Do you plan your garden?
This past weekend we finally got round to deciding what seeds we want to order for the garden this year. It's the usual mix of tomatoes, peas, carrots, beans, etc., for the vegetable garden. But then the fun part is picking flowers for the year.
My mum likes to have a general colour palette every year and work around that. There always ends up being other colours mixed in because, well, sometimes we can't resist things at the greenhouses when we go to buy bedding plants. This year we've gone with an orange, yellow, and pink palette.
We've also decided, because of the dogs, that we won't be planting any annuals in the flower beds in the backyard. We'll stick to planting our annuals in pots so hopefully the dogs don't destroy them. We're going to do Gladiolus and Marigolds in the front flower bed, the ones the dogs don't have access too. I'm excited, I think they'll look lovely together.
I don't know what the overall palette was for the yard last year, but I stuck with dark purple, as close to black as I could, for my few pots. I had some nearly black petunias, a few really dark sweet potato vines (really didn't love them), and purple shamrock. I also had a lovely ponytail grass (not black), which is still in its pot in the yard, adding a lovely bit of texture to an otherwise boring white frozen landscape, in spite of being dead.
I think this year I'm going to focus two pots on the ponytail grass, two pots on the purple shamrock and possibly two pots of the black petunias (or maybe petunias and grass together?!). We'll see what I fall in love with (ahem, everything) when it comes time to go shopping at the greenhouses (I can't wait!).
Do you plan your garden around a theme, or an idea, or a colour palette, or architectural style? Or do you just go with whatever strikes your fancy? I love the idea of themed gardens, like they do at flower shows in the UK or the PNW Flower show in Seattle, but I don't think I could commit to a strict planting theme in my own garden.
I can't wait for our seed order to show up, I'm going to have so many growth progress photos too share!
Speaking of progress, I think now that it is February I shall start a garden progress photo, then I can make a time-lapse again at the end of the growing season to show the development of our garden over the season.
Is anyone else as excited to get started on this year's gardening as I am? I'm seething with envy of all the photos I see of green coming from gardeners in other parts of the world. I'll not be sad to see the snow gone, whenever it happens.
Pansies, 16 days since we planted them.
Pampas Grass, 16 days since we planted them.