A Foolproof Flower Garden By Fran Sorin

Don't settle for potted pansies. With a little effort and patience, you can create your own backyard paradise.Maybe you've just moved from an apartment to your first house. Between family, work, carpooling and everything else -- has it been 12 trips to the Home Depot? -- your first garden awaits your imprint. Planting flowers is a great way to exercise your creativity, but it can seem daunting to the beginner. Don't despair: The investment of time and energy will repay you in spades. After more than 20 years of designing gardens, here's my insider's guide to getting started.
1. Know your property's relationship to the sun. If you have a true southern exposure, you'll get direct sun most of the afternoon. A northern exposure will give you mainly shade; eastern exposure, morning sun and afternoon shade; western exposure, pretty much late-afternoon sun, with shade the rest of the day.
2. Make sure the type of garden you want can be done with the amount of sun you get. For example, although most herb and cutting gardens need direct sunlight (six hours of sun a day), woodland gardens thrive in shade. If you have a shady lot and you want a cutting garden just like the one you saw in a magazine, forget it. Instead, try to re-interpret it by using shade perennials, bulbs and shrubs.
3. Choose a site for your flower bed that can be viewed from inside your house. If possible, take advantage of garden views from outdoor terraces or patios, too.
4. Let your garden reflect your personal style, just as your indoor space does. If you tend toward the traditional indoors, think in terms of a traditional garden with a formal, symmetrical outline, perhaps with pedestals of evergreens to add to the mood. If you lean toward a more rustic style, your outdoor space should reflect that informal feel: Let an abundance of flowers brim over the edges of the garden, and use some flea market finds as containers.
5. When you're ready to experiment with the placement of the flower bed, lay out a hose to outline its shape and size. (Or use spray landscape paint from a paint store.) Leave the hose in one position for a few days before deciding whether that configuration works. Geometric shapes generally indicate a formal design; irregular or island beds are more informal.
6. When the soil has warmed up and is not too soggy, you can dig the bed. First, remove the grass -- roots and all -- with a spade, or use an herbicide (like Round-Up) or an organic grass killer. Then rototill the area or turn it over with a fork. At least 12 inches of good organic matter should be laid on top of the existing soil. Once you've raked the organic matter evenly across the bed, edge the perimeter with a sharp spade to give it a professional, crisp finish.
7. The most effective gardens are simple ones that follow the adage "Less is more." Select plants of various shapes and textures that bloom at different times of the gardening season and that resist disease and drought. Limit your palette to two or three colors. I like to work with combinations of three plants to create a vignette.
8. Plant a lot of each specimen. The repetition of specimens and colors soothes the eye and paves the way for a more glorious design. I plant a minimum of seven of each specimen in a small garden bed, and up to 20-something of each in an expansive area.
9. Plant in a flowing or wavelike pattern. Play around with the plants while they are still in their pots, positioning them around your garden bed to see how they look before you actually plant them. Some of my greatest moments of inspiration occur when I make last-minute changes.
10. Spread mulch as soon as possible after planting (no more than 2 inches thick). Do it carefully, to avoid damaging the plants.
11. Until the plants are settled in (about two weeks), I water every third day early in the morning, 30 to 45 minutes at a time, with a soaker hose or a rotating sprinkler.
12. Over the remainder of the spring (in cool regions, into the early summer), fill in bare areas with exuberant summer bulbs or tubers such as dahlias, cannas, elephant ears, oxalis and colocasias, and annual plants or seeds that can be scratched right into your garden soil.
13. To give the plants extra "oomph," spray them with an organic fertilizer, such as fish fertilizer, once every four weeks, preferably first thing in the morning when it's cool -- never when the temperature is above 80 degrees.
14. Be patient. Plants won't fully mature for a good two to three years. Enjoy the process and keep notes on the plant combinations that give you great pleasure. I think you will be surprised how often you use them as you continue to create new gardens.
Three of my favorite plant trios-- Perovskia atriplicifolia (Russian sage), Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus' (coneflower), Liatris spicata-- Salvia greggii 'Maraschino,' Alchemilla mollis (lady's mantle), Dahlia 'Bishop of Llandaff'-- Phlox divaricata 'Chattahoochee,' Tiarella cordifolia (foamflower), Dryopteris marginalis (leatherwood fern)


"Fran Sorin is a great source of gardening information and inspiration. Check out her site, you'll enjoy it. www.fransorin.com Order her latest book Digging Deep http://fransorin.com/book/, it's a must have for any gardener of any level. I love it. "
Yvonne Grenier GM Landscape Vision.

Spring! Get Ready.

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Early spring garden guide: Around the yard By Yvonne Cunnington

Early spring garden guide: Around the yard

Crocuses blooming in snowPhoto: Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center
Start winter cleanup of the lawn when the grass is no longer sopping wet and planting beds stop being a sea of mud. Rake your lawn to get rid of dead growth, stray leaves, twigs and winter debris and let light and air to the soil level, encouraging the grass to grow.
Re-seed bare or damaged patches of lawn. Scratch up the soil with a rake first. Mix a shovel of soil with a couple of scoops of grass seed and spread in the patch you're fixing. Rake level and keep well-watered until seeds germinate and the new grass establishes.
Remove tree guards or burlap winter protection from any young trees or shrubs. Try not to leave tree guards in place over the summer. They keep rabbits and mice from nibbling on tender bark over the winter, but trees don't need them in summer. They don't allow enough air movement around the base of the trunk and that can promote rot of the bark.

Transplant any existing shrubs you want to move before they begin to leaf out.
Apply dormant oil spray to fruit trees, magnolias, crabapples and shrubs such as euonymus to control scale insects and other overwintering pests. Use this organic pest control method when the buds are swelling but the leaves haven't opened yet. Apply when temperatures are between 40 and 70 degrees F (4-21 degrees C).
Get your lawn mower checked and blades sharpened if you didn't get the job done in late winter. Sharp blades cut better and leave your lawn grass healthier.
http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com

Steps to planting perennials step-by-step

The best time to plant annuals and perennials isn't a hot, sunny day but a cooler, cloudier one — such conditions are less stressful for the plants, and the gardener.
Give the planting area a good watering, preferably the day before so you don't work in muck, or plant after rain has moistened soil.
If perennials are dry in their pots, water them first to get them moist.
How to plant:
Dig a hole that's wider but not deeper than the container. Never shoehorn a plant into a hole that's too small.
When planting perennials, work with one plant at a time, so that tender root hairs aren't exposed to drying air longer than necessary. Tap sides of container or squeeze pot to loosen plant, and turn upside down so plant slides out into your hand. Handle plants by their root mass, not stems; stems can easily be damaged.
Inspect roots; if circling, gently tease apart or they will continue to make circling growth. If roots are difficult to loosen by hand, make four shallow cuts into root mass near the bottom with a sharp knife. This promotes growth into surrounding soil.
If you see lots of potting mixture but few roots, work off some potting soil with your fingers to ensure plant roots will make physical contact with garden soil. Potting mix dries quicker than surrounding soil, making new plants susceptible to drying out.
Set plant into hole; place exactly as deep as it was in container. Cover roots with loose soil, water lightly; add remaining soil and pack gently but firmly; never stomp on delicate roots. Water well.
Do not apply water-soluble fertilizer when planting perennials, but wait about a week or so to allow roots to grow a bit. Organic fertilizers are the best choice because they support both root development and the soil-borne organisms that are beneficial to healthy root growth.
Keep new perennials moist for a couple of months, but don't kill with kindness: let top 2 or 3 inches (5 to 7 cm) of soil get a bit dry-looking between waterings. By Yvonne Cunnington

Landscaping: How Low Can You Go?

EVEN THOSE WHO love to garden often find that maintaining a landscape can be overwhelming. Mowing, weeding, watering, and pruning often seem like endless chores, especially in spring and early summer when trees, shrubs, grass, and weeds are all actively growing. If you are designing a new landscape or reworking an old one, using low-maintenance techniques can reduce much of your yard work.
Choosing the right plants is key to cutting maintenance. A shrub that grows to six feet tall will require regular pruning if planted under a window that is three feet above the ground. There are many dwarf varieties of trees and shrubs that are ideal for small areas and may never need pruning. Native plants are always a good choice for the landscape because they adapt to surroundings more easily than exotic species. Grouping plants that have the same cultural needs will save time when watering and fertilizing. Keep the planting beds narrow for easy access to interior plants; design them with long, sweeping curves so that the mower can reach the edge, eliminating hand trimming.
The importance of mulch in a low-maintenance landscape can not be overemphasized. A thick layer of organic mulch around plants will help to control weeds, conserve soil moisture, and add nutrients to the soil. Popular organic mulches are tree bark, shredded leaves, pine needles, and plant wastes such as cocoa shells. If weeds are a serious problem, lay down several layers of newspaper before mulching.
Traditional lawns are labor intensive—keep them as small as possible. Some lawn alternatives are large areas of ground covers or wildflowers, mulched beds, and decks and patios. Proper and timely lawn care will save you work because a healthy lawn is less likely to be bothered by weeds, insects, and diseases. Keep the grass tall; let it grow to three or four inches and then mow off one-third. High grass shades out weeds and won't dry out as quickly as closely cropped turf. Water infrequently but deeply to encourage deep rooting.
We hope that these ideas will help make it easier for you to maintain your landscape—as well as your sanity.
– –George and Becky Lohmiller

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