Every gardener is worth half their salt should have an eye on the future. Gardening is after all closely related to how fast and to what form the plants will grow, in addition to the changing seasons, and what looks good when.
Some questions that are often forgotten but need to be asked before choosing plants:
How fast do I really want this plant to grow? Here’s what is interesting, we often choose plants because they are a decent size and have the ability to provide faster growth and faster sieving, but the fourth or fifth year we might fight a constant battle of pruning and shaping to keep the plant steady under control. Size is not everything or it gets bigger fast!
It may look good now, but what will it look like in a month’s time? This question really needs to be asked over and over again when you’re at a park center and looking at that impulse purchase. Many summer flowering shrubs will provide a splash of summer color for a few weeks and then spend the rest of the year looking rather dull. This is less of a problem in larger gardens where such plants can be kept behind beds but in smaller gardens you need to go for plants that have attractive foliage and good shape so you can be happy with them all year round: think of flowers as an added bonus!
What kind of look am I really looking for? This involves a level of design knowledge and maybe even some reading – and you can browse our book list for some good books. It’s all about putting together the right plant arrangement that will look good together – grouping plants by color and by periods of interest for example, as opposed to throwing a mix of different plants.
Am I realistic about my abilities?
Week of supplement gardening is a common gardening mistake. You may look at pictures of beautiful scenes in magazines and try and emulate them, but do you really know what you are doing? Do you know how often these plants will need pruning and adjustments? Often not. The best starts with a simple planting plan and plants that are known to be easy going and then
How much time do I want to spend in the garden? Certain plants lend themselves well to chair gardening, and some almost seem to do your gardening for you! Many low-growing and spreading shrubs and ground cover crops, especially green, will promote cannabis growth because they rarely need pruning because they grow low to the ground. Slower growing shrubs like Lilacs are also good alternatives to hedging because they rarely need shaping or pruning and put on a show of deep blooming and year out.
What about park security? Many plants can offer the ideal opportunity to poison young children and that’s not a good thing. Younger children will often glow for berries and berries so always check they are not poisonous far in advance.
Thorns can be a bad thing. A spine-laden fence will keep out intruders but thorny plants next to the road or near where children play can be a bad idea. Also thorny plants are often unpleasant to work with, and lots of taller grasses like Miscanthus or Cortaderia can provide nasty bits of paper.
Toxic sap has always been a problem with plants like euphorbia or Pulsatilla, being a no-no for gardeners with sensitive skin.
Looks Good in Your Neighborhood
Ideally the gardener is to be out and about stalking plants that look good to source and plant now and by identifying plants that look good in your local garden you can be pretty sure that the plants you buy will thrive in your garden.
Always remember to take your garden’s microclimate into account in terms of factors such as extreme sun exposure or cold winds, dense shade or poor soil, such as choosing plants that thrive in a garden environment like yourself the chances are they will do well in your garden too. . It really is that simple.
When choosing plants, it is also worth remembering that most perennials really don’t start to shine for a good two or three years. By finding plants you like that look great in their adult state, you are giving yourself more control over how your garden will develop over time. This is far and away the better method for selecting plants than hanyes appear in the center of the garden and line up between row upon row of flowering canes, each of which comes with a practically useless label that will tell you that the plant you are buying will be a large shrub that loves most soil types.
