Hi Becky!
Welcome to the forum! I just started gardening last year so I'm a newbie too :o) I would highly recommend Lilies and Daylilies. Both are very easy to grow and relatively drought tolerant especially the daylilies. Both are perennial, increase very well and have few pests or diseases.
Most of the lilies I grow are oriental and trumpet lilies because I just LOVE the smell. I do have few Asiatic and LA hybrids because I loved the color but they don�t have much if any fragrance. The blooms last a long time in the garden and in a vase. You will have to stake them in our wind but it is very easy but well worth it the first time you come in with a bouquet of the beautiful blooms for your house.
Daylilies are great because they are so easy to grow and the blooms come in a wide variety of forms, colors and sizes. You can get full, round and ruffled blooms, big spidery blooms, fluffy double blooms or the more traditional triangular shaped blooms. The size of the blooms can be as small as 2 1/2 inches up to 7 inches (even bigger if you go with the spider types). They come in every color except pure white and blue. You can get sold colored blooms, bi-colored blooms or blooms with different colored eyes and/or edges. It is worth mentioning that each bloom only lasts one day but there are so many blooms on each scape that you get a long season of bloom. You can also get reblooming varieties (which I tend to favor) which means they can send up a 2nd or even 3rd scape after the 1st is finished which further extends the bloom season. I must warn you though, daylilies are addictive. I stared out last year with 16 cultivars and now I have well over 100 : O The Lily Auction is a great place to get a small idea of wide variety of daylilies available.
I strongly recommend that you do NOT buy daylilies or lilies from any of the big box stores. Been there, done that and it was a disaster. I also recommend that you stay away from Michigan Bulb. I bought from them last year and the lily bulbs I received were mush, moldy pitiful things hardly bigger than a peach pit plus they didn�t bloom true (they were supposed to be blood red and bloomed neon orange). After doing some research, this year I ordered from bloomingbulb.com and the lily bulbs they sent were firm, health and huge! I�ve also read that The Lily Garden and Brent and Becky�s Bulbs are a very good vendors but I blew my budget before I could place an order with them this year.
I�ve purchased most of my daylilies at the Lily Auction and they have all been great! If you are interested I can recommend some sellers there, one is located in Big Cabin, OK. There are lots of daylily vendors on the web which have been highly recommended. If you are interested, I can give you their names and websites. Just be sure to avoid Gilbert H Wild like the plague! Their prices are cheap but you absolutely get what you pay for. I admit that in a haze of cabin fever, I got sucked in by the cheap prices and placed an order before I checked them out and I am so sorry I did. One daylily was DOA, 3 others were near dead and 1 has since died, and the rest are alive but struggling. Meanwhile, the daylilies I bought at auction this year are not only thriving, one has already sent up a scape! I�d rather spend a few extra dollars and get good healthy plants. Live and learn�
Sorry for the long post. As you can see, lilies and daylilies are my passion and I like to help other people avoid my mistakes.
All the best!
Kelly

Here is a link that might be useful: The Lily Auction

Becky, welcome to Oklahoma gardening!

It will be easier when you know how much room and what kind of shade/sun that you have in your new house. Of course, that might be something to look at in buying a house :)

I recommending seed trading and Winter Sowing. Both are very addicting, and will give you tons of plants for very little money. There are forums for both.

I'm not sure where you are located, but there is a daylily grower here in OKC and there are a few other places I love to shop for plants, one of them is Farmer's Grain in Edmond. I also shop plenty at Lowes/Home Depot and Walmart. There are many things you can pick up there that are very reasonable, especially when you are first starting out. I find my "obsessions" tend to change a little each year. I've been very interested in hostas, daylilies and roses this year.

Lisa

Here is a link that might be useful: Lisa's Garden (and a few other shots :) )

First thing you need to find out is the sun/shade areas in your new home. Do you want to wait that long? There are some nice things that can be container grown also. Personally, I would wait till I could keep what I bought :)
I used to buy alot of showy annuals, but I realized they are only good for a year...while I wanted more bang for my buck. I started investing in perennials. Daylilies are wonderful. My mother loves iris. Sedums are great, low maintenance, low water. You have to decide what kind of conditions you have and how much care you can/want to do. I personally, prefer sedums and a few daylilies. I won't turn down an iris or two, esp if they are free :) My real weakness is water plants. I have tons. I have a 1000 gallon pond with water lilies and all sorts of other stuff. I have realized exactly how much shade I have this year, since my water lilies didn't bloom last year very much and apparently I am kinda slow to pick up. FULL SUN means at least 6-8 hour constant sun. Somethings need 10. In my yard, my trees are big but they are all on one side. I didn't think it was such a big spread.
There is also a great daylily grower in Ft. Gibson. Let me know if you need details.
Karen

Before you purchase your house be certain that there are not any large softwood fast growing trees that are large and at first glance compelling and inviting. Samething goes for the hardwood but brittle Cottonwood tree. When they were popular to plant lots of people planted cottonless ones and thought they had a good tree. Twenty years later those trees have such heavy branches that their brittle wood just cannot sustain the weight, and often times owners experience the huge heavy branches falling for no apparent reason.

If you fall into that trap of purchasing a house you simply love with one of those huge mature softwood tree growing on the lot; then once you live in the house, it is highly likely a large expense will be incurred if you end up needing to hire someone to remove the trees which are a potential liabilty or a neighor's worry.

Just removing those tree are not the only expense. There will also be the expense to replace them with better trees, but also the sorrow of knowing that for fast growth you might just have to replant the same kind of trees; which will be one of the next owners headaches after the next 20 years or less down the road.

Also, beware of purchasing property where bradford pears are growing. That tree causes people extra expence or labor intensive headaches often times after only 10 years.

So since you are new to gardening and likely not very informed yet about such matters, it would be a good idea to a more informed person's advice before you purchase a used house, or before you plant if you are purchasing a new house with not enough landscaping to already have the basic trees that the location needs growing.

By all means, if it is a new house, do not let the builders landscaper put a tall growing soft wood tree right smack in the middle of your front yard. If he is offering only soft wood fast growing trees that he will plant included in the price of the house, then by all means consider choosing the 20 foot or less growing ornamental trees he is offering, as long as you do not choose a Bradford pear. If you must have a flowering pear, at least try to hold out for a 'Cleveland' or 'Aristocrat' flowering pear.

If your lot is small and you desire to plant some quality oak trees, but think they will get too big, simply choose some of the more narrow growing english oak cultivars.

If you simply must have some fast growing soft wood trees, then at least plant a quality hard wood tree nearby, so that by the time the soft wood tree dies or needs to be taken down, the quality slower growing hardwood tree will at least have a head start on replacing the shade which will be missed once the huge old softwood tree is gone.

I've been an avid gardner for about four years now, ever since my hubby and I bought our first house. The back yard needed tons of work. It was rather overwhelming. Now that the jungle has been tamed and I'm in the creative phase this is the advice I'd give.

First, don't plant a thing - yes, that is what I said. Don't plant anything for at least a year. During that year get to know your garden. What areas get full sun, what areas get mostly shade? What areas get some sun and then later get all shade? While you are discovering these things, make a note of it. The best way I found to do this was to clear out unwanted plants, weeds, saplings, etc.

Secondly, get to know your soil. Is it clay, loam or sandy? Does it drain well? Could alligators mistake it for a Louisiana bayou?

Okay, so now you are studying your back yard - getting vital information as to what it is and what it isn't. Now it's time to start researching some books on Midwest gardening. There are tons out there that can tell you what works well together, what doesn't, and what and will not thrive in your plant zone. My favorite auther is Pam Duthie.

Also, think about seperating your garden out into thier own specific areas. In my backyard I have a full sun/butterfly garden, a part sun garden, a shade garden, a rose and herb garden and a woodland garden. I don't work on these gardens all at once. I'll pick two to concentrate on during the spring and/or fall and then maintain the rest. This cuts out the stress factor.

Does your disability put you in a wheelchair? Consider raised bed gardening where you have easy access to the plants (no bending over). One of my neighbors did this to his garden when he had cancer. His garden is considered one of the prettiest on our block.

Why do I recommend research first? This will actually save you a lot of time and money. Instead of impulse buying plants based on color or foliage, you'll know ahead of time if they will thrive in your garden. You can also plan when certain things will bloom together.

Sound daunting?? It isn't - especially for a workaholic. I should know - I am one too.

H

The time you spend figuring out where your sun/shade patterns are will really save you time and energy in the long run. :)

Karen

Hi Becky,

I understand from your post that you have not purchased a home yet? Are you in an apartment or just another home right now?

Get some containers and plant away! Go to TLC or another nursery and see what they have planted together and then try to replicate what you like. Usually, there is a knowledgable person there who would be glad to help you. Also, on the TLC web-site they have suggestions for container plantings.

Get onto some of the other GW forums. Learn about lasagne gardening (the library has a great book). That will help you with your disablity---it's very easy really. Check out the soil forum and the organic garden forum.

Whatever you do---get some flowers!!!

Robin