowering Plants on Sidewalk

danielclark

Hi Everyone

I'm in Brooklyn, NY.

The City of New York just planted a tree in front of my house. They dug and prepared a 4' x 6' area for the tree. I would like to plant some flowers or flowering plants ( not too tall & very low maintenance) in the the area beneath the tree.

I'm not a gardener and don't know much about flowers, but I do love to look at them. Please give me some ideas of what I could plant.

Thank you in advance.

antigone

Is it sunny or shady?

pitu

If you really want to get into it, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has free classes for tree well gardening through their GreenBridge program.
http://www.bbg.org/edu/greenbridge/

The usual low maintenance choices: hostas, impatiences, four o'clocks, petunias, marigolds

Thanks for street gardening!

bug

If I can grow impatiens and marigolds, anybody can!

lorenzo

Your best bet will be shade plants that don't take away up too many resources as the tree will need a lot. Try hostas, impatiens, petunias and begonias - all annuals except for the hostas. Your tree needs lots of water - i believe 20 gallons per week which can be given all at once. If they installed a tree gator then put the water in there and it will distribute the water right to the roots slowly.

8thandprez

One thing to watch out for is dog piss. It will be the #1 killer of your plants. From experience, some plants appear particularly susceptible: columbine, salvia, ferns. Others, such as hostas and grasses, have done quite well despite having been peed upon constantly.