Garden Planting
How do I choose plants for my garden?
You want to choose them with consideration to your objectives. How will the garden function? Do you look to higher maintenance plants? Do you have a lot of time where you really want to focus on maintenance? Is your time limited, meaning you would select lower maintenance plants? Do you want plants for fragrance where you might look to some of the honeysuckles or to the Daphne? Do you want plants to attract butterflies where you might even consider using some of the Angelicas or fennels? It essentially involves looking at your function, which will ultimately drive your plant selection.
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.
How do I plant a root-bound plant?
We would take a pair of pruners, and usually I like to cut three cuts around the root-bound portion of the plant. Some people also like to tear the roots apart, but I find just cutting in three places works, and then planting it at the same level that it was in the pot.
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.
How do I plant a leggy plant?
One way to remedy that would be to cut the plant back. You can cut it back by a third to a half, which will cause the plant to branch more and be a little bit better habit.
How do I transplant an established perennial?
With transplanting an established perennial, it's usually best if the plant is moist, so we usually water it the evening before, so that the soil has time to drain a bit. We lift it, taking as much of the soil mass as possible with the plant, and then we re-plant it at that same level. That's usually a good time, too, to do a division on an established perennial.