PLAN or PLOP????

[gina2000]

I can be a really goofy gardener. Alot of times I just throw plants together and hope for the best. Luckily I'm pretty good about size and shape so even though my garden beds aren't always color coordinated, they usually are fairly uniform in terms of height and size (well, not always, truth be known...... )

Sometimes I get the urge to PLAN a garden bed, though. Sit down and really look at what goes with what....where something should go, how I want it to look. And sometimes that's a smash hit.....other times, well....you know.....

So do you PLAN or PLOP your flowers????

 

[sorcerormickey]

Mostly I used to just plop my plants - until this year. I dug another bed about mid-summer and have to plant around an existing Dogwood tree, a lilac, a panicle hydrangea, and a Rose of Sharon. I actually measured the bed and have planned out what plants I will put there this fall (I have quite a few plants that need to be divided that I will stick in there.)

Other than that, I usually just plop them anywhere there's space until I can find a proper home for it.

 

[Mamu]

I think I do both, sometimes the plop looks better then the plan.

I have a tendency to live on the wild side when it comes to gardening. While I love those perfectly manicured yards, where everything is in the perfect place and everything is perfectly shaped.

My gardens are a little over run, some over stuffed. Everyone are my designs, and I'm proud of them all. Even the shabby looking ones.

So I guess you could call me a "PLANNED PLOPPER"

 

[amid chaos]

Most definalty a plopper....I shove plants in anywhere I can stuff them...

So, I'm not anly a plopper, I'm a shover and a stuffer!

 

[Snowwark]

Planner, plopper, shover, stuffer.......guilty as charged!!

I do all four but the stuffer one gives me the most problems. I tend to plant things too close together, anxious for a quick mature garden look, only to have to divide or move the next year, because they're too smushed together.

I guess you could add smusher to the charges!

Sorcerormickey, your new garden bed sounds quite large. What plants are you adding to it?

 

[sorcerormickey]

Snowwark- I have lots of stuff to add to this new bed. I have a giant daylily to be divided, as well as some huge Black-Eyed Susans. In a holding bed, I have some asters, coral bells, bellflower, kniphophia, butterfly weed, delphiniums, sedum, and perennial fountain grasses to fit in to it. Plus, who knows what else I will find at the Nursery?

 

[cgcw]

This is just the thread for me. It's good to know there are so many who just "roll" with gardening. I was struggling and struggling about how I was going to plant my new flower bed. It's quickly becoming a weed bed because I've been struggling with what to do. I know for certaing that is NOT what I'm aiming to achieve !!

So, I'll plop here and plop there this coming weekend and hope I like the look I ultimately achieve.

Thanks for the ideas.

 

[Snowwark]

Sorcerormickey, you have a holding bed? Very cool! Sounds like you have lots of things to plant around your existing trees and flowers, and of course, one can't come home empty handed from the Nursery.....lol!

You know cgcw, I can do weed beds too, with hardly any effort at all!! Funny how that works!

I just stuck this clipart here because I liked it!

 

[Tulirose]

I weeded my weed bed today!

Plopper here. I plan on planning but never carry through. I've been planning what to do with this particularly big space for so long, that except for a few plopped items, it remains practically plain (and weedy).

 

[DebºoºS]

Plop-plop squeeze, squish.

I'm a cross between a planner and a plopper. In the front yard I took my time and really balanced everything out for a more formal look using Pro landscaper 3D.
In the backyard I let it go and had fun with color. Buy buy buy what I like. Planting too close together. I'm always tweeking my plants.

 

[DixieDreamer]

I start out with a plan. I usually implement it pretty much in accordance to the plan... and from then on... it is "ADJUSTED" by additions/changes that I do on the fly. Once the bed is going... I can see what is working and what is not and make adjustments accordingly. A good example is my front bed that I put in this year. I was going for a specific effect - tall cheery yellow in the back of the bed, with shorter but spired blue plants in the front... all with a low growing bt dense understory of bright red plants.

Well... I planted exactly what my plan called for... and I got a beautiful cheery yellow with my daisies... but the blue spires of my "blue bedder" salvia is too tall and the red verbena was perfect as the understory... but I needed to plant much more of them - as it was not the carpet of red effect I was after!

So... I will make changes in next year's garden to either improve on the plan to get the same effect... or abandon that idea and do something different entirely!