Some thoughts on how to increase your own  enjoyment of your garden

Site your gardens where you can see them from a window in your home. Below are two examples from my house.

  • You won't always be able to get outside to enjoy your garden, so try plant it where you can see the flowers from within your home.

Design your garden to suit yourself.

  • Designing your own garden is fun. Some elementary ‘rules’ are that short plants go in the front, tall plants go in the back, and everything else goes in the middle!  Most garden catalogs recommend that, unless the individual plants grow very large, it looks best to plant groups of at least three of a kind.  I think this is true. But it’s your garden--do what pleases you!

 

Experiment and have fun.

  • Most perennial plants have a shorter blooming season than annuals do, as they need to put some of their energy into preparing for winter.  To have continuous bloom all summer, you might initially want to put some annuals into your garden as well.  Once you get hooked on perennials, though, you’ll find it fun to discover the perennial plants that will give you a succession of different blooms all through the growing season.  You can prepare a “hot” garden of reds and yellows and oranges, or a “cool” garden with blues and whites and pinks.  Or try a “Moon Garden” that consists of green and silvery foliage and white blossoms that shine in the summer moonlight.   Just ENJOY your garden!

 

Increase your knowledge of gardening with perennials.

  • Your local library will have books to help you identify perennials you might wish to plant in your garden; or books to help you fit a garden into your landscape; or specialty books on drought-tolerant perennials or shade gardening, for instance. Magazines like 'Horticulture' are very readable and informative, and advertisements in gardening magazines provide addresses where you can send away for free or inexpensive catalogs. These catalogs are an excellent source of information on individual plants.

 

Share your knowledge and your plants with others.

  •  The nicest people on earth are gardeners! We share our enthusiasm and our plants eagerly, knowing that other avid gardeners will reciprocate in kind, and that every gardening convert is a possible new friend. We look forward to the future--we have faith that the plants we put into the ground will re-appear next spring, and we know a special joy when green shoots poke out of the cold ground in March and April. Our outlook is forever young!