So What Will You Plant in your Garden This Year?

Spring just generally brings people a lot of happiness. For those who live in snow covered locations, it’s always a refreshing time where the days are warmer and longer.

It’s also a time to plan out your garden for the year ahead. Each year, in around February, I start mapping out my gardens. A few years ago, I spent many weekends laying new flower beds and then also building a small, above-ground vegetable garden. I planted quite a few perennials and then peppered things with annuals for colour.

To make the shopping easier, I created a helpful costing spreadsheet that has helped me predict the costs and keep me focused when in the greenhouse. (Many gardeners know how going to a greenhouse without some focus can be a daunting task!) 

Update

I had a few questions about the free spreadsheet I included in this post. So I have included my own spreadsheet so folks can see what the finished product looks like. I use this spreadsheet as my checklist (as sometimes I don’t shop for all my plants in 1 place) and also know how much to budget for. If you are a nerd like me, I also look at what it costs me each year, so I know my trend year over year.

It has snowed up here recently (in mid April, good.ness) and so I usually have my plants by now. I hope to start my shopping in a couple of weeks and will show folks how I use my spreadsheet and stay organized. This spreadsheet has helped me turn my visit to the nursery to be an adventure that I look forward to versus being overwhelmed.

Bliss Reflections #3

Planning the colours and heights of all my plants for the upcoming season is good for my soul. I love planning but I love knowing that in a few short weeks, I will be outside working the soil and opening the garden for the spring and summer seasons.

Being around nature and watching your backyard come back to life is very exciting. My garden is a work in progress – more art in the eye of the beholder, and not yet down to a science. I think I like that imperfection anyway. Sometimes I have bald patches where I simply failed to water a new plant enough, to spots where I got the proportions wrong and have a tall delphinium in front of short aster. In other spots, I may overcrowd my plants and I lose some of the focus.

But each year, I try. I let go of perfection and appreciate that each year I learn what the garden wants in that particular spot. And then suddenly, there’s there one year, where you get an area right and you say to yourself “okay, now that works!” And I snap a picture of the spot where I think I got it right.

While I wouldn’t call my yard a masterpiece, it has given me many years as a peaceful retreat, and each spring season it forgives my errors from the previous year. Its a great place to ”just breathe” and become a human ”being”.

Bliss Finds and Facts

• There are a lot of gardening apps and resources out there. Ones that I love using are the apps that help you determine “what plant this is”. For a list, check out this website from You Had Me at Gardening. Not only are the apps “tried and tested” but website has some great tips and resources for avid gardeners too! I love these apps because they spark the curiosity in me and I always learn more about the plants I have in my garden.
• If you want to read more about the meditative effect gardening has or how to make your garden your own nirvana, check out some of these sites:
  • Gardening Know How
  • Healing Forest
  • ModAmbition
• NEW – The ”go to” website that I have used over the years to help plan my garden design is Better Homes and Gardens. This site taught me how to layer the plantings so that I had colour throughout the seasons, and also created some ”depth” to the garden.