Designing Your Garden With The Right Plants
BMNL
Choosing from a large variety of options is always a tough activity. When it comes to gardening, there are innumerable choices to pick from. Sometimes, it is easy to select the right plants, if you have years of gardening experience to fall back on. However, if you’re just starting out, the number of plant choices available at your disposal can be overwhelming.
In order to get a clearer picture of how to go about picking the right plants for your space, we have compiled some recommendations.
- Color code your garden – Although this may not be a very methodical way to design your garden, color coding helps to get you started. Having a garden that is green all over can be boring. Add splashes of color with some brightly flowering species. This helps you to get started on narrowing down your choices by a considerable extent. It is also advisable to group contrasting colors together, so that your plants don’t blur into a combined mass from a distance.
- Consider the geometry of the flora – Some people like a neat, well-demarcated garden. If you are one of them, then you would perhaps find it appealing to group the shrubs all together in one place, and the spiky plants in another. However, some spaces call for clarity and definition. In these cases, divide your plants up by their shape and form into categories such as spiky, round, flat, arching, and upright. Mix and match them so that the theme is defined and discernible.
- Understand the behavior of the plants – You need to choose plants that can survive in the climatic conditions prevailing in your garden. Of course, it would be hard to find exotic plants at your local nursery. So a large part of this decision will have already been made for you. However, if you are considering planting an exotic species, make certain that you have the proper resources to support the plants. Otherwise, your garden could end up in ruins, taking even the indigenous plants down.
- Take into account the ‘thirst’ factor – Some plants require more water than others. If you live in an area that suffers from a shortage of water, avoid choosing plants that are perpetually thirsty. If you do have an adequate water supply, you can include the plants that consume more water. Even then, it is wise to plant them in such a way that trees and shrubs of a similar level of there are grouped together, so that watering the garden becomes an easier job.
- Choose the plants that go well with your landscape architecture – If you have a garden that includes patios, the plants like fuchsia, tree lilies, and begonias would be ideal. If you would rather have baskets and pots filling your garden space, then you should go with plants that can grow well in them, such as pansies. If shrubs are what you are looking for, then lavenders, holly, camellias and box shrubs would be perfect.
Ultimately, it is important to remember that there are several factors that determine whether a plant is right for your garden, or not, Moreover, a plant that thrives well in a neighbor’s space might find it hard to survive in yours. Customization and experience are the best answers to these problems.
