Garden Planting
What size plants should I choose for my garden?
The size of the plants will often be dictated by the size of the garden. I urge people not to get stuck in a trap of “we've got a small garden so all the plants are very diminutive” and out of scale. You still need outlining structural plants that will create an overhead canopy, and that will create scale for the people that are in the garden. You need to keep in mind the ultimate size of your space. There are a lot of small growing trees now that give us the scale but are narrower in their width and can be used in smaller spaces.
What season is best for planting?
I prefer to plant in the spring. Living in the midwest we have a lot of fluctuating temperatures through the winter with unreliable snow cover. So one day it might be 20 degrees, and the next day it may be 60 degrees. This causes a lot of freezing and thawing of the soil. Plants pop out of the ground and it causes a lot of damage. I gear more and more towards spring planting, particularly on herbaceous plants.
Should I arrange plants in containers prior to planting?
You can arrange the plants in containers, it's one way to look at combinations and actually it's quite fun. If you're not sure about a color combination or a texture combination or form, you can put the plants into containers and live with them for a season, see if you like them before you commit to an entire garden designed around that scheme.
How deep should I place plants in soil?
Plants really should be planted at the same level that their pots are, so keep the soil line at the same level that the plants are in the pots.
How big should a planting hole be?
A planting hole should usually be about two times the diameter of the root ball. This is because we're normally amending the soil that we're putting back in around the plants.
What is a 'root-bound' plant?
A root-bound plant is a plant that has roots encircling the mass of soil that's at the base. Usually they're intertwined. There may be roots coming out of the bottom of the pot, and what we normally have to do is come in and use a pair of pruners and make 3 to 5 cuts, and that will cause those roots to branch out and into that outlying soil rather than continuing to encircle around the root ball that was originally existing.
What is a 'leggy' plant?
A leggy plant is a plant that usually we consider as being tall, and normally doesn't have leaves at the base. So you get this long stem, which we kind of refer to as legs on a plant.
