Hello! I am thrilled to have found this site! My hubby is building an all-brick flowerbed along the front and side of our house. We MUST do all of the landscape work ourselves, as money is extremely tight. How do you decide what to plant? How do you know how to design your beds? I want easy, low-maintenance. Preferably colorful, but I'll settle for mostly green if I have to. DOn't care what color, but I like purple and white.
"How do you decide what to plant?" Either you shop, or you read. Or both. But either way, there is no alternative to going up the learning curve about plants. The library is probably the most affordable place to do the reading. There are many many books on plants and on landscape design. I'd suggest that you look for maybe a "beginner's guide to gardening" sort of book for starters, and maybe a landscape design book to get some idea of what 'look' appeals to you. Then a fairly basic plant encyclopedia. Then you are equipped to head for the garden centre and look at their plants. They will carry plants that are suitable for your area. Read plant tags on plants that you like, or ask about them. The tags or the staff will tell you whether the plants want the kind of conditions your new flowerbeds offer - sun vs. shade, dry vs. wet, and so on, and what size the plants will eventually get to. When you figure you've picked enough plants to fill your beds, you arrange them in a way that is pleasing to you. If you are like most gardeners, this could take a good few years... :-)
Hello, Your new flower bed adventure sounds really exciting! I always love adding new areas of interest to my garden. It's really important to have a good plan when starting any gardening project. This can save you alot of time, money and heartache. Whatever you do, be sure that you create a good plan before starting your project. Your plan should include taking into consideration your planting zone, type of soil, available light during different times of year, amount of time that you plan to invest for upkeep, etc. I have some great information on my website that might be helpful to you for planning your new garden. Best of luck to you and happy planting!
Hi Bigtime Rookie, Great advice from Karin, much of what I would have said too. It sounds like your raised beds will be foundation beds. If so, there are sites about foundation design that might be helpful. You will need to know some things before you begin to select plants and take other aspects into consideration. With some of this information I can lead you in the right direction. This site is about the fundamentals of foundation plantings. http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/g00003.asp You will need to know your plant hardiness zone. I suspect it's zone 7. Here's a zip code zone finder. http://www.gardenweb.com/zones/zip.cgi The type of sun you get will determine what plants survive. Full sun is 6 hours or more, part sun is 4 to 6 hours, part shade is is 2 to 4 hours of sun and shade is 2 hours or less of sun. You say you like purple and white. It's often best to use at least 3 colors. Consider purple, white and yellow. You can get some soft yellow colors in flowers or bright in-your-face yellow that makes you smile. There are many plants with variegated leaves with either yellow or white. Green is a color too. There are many shades of green from the very dark to the now popular lime green leaves. Some leaves have color too. Consider the background for the plants. What color is your house? What color is the trim and the front door? Do you want a formal or informal look? Is your house formal or informal? A raised bed that is angular will tend to look more formal, but can be softened with plants that cascade over the edges. What is the width of the bed from the outer edge to the house? Is it wide enough so you can have layers of plant material with small flowering plants or bulbs in front of shrubs? How tall can shrubs grow at their mature height so you don't have to be pruning them to make them fit? For foundation plantings evergreen shrubs and plants often look best. Accents can be added with herbaceous plants that go dormant in winter. For low maintenance the more planning you do as to mature plant size and a design you will like to live with for a while will make it easier. Purchase shrubs in smaller containers such as a one or three gallon. Check to see that they aren't rootbound. They will reach the same size in 2 or 3 years that the larger containers will. Young plants that aren't rootbound adjust better. If you need to fill your planter with soil I recommend a mix of 60% SCREENED topsoil and 40% compost. You can purchase in bulk, have it delivered and save money. Here's a compost and mulch calculator. http://www.cedar-grove.com/calculator.asp http://www.atstecks.com/mulch.htm Let me know the answers to my questions and I can make some suggestions based on sun, dimensions of beds, mature height of shrubs and the look you like. Newt
As cut & dry as it might seem, one aspect is to to a reality check. You know how much money you have, and how much you don't. One aspect of reality - a big one - is to realize that what we often see in garden books and magazines, may be beyond our budget, but possibly beyond our ability. Many readers of magazines have no idea how many plants it takes to fill the tapestries they see in some photos. Nor do they realize how labor intensive some of the gardens are. Sometimes money is the obstacle, sometimes space, and sometimes it's time or physical ability. I like to start with a list of plants and color that I like, and see where they can fit, or if they can fit. Fewer of the most expensive, and then a few more of the lesser expense plants. Burgundy and blues go well with brick. Red foliage is not used enough, in my opinion.
For both good info and budget control, check out local garden clubs & horticultural societies. They are full of experienced gardeners and often host a plant sale or swap where you can get cheap or free plants. Plus, since these plants come as extras from local gardeners, you know they're plants that do well in your area. Good luck.
Two important questions are 1) how much time do you want to spend gardening? Most people do garden designs that are much higher maintenance than they anticipated. Second is to make sure that the right plant goes in the right place. There is actually a book by that name that is very useful. If you have just recently purchased your home, I suggest that you wait a year before doing any large scale designs/redesigns. You get a good idea of what the different seasons are like for your site. Is that site windy, wet, hot and dry etc. Knowing how that site changes through the seasons is very useful. Some sites are very hot and dry in the summer and can become quite waterlogged through the winter. Difficult for most, but not all, plants. Know the intricacies of your site ahead of time will save you losing plants or having to dig them up if they are suffering. Also I can't emphasize enough having a master plan. Most people want to install their plants all at once, but few of us have the funds to do so. Having a master plan that you can refer to over the years is essential. Saves having a garden that looks like a dogs breakfast after a few years, from those who get carried away at the garden centre. You can slowly implement the plan over a few years as your budget allows.
The other key factor here is: do you have friends who garden? Or relatives, or even casual acquaintances with whom you get on well? Gardeners, as a rule, love to meet other gardeners (rather like sociable drinkers who always like to find a new drinking companion), and they can be wonderfully generous with both local knowledge -- very often more useful than the book-learned kind -- and also with free plants. Many classic garden plants are quite vigorous and can stand (or even require) frequent division into smaller plants. People with old, established gardens are usually delighted to find somebody with whom to share the bounty. Another thing to do -- and also free -- is just to notice what's growing all around you, in your neighborhood or your town. So often we don't really see things until we are looking for them. Suddenly, there they are. This coming winter will be an especially good time to notice how other people have planted their property, because you won't be distracted by showy displays of (fleeting) blooms, but can focus instead on the fundamental plants -- trees, shrubs, groundcovers and the like -- that make up the year-round "bones" of the garden. Even deciduous plants, or perennials with persistent stalks and seed heads, can be important elements in the winter garden scene. Finally, take all advice for what it is: one person's considered opinion. I, for example, have never done well with the "master plan" approach. My brain just doesn't seem to function that way, at least when it comes to matters of space or design. I have trouble visualizing *anything* until I actually see it before me. But I have no qualms about digging things up and moving them around, trying out new combinations and placements, and generally tweaking and nudging and trimming and plumping-up my plantings until they look quite nice to me.
