February 15, 2010

Early Garden Planning

Winter stinks.  The holidays are over, it’s freezing cold, and there is way too much snow outside.  So yeah, winter pretty much stinks.  I don’t think I’m the only one that feels this way, everyone seems to be growing tired of winter.  I can’t help but daydream about summer and, if you ask me, warm weather can’t come soon enough.

Since packing up and moving to the Caribbean for the rest of winter doesn’t seem totally practical, I’ve been forced to think up other ways to fight the winter blues.  Although it’s a bit premature, I’ve started planning my spring garden to put my daydreaming to work.


Last year, we were so busy installing a patio we didn’t have time left over to plant flowers and put the finishing touches on the yard.  This year, I figure if I start planning in February I should be able to finish everything come summer time!  So I have already picked out flower seeds so I can begin planning my garden:

flower_seeds

Admittedly, I don’t know very much about gardening so this year is going to be a bit of trial and error.  Other than prettiness of course, I picked flower seeds based on how much sun they require, their hardiness, perennials vs annuals, and their bloom time.  I bought 6 different seed packets with bloom times that vary from early spring to fall to enjoy flowers as long as possible.  Based on sunlight and a bloom times, I mapped out where I’d like to plant these seeds come spring time (using a free trial of Garden Planner software I found online).

Here’s a sketch of how our yard looks now (under all of the snow):
 current_yard

And here’s the plan come springtime:
backyard plan

The plan is to add two trees and lattice with ivy for privacy, pretty flowers, and hopefully a small vegetable garden.  Here’s a close-up of the planned patio plants and when they’re set to bloom:
Patio Plants

I’ve chosen to try my hand at growing Russell Lupines, Orange Butterfly Flowers, Dwarf Magic Carpet Snapdragons, Bellis English Daisy, Mixed Colors Delphinium, and Dwarf Fairy Candytuft. Do you have any experience or tips for raising these flowers?  Am I crazy to start planning my garden now or have you started spring planning too?  Any other tips to help fight the winter blues?

It will still be a while before I can begin planting anything, but I love looking at these plans knowing that spring isn’t that far around the corner.

This blog post is shared on Between Naps, Cottage Instincts, Making the World Cuter, Twice Remembered, Persimmon Perch, Soft Place to Land.

4 comments:

Emily {Frilly Details} said...

I hear you about winter. I'm sure my husband is incredibly sick of hearing me complain about it :). I keep looking at pictures of our yard and garden from last summer and I can hardly wait for things to be green again!

The Prudent Homemaker said...

If you can start any of those indoors, that can help youas well.

I love delphiniums but I havn't had success getting them to grow from seed. They can take 4 weeks to germinate.

You could do a lot more with you yard: add fruit trees, grape vines, etc. Your lattice could be covered in grape vines to give you fruit as well as privacy.

Jenny @ DIY Newlyweds said...

I'm not experienced at growing flowers from seeds but the seed packets were half price, so for about 75 cents I figured it's worth a shot rather than buying the grown flowers for much more later on.

Great idea about using a grape vine instead of ivy on the lattice! But will a grape vine attract bees? I don't know if I want bees buzzing so close to my reading area!

I'd love to add some fruit trees as well, but our yard isn't very large. I think we will go for a flowering plum tree this year and see if there's room for any more trees later. Someday, I'd love a variety of fruit trees though!

Erin @ Domestic Adventure said...

I came over to say hello and thanks for visiting my blog, but I was so impressed by your garden post that I just had to comment! I so want to become a competent gardener; or at least a semi-competent gardener. Heck, I would take just not killing a houseplant! Anyway, thanks for visiting and for entering the Stonewall Kitchen giveaway!