new to gardening & no green thumb. im killing my garden!

[daisylickerz]

My boyfriend and I just rented a new house together. Huge front and backyard with gardens in the front and back. I have always lived in apartment communities where i have never had to take care of a lawn let alone a garden!
We moved into this house about a month ago now and parts of the lawn are getting brown/yellow. The plants that are in the garden are dying. It is hard for me to water every day. I am helping my man run a business. So I have a couple questions:

1. Do lawns and gardens need to be watered everyday? (I don't even know what kinds of plants I have growing here!)

2. Once the plants do die, do they still grow back?

3. Once grass starts to die and I water every other day, do I have a chance to save it?

also, here is a picture. i just picked out all of the dead leaves. there were so many of them you couldnt even see the bark underneath.

[vintagejuls]

Daily watering is not necessary especially where you are in Seattle, WA. Without seeing everything it's difficult to diagnose why your plants are dying. Maybe you can post some more pics.

From the pic you did post, I cannot tell what it is but my first thought was that some of it is weeds??? Just not sure... sorry.

One thing I do want to say is don't be so hard on yourself. For me, gardening is a hobby, therapeutic, an excuse to go play in the dirt... Most times, green thumbs require nurturing just as do plants.

Browse through the different sections here on HG and maybe you'll get some more tips on what you can be doing for your yard and garden. Happy Gardening!

[applestar]

I'm trying to see, but they're not very clear. I think the yellowing grassy leaves might be some kind of spring flowering bulbs -- maybe grape hyacinth? If so, the yellowing is normal as they're going dormant for the summer. I'd like to see a close up of the taller ones with white flowers(?) or dried bits on therm. Such dense colony could very well be weeds, but they could also be intentionally planted.

Agh! I wish I can see them better -- I can almost make out round stems with seed pods, if so, then most certainly grape hyacinths, albeit rather weak-looking stems, but understandable if they'd been covered with leaves and have been struggling underneath all this time....

BTW, if they ARE spring flowering bulbs, you'll not want to water them every day. They want to go to sleep, not drown. So let's get them ID'd.

[cynthia_h]

If any of those little bulbs on lanky stems bloom into a four-petalled salmon-colored flower, pull them up, roots and all.

Otherwise, they will mature into little sticker balls that lodge in the fur of animals, and in the socks of people.

Ask me how I know...

But the roots come up fairly easily; the number of those plants in my soil has diminished sharply between last year and this year, and I hope to almost extirpate them altogether by next year, except for whatever the birds bring by.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9