Monday, April 8, 2013

How much do you plan?

I've often read that the first thing to do when planting a garden is to plan everything out. Hardscaping, shrubs, trees, plants, and so forth. But despite my tendency to plan out everything within an inch of an Excel spreadsheet in the rest of my life, I just can't seem to make one plan for the garden and stick to it.

It's never really bothered me, and I enjoy coming up with different ideas in my head. My garden evolves as the conditions around me change (the new houses sprouting up around me, for example).

But today, I was expanding the bed in the backyard (two days post-marathon - my quads LOVE me right now!) all in order to create more space for plants that were too crowded last year. And despite drawing a map last year of where I'd put plants, things weren't matching up.

For example, I labeled on my map that this plant is an echinacea, but it doesn't seem like one to me:



And I found a yarrow growing where I hadn't indicated that I'd planted one.

In addition, I've been impulse-buying bulbs like oriental lilies. I can just smell them from this side of spring, but before they can even grow I need to figure out where to put them and right now I have no idea.

How much or how little do you plan your garden? If you make changes, are they major re-workings or minor changes?

4 comments:

  1. You know, that might actually be echinacea. Give it time. Mine sprouted a week or so ago and they looked similar. As for planning, I try but impulse purchases always get me in the end.

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  2. Sarah - You are right. I've been watching it over the last week and can now tell that it's echinacea. I guess my map isn't as far off as I'd thought.

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  3. I'm still in the documenting phase of my garden. I'd love to be the person who knows all of the botanical names and varieties of things, but I'm a long way away from that. My goal is one large map of my yard, and smaller zoomed in maps of the different gardens...but I don't really have any of it done yet. One day :)

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  4. Emily Rose - I bought Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Perennials when I first started and because I read it so much, I quickly learned many of the botanical names. It's a great resource if you're interested. The map sounds fun. The process is also fun!

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