HOW DO YOU CHOOSE?

As i've matured as a gardener i've gone from impulsively and randomly planting to having ideas come to me and going with 'them'.

I'll be sitting out in the garden and get ideas ...... from there, one leads to another and i just go with it !

I liked the idea of waves of colour when i moved here so that's what i created !!!
I now have 3 in the front garden ........ a pink wave, a purple one and a yellow and white one, i planted things that have that colour foliage or flower.

I definately get ideas as i relax or when i look in magazines etc and i follow them through ..... until i have what i saw in my minds eye - right there in my own garden !

Louise that's just what I intended to do too but I am so weak willed I veer off onto something else. I am trying this time though and when the new stuff is all in flower next year I will get an idea of what is right and what is wrong and perhaps do a bit of colour co-ordinating from there. We shall have to wait and see!

I too have matured as a gardener but unlike Louise it hasn't made me any more disciplined, just more knowledgeable! I also make far too many impulse buys but I take more care now to plant them in suitable places. If there are none then I keep the plant in a succession of pots until a space arises. I never mind casualties among my plants as I see it as an opportunity to grow something else. Until 10 years ago I had a very large garden but have only just about managed to achieve 'small garden mentality' ! :o((

Lily I totally know where you are coming from. At least I know of 1 kindred spirit now. Is your garden fully matured or do you still want to change things around now and then?

Well I think you know the answer to that Bellflower! I had the garden completely made over to my design and planting when we moved in but there are very few of those plants still in it now. I'm always taking things out because they've got too big, but that's OK. Not much scope for any more major changes though.

Me too, once I've filled my small plot there won't be much room for manoeuvre, although things can always be moved about or turfed out, and they probably will be lol!

Hi Bellflower
As a painter I treat my garden as a canvas. I have to redesign it each month as some flowers die back and others come forwards. I take areas and look at the colours, contrasts, shapes of leaves, height etc. I still buy plants I can't fit in the main flower-bed, but I put them in pots until a home is found. I have to say I have a lot of plants in pots!!! I can move them around and they look great on my patio. I was told today my patio is a jungle. I take that as a compliment
Best wishes
Linda .

Hi Linda, what a great idea to save them until you can add them in at a later time. Gosh I'm gonna need a bank loan now lol!

I do not have a colour scheme in my garden...I see a plant I buy it, when I am ready to plant it I decide then where to plant it...I never buy plants to go with another plant, I buy because I like them, therefore to me my garden is more like a cottage garden than a formal garden. They just accommodate each other, no matter what colour shape or size, I of course put the taller plants in the back and work down but one thing I make sure I do... is to buy plants that are suitable for my soil as I do not like losing any due to wrong soil condition.

Thanks Michaella for your comments, I can relate to all you said, except I am not so good at sticking to the right plants for the right soil. I will always give them a try unless of course they need boggy conditions or something like that. I think it's good we all have our own reasons for buying and each one of us has similar ideas with someone else. That's what makes gardening such fun!

lovely blog Bellflower.
How do I do it well it really depends.
some plants are chosen due to childhood memories, snapdragons. Others in rememberance of loved ones. New Dawn rose as it came from mum's garden, lupins coz dad wouldnt let her have them and we all grew them when he died as an 'in joke' seems odd but raised so many smiles in the family at the funeral.
then chosing plants coz they will go in the shade area ie right plant for the place.
then the impulse buy......many more now since seeing all the lovely plants grown by other GoYers.

Many sit in their pots on the back path until I can find a home for them.

Hello SB, great reply thank you. All perfect reasons to choose the plants, and glad to see you too like Linda save them in pots until a later time. I am definitely adopting that idea. So this blog has given me plenty of food for thought and hopefully will help to make me a better gardener in the end.

I do plan - I planned two beds from scratch, and stuck to the plans, but I still do impulse buying...it's called being a Plantaholic, and that's me! I confess. That's when my famous shoehorn gets used. LOL.

The plants do have to fit in with colour schemes, though....I have been known to resist a plant that was totally the wrong colour. ;-)

Hello Bellflower. We have lived in this house for 37 years. The garden looked fine when we moved in but as the years went by we had to adapt to changing circumstances around us. Too long a story for this blog. When I eventually started laying out the garden I was a total amateur. Planting hyacinth bulbs was about my total skill before then. I decided, having read a lot, that I wanted something which would always look good. In went the skeleton of evergreen shrubs. We already had some trees. Because all the shrubs were very small I filled the space between with perennials and annuals. I also was careful to choose the plants for texture, flowers and scent. I did not like roses at the time so they were banned, except in the rose garden planted by the former owners. Deciduous shrubs followed and again I wanted something special from each. Bulbs and corms were inevitable and then one day it looked really good. My eye started to wander and I just could not refuse to allow myself to buy a must have plant. I never turf anything out. I donate what I do not want and I accept things other people have got fed up with and are planning to discard. Its fatal really because I too ended up with lots of pots. I must admit one lot of pots I would not be without are my daffodils in pots. I put them around the garden wherever there is a dull place and it gives instant pleasure. In the summer they are tucked away out of sight and harms way behind the shrubs. At the beginning every plant was researched before it was bought and I studied the soil conditions to get optimum performance from each one. I used to dig a hole at least twice as big as the plant I was putting in needed and I filled it with the recipe for that plant. It has been a success but I am now getting greedy. I buy what I like and hope I can find it a space.

i agree wth michallea , no set rules, lol u like then buy it ,if it dont fit move it nxt year. my garden is a sort of jungerly cottage style. the one thing i do now is try to grow more my self in stead of buying ready made. its cheaper and more rewarding . i too put in pots till a space is found or its too big. and dont like to lose anything. and i think i can say, yes i am a planterholic lol. i love a kaliderscope of color , in nature anything goes. there 4 go 4 it i say .

i love a mixture in the garden but i do make mistakes & often move things about....just part of the fun of gardening!!

In the past I just plonk the plants in, cut the shape of bed out and plonk the plants any where no style what so ever, nor colour matching, my kids say its like a jungle, same with my baskets plonk them in, yet always get compliments, to me its just like nature does no colour matching as I wonder when birds drop the seed for it to grow in the wild do they think colour match and pattern lol.

I always plan what I'm going to do but never stick to the plan lol. It always turns out quite different to what I wanted initially, but I don't really care :o)
I just buy whatever I like when I see it and stick it in where I can find room. I don't know why I make plans in the first place. I find keeping to them makes life rather stressful lol and that's not what I want from my garden :o)

I spent 8 years making my garden in Essex look as I wanted it to be, but it wasn't by plan - it was trial and error - mainly error! Then we moved to Northern Spain and I've had to start again from rock bottom - literally! We live in the mountains at 700 metres so I have rocky soil, slopes, blistering heat, harsh winters and altitude to tango with and have found many plants I covet won't grow here. Plus the annoying fact that Garden Centres are few and far between and nowhere NEAR as good as British GCs, so I buy most of my plants from the local market and as they are NEVER labelled I have a garden full of anonymous plants (I know what the plants are - just not the varieties) and balconies and stairways heaving with the inevitable red pelargoniums - which I've had to learn to call 'geraniums' here. What I need is a book called 'How To Garden In A Strange Country!' I get round the 'what will grow here' problem by buying packets of seeds on my family-visiting trips to Britain, then simply see what works. Some do and take their place amongst the rocks and boulders; some don't, so I keep a 'log' of what not to bother with in future. Sadly, Delphinium is at the top of the list followed by Kniphofia! But other gardens in the region are now heaving with Sweet Williams as I've passed seeds along to many visiting admirers of the lovely colourful swathes that grow happily amongst limestone chips!

Thank you everybody for the lovely stories of how you all make your decisions when gardening, I have found them fascinating and it confirms what I thought - that there is no right or wrong way to garden, all you needis it to be right for you!

Spritz you are the ultimate Plantaholic by the sound of it and the rest of us not far behind.

Scotsgran you must have had plenty of practice with gardening after 37 years and it sounds like you enjoyed every minute.

Michaella your garden is so lovely so keep on doing it your way girl!

Elsie you are so right, the fun is in the changing and choosing.

Sixpence I'm sure you're right - nature knows best.

Hywel, I agree there should be no stress from gardening just pleasure!

Nariz, good luck with the garden in Spain, sounds like you're going to be busy for a while. Maybe you should think about opening a new Garden Centre yourself lol!

Don't think I haven't thought of it already! But I'm enjoying retirement and travelling around my new country too much to want to use up all my time propagating plants for other people. I'll just continue to complain about the rocks and envy other people having the plants I want! :o))

Quite right too, that would take up all your time and leave none for your own garden I bet.

I really enjoyed reading the comments on your blog, Bellflower and feel less overwhelmed with developing our garden space....it's what pleases each of us, without stress, that works...what good news!

Thanks for a lovely, readable blog, Bellflower.

Glad you too enjoyed all the great comments W/lass, I think we have all learned a lot from reading them too.