Many gardeners like to jump right in and plant all kinds of flowers, plants and vegetables and they don't even know anything about what is needed to place, feed and maintain those gardens. Hopefully the following information will get those brain cells working as to what must be done and do it right.

Disease-susceptible

It is best to know if your plants are subject to diseases or fungus. This should lead you to picking the right plants to put in your garden. The right plant and the right soil are most important at this time. In order to get a good looking garden and keep the maintenance to a minimum choose plants that are disease resistant.

One thought to keep in mind is to try and stay with native plants. If you live in zones 1 thru 6 don't try to grow bougainvilleas. It just does not work for you or the plant.

Experience is the best teacher as to what can be grown and what to do for its soil. Go visit a good local nursery and if you can trust them ask them what may be best for your area. To keep you as a customer they should be happy to help you. Also the local county extension service and even nursery catalogs put out a lot of good information. Disease resistant plants can save you a lot of time and money.

There are resistant kinds that are around for such diseases as apple scab, armillaria root rot, bean mosaic virus, black spot, blueberry mummyberry, cherry viruses, fireblight, juniper tips, lilac bacterial blight, pea enation mosaic virus, potato scab, powdery mildew, root-knot nematode, rust, tomato fusarium twig blights, verticillium wilt and other diseases.

Location

Know what location to place those plants. Do some planning and look at what, where and when to plant. Pick those plants accordingly.

Shade

A good nursery will have everything labeled especially with the needs of the
plant like if it needs sun, part shade or full shade.

Place a shade plant in the sun and you will get yellowing and it will grow poorly. A sunburn will happen and there is no coppertone for plants to prevent it. One rule of thumb I have heard is "stay away from western or southern exposure".

Sun

On the other hand if a sun plant is placed in the shade you will get poor results like stunted or spindly growth. By chance they do grow they will be frail and lacking leaves which are energy producers.

Your flowers will lack blooms by putting in the shade. Or say, the sun will increase those blooming flowers to their max.

Water

Use water conservation landscaping whenever you can. Water is abundant on the earth but we do not need to waste it. If and when you water your plants or lawn you will need to know that your driveway and sidewalk will not grow from a lot of watering. Drought climates know the importance off conserving water at all times. When watering, do it to a depth of 1 inch.

We take our water supply for granted by squandering more than we ever should use and in many areas, additional groundwater is pumped and mother nature can't keep up with by replacing through precipitation and runoff.

Drought-tolerant

One suggestion is use plants that are tolerant to drought. Once established these plants grow better with little water. We tried to adapt afghan pines to south Texas which are arid tolerant pines but even here they got too much water and die at a young age.

However, every plant needs to be mulched, mother nature's blanket for heat, cold and even drought.

Some grasses need heavy watering to stay green and growing. Maybe a good idea to replace with drought-tolerant ground covers, therefore, may save on water and money.

If your favorite plant needs plenty of water try grouping them together and then layering them with a couple inches mulch.

Pollination requirements

We need to maintain our pollinators of bees, butterflies and hummingbirds by getting a food source for them with the right plants. New gardeners attempt to grow fruit trees and find the trees are fruitless. No cross pollination is happening.

Many kinds of trees need cross pollination to produce blooms and their fruit. On some it is mandatory but not on all.

Research the pollination requirements of your desired tree before hand. Growing one on limited space try a self-pollinating fruit tree.

As mentioned before pollination will not take place without insects, butterflies or hummingbirds.

One last thing I feel that I need to harp on is if chemical pesticides are used by yourself or a neighbor, the honeybees and other pollinating insects won't be around so that fruit production will suffer.

Use organic.