A dilettante's guide to garden planning

Roses are red, violets are blue.  I love gardening, do you?

As much as I love actually gardening, I love garden planning almost as much. It is a gardener's winter therapy.  The new plant and seed catalogs are piling up on my desk, full of picture-perfect flowers and bright promises of warmer months ahead.  (Okay, so it's really just daydreaming and doodling, but it's with a purpose.)

I especially love planning when I have a blank slate to work with, like I do now.  First up on my to-do list is to create a potager-style vegetable garden with raised beds.

And my heart's desire:  a long sweeping border full of flowers for cutting.

It would be easy to dive into a planting frenzy - so many plants provide gorgeous bouquets.

But instead of buying and planting willy-nilly, I have a method for designing these beds that will look thoughtfully landscaped, but not formal or boring, offering an evolving sequence of blooms from spring to fall.    It's cottage gardening with some self-control.  If you follow this method, you'll never wind up with a tall plant squatting in front of a delicate, diminutive one, or loud heavy orange blooms squeezing up against a froth of lacy pale pink petals.  Unless you want to, of course.

Step 1:  Determine the size of your bed (it can have curves, but this scheme works best with oblong or rectangle beds. Planting schemes can be adapted for island beds in round, kidney or square shapes - we'll talk about those in a future post.)

Step 2: Plot the bed on a rough grid of 12-inch or 18-inch squares (curves and bends are easily accommodated:  you can drop a plant out, squish it in closer, or ease it to the left or right instead of being perfectly gridlocked.)  Big grids or little grids?  Personally, I plan - and plant - on a 12-15 inch grid for a fuller look.  But I have been known to regret it when a plant sprawls larger than I anticipated. Huge plants and shrubs can be given a double or quadruple spot on the grid.

The top/back row is plotted (left-right): Tall/Early, Tall/Mid, Tall/Late, Tall/Early, Tall/Mid, Tall/Late...repeating as many times as needed.

The middle row is plotted as Medium/Late, Medium/Early, Medium/Mid, Medium/Late, Medium/Early, Medium/Mid....

And the front/bottom row is plotted as Short/Mid, Short/Late, Short/Early, Short/Mid, Short/Late, Short/Early...

Step 3: Choose your plants.  Depending on the size of your space and your sensibilities, you can choose one, two or three different plants for each height and bloom season.  (Fewer choices will give you more repetition and a more formal, polished look. Choosing more varieties will give you a fuller, freer look. However, if you go with more than three different plants for each height and bloom period, try to make sure each plant is included at least 3 times and choose plants that are similar in color and/or texture to provide visual continuity.)

Below is what my planting scheme looks like for each season (each block of color represents a specific plant's bloom color; the green blocks are the foliage on adjacent plants when they are not in bloom at that time.) Each of these plans represents an area 3 feet by 12 feet - I'll just keep repeating it down the fence row, stretching approximately 16 feet on each side of a wide gate.  I'm using two plants per height and bloom season; 18 different plants will be repeated every 6 feet.

See how the flower colors start demure and pastel in spring and become more vibrant in summer and blazing hot colors in the fall?  It's almost impossible to find screaming orange blooms in early spring (except tulips), or muted pastels in the fall, and I think it's easier and more natural looking for your colors to to work with Mother Nature than trying to fight her.

E=early/spring flowers

M=mid/summer flowers

L=late/fall flowers

By staggering your plants by their peak bloom times, you don't wind up with a bunch of competing (or clashing) blooms lined up in front of one another.  Instead, each season builds to a peak, then  gradually gives way to the next. By designating each plant as tall (I classify anything over 4 feet as tall), medium (2-3 feet) and short (under 2 feet), you ensure that the tall ones are always in the back.

What about the advice of planting your perennials in groups of 3s or 5s and creating big swaths of color for impact?  The ugly truth is those swaths tend to turn into huge voids when the bloom season ends. By repeating the plants every second or third spot, you get rhythm and continuity without "busy-ness"  and the entire bed looks fresh and full of blooms from spring to frost.

If you like this idea, you're welcome to borrow it and apply  your plants to it; please send pictures and bragging tales of your success stories!

If you are interested in having a planting scheme and nursery shopping list created for you, please contact me.  I create custom plans based on your climate, sun and shade environment as well as your personal plant preferences, for a small fee. The plans include a planting chart and specific plant recommendations, plus mail order sources for varieties that may not be available in your area.

It's way too soon to get planting, but now is the time to get planning, especially if you are ordering any plants for spring delivery.

Happy gardening,
.

When opportunity knocks, watch out for wet paint

The front door of our new home sported this brick red, which I-M-(not-so-)-Humble-O was vaguely reminiscent of Texas Aggie orange.  That *might* have been okay, but it also suffered from the fate which plagues most metal-and-glass doors:  the caulk and adhesive under the oval molding had slipped and oozed a bit, leaving a cracked and dingy gray ring around the oval leaded glass.  And the paint was scratched and nicked in a few places.

Here it is, with a fall wreath, which managed to work its way off-center as though it were wishing it could quietly slip away and disassociate itself from the situation.

The door was beginning to show its age.

This painting project has been on my hit list of to-do's for a while; in fact, my paintbrush-holding hand has been itchy to pull the trigger since I first approached the door back in late November of last year.   It just cried out for a fresh coat of paint.

But first I had to wait until the house was ours.  (For whatever reason, society and our legal system frown upon attempts to improve property that doesn't belong to you.)

Then I had to find a day when it wasn't blistering hot, because painting the front door involves leaving the door open for a while and the thermostat is in the foyer.  That would have meant sweating out everyone to turn off the air conditioning for a couple hours, or be a wanton spendthrift and leave the door open and a/c units running non-stop. Neither of those sounded like attractive options.

Plus, I wanted to make sure Luci-the-cat wasn't in "escape mode."  (She goes through spells, which probably correlate to the moon phases, where she will persist in attempting to flit through any open door.  Once she's out, she either freezes like a deer in headlights, or goes a little spazzy - either way, we can usually catch her and bring her back inside. But that won't necessarily stop her from making another break the next day, and the next...until her mood changes back to being content with the life of a fat and lazy housecat.)

Finally I had a few weekend hours to spare after fall break, when the weather was mellow and so was Luci. (Random thought:  can a door project have a "WINDOW of opportunity?" Hmmmm.)  Anyway, I had a guy in the paint area of Home Depot brew up a quart of French Roast.  Really - that's what the color is called.    With a little prepping and cleaning, the door went from that to this in about two hours on a mild Sunday afternoon:

Do you see a door hanger?  Nope, me either.

I also managed to ditch the door hanger, trading it in for a super-simple combination of a small angle bracket and some fishing line. 

Basically this plus this:

Looks like this on the inside:

and this to the rest of the world:

I'm using 20-pound test line, but I will probably ramp it up a bit when I hang the next wreath, especially if the next wreath is heavier than this one.

Happy painting!

A large loose end was lassoed last weekend

Try saying THAT three times fast.  (And I don't mean "that, that, that.")

Last weekend was a long one, so we used it to stain our new picket fence. Whew.  Before we began this project, I estimated it would take a five-gallon bucket of clear sealer and two gallons of stain (I always cut the stain with clear sealer because I think it's too opaque otherwise) to do the deck AND the fence.

This is why I should not go into the painting business, or become an estimator.  

Sing with me: "16 gallons of stain and sealer on the fence, 16 gallons of stain and sealer..."

All-told, it took twice what I originally bought, plus two more gallons of sealer.   That's my tower of empties to prove it and I could really use another quart for touch-ups.

R.I.P, old sprayer!

This project also took two paint sprayers.  The trusty old sprayer (on top) was purchased when we painted the outside of our first house way back in 1987.

In the 24 years since, it has painted a lot of walls and siding and ceilings and trim in several homes, so we weren't too surprised when it conked out halfway through this job.

The new replacement sprayer (in the box on the bottom) looks and sounds almost identical to the old one, but Mr. Official said it worked better.  He would know, since he was the man holding it all weekend.  Hopefully, normal sensation will return to his right hand and fingers in the next few days. 

The final casualty of our  weekend project was this 3-inch brush brandished by yours truly.  This brush was in pretty good shape until I used it to stain between the deck planks.  It went downhill from there.  By the time I had slathered on the last bit of stain, I felt like this poor brush looked: frayed, frazzled and permanently stained redwood color, although I'm sure the spots on my toes and hands will come off sooner or later.  

And now we can put this to-do in the ta-done category, at least for another year or two - hooray!  (Note to self:  when it comes time to stain again, we should definitely aim to tackle it in April or May, or September or October. Definitely not in June, July or August.) Here are the results:  front and side yard views.  I already showed off the deck a couple of weeks ago.

At least the other loose ends are indoor or shady spot projects.

Happy lasso-ing your loose ends!

8 weekends + 2 hands = 6 projects

Granted, the math doesn't work, but let's hope my plans do.

As of today, there are eight precious weekends before Labor Day weekend. (And I am determined that Labor Day weekend is not going to be a weekend of labor for us this year.)

So what loose ends do I really really want to wrap up by the time the Vols kick off their opening game in 50 days?

• Finish refinishing a bedroom dresser. After languishing for a year, this has drifted to the top of my priority list only because I am tired of feeling guilty every time I pass it in the garage.

• Put the finishing touches on our new master bathroom: paint walls, hang a shelf, re-do the cabinet storage and hang a chandelier. Easy peasy, right?  Don't answer that.

• Recover the dining room seat cushions. By hook or by crook, they're gonna get done this summer. I have the new foam cushions, I just need fabric and some quality time with the staple gun.

• Power wash and paint the porch rails and front door. This is one of those jobs I really have to psych myself up for. But the good thing is, the porch stays shady all day long.

• Find the perfect couch for Mr. Official's man cave.  It will make it the bees' knees up there.  And once it's installed upstairs, the final loose end for the summer is....

• Paint the stairwell areas and hang pictures. I promised myself these areas should wait until we were moved in. Well, we're moved in and the days are slipping past.

So there you have it:  my top weekend projects to finish before September 2, not counting the garage cleanout at the old place.  Most of these will take about a weekend to do, if I use my time wisely (and maybe get a little help. Hint, hint.)

I just noticed that everything except #3 and #5 involves paint or stain. Guess I better stock up on brushes and rollers and paint thinner.  Joy.

But I'm not going to think about any of these until we wrap up the next housewarming party, which happens tomorrow night.  It's gonna be great to see some old friends of ours and get acquainted with some other Friday night football widows as the men in striped shirts swap gridiron war stories.

Happy project-ing!

Birthday Week: A Hat Trick

In our family, this week is all about the birthdays.  Younger son was born on July 13, older one on July 17.  In between is Memaw's birthday on the 16th.

That means a week of favorite (fattening) foods, topped off with lots of cake and ice cream.  Guess I should have gotten in a long run this morning...I'm going to need to run every chance I get to burn off all the extra calories these special meals tend to have.

On Saturday, I power washed and scrubbed the deck and got it ready for a fresh coat of stain and water seal.  July is usually a nice dry month, so it seemed a prudent time to plan this project, which requires a few days without rain.  I psyched myself for the early morning start required for this project (I have learned the hard way that I need to get the deck surface finished before the sun gets too high overhead, or the stain will dry too fast and turn out splotchy.)  My forearms and wrists are ready to hand brush the hundreds of balusters and in between each deck board.  Yes, indeed - I am ready, willing and able to tackle this project.

But as nature would have it, we listened to a nice soaking thunderstorm pour down last night, and this week's forecast has rain and more rain on the horizon.  So the deck is washed and ready and I'm ready to get 'er done.  But the table, chairs, fireplace, grill and planters will all have to sit (set?) on the ground a little longer than expected.  Ah well...I and the stain and sealer, roller and brushes are all standing at the ready.  And I'm not going to grumble about the delay; I still remember the drought from a few years' back, and my promise then was to never ever complain about the timing of any rain we get.  All rain is good rain.

While I'm waiting, I can always take the spray paint to the metal items that have chipped and flaked over the past couple years.  And I don't have to worry about watering the plants for a few days (a good thing after paying last month's water bill!)

But we won't be enjoying any birthday dinners al fresco this week...arranging the table and chairs on the lawn would mean everyone's ankles would be covered in chigger bites - that's worse than a birthday paddling!