Tom Karwin, On Gardening: Game plans for garden plants

As we are now in the planting season, acquiring and installing new plants in preparation for the burst of foliage and blossoms in the spring, it’s time to do some proactive gardening.

Reactive gardening, in comparison, involves waiting for local garden centers to trot out small plants in bloom, then paying the price for an instant garden.

By planning ahead, gardeners benefit from a good range of options, larger plants, lower costs, and greater sense of accomplishment.

Once synchronized with the seasons, we have the challenges and opportunities for choosing plants.

For some gardeners, plant selection is easy. For example, when you have a gap in your rose bed, the project is to find a new rose that appeals to you.

At the other extreme, when you have a pressing urge to beautify your landscape, somehow, you could encounter the many, many choices in a mail-order catalog or garden center, and experience information overload. This is not uncommon, given the great number of garden-worthy plans and the continuing introduction of new hybrids.

One approach to being botanically overwhelmed is to throw several figurative darts, resulting in a hodgepodge garden that falls short of your vision.

Better, take an organized approach to improving your landscape.

Here are suggestions for game planning your garden planting.

First, define your garden as a collection of distinct areas, and decide on your priorities for development. It’s good to have an overall design concept for your garden, and you could work on more than one element during this season, but good practice favors working with manageable elements of a larger project.

Second, you should be aware of your target area’s basic cultural conditions: climate, soil structure and chemistry, sun exposure, and drainage. These are all important, but let’s focus on the selection of plants that would succeed under the conditions of the area on which you are working.

Third, decide on the overall effect you want to achieve for that area. Some designers speak of the “story” told by a grouping of plants. This suggests a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end, but I prefer the concept of a statement.

For example, you might want your target area to be a highlight, showstopper, knockout display.

Alternatively, you might want an attractive backdrop for a patio area.

Between such extremes, you might just want a pleasing vignette to view from a window in your home.

There are other possible statements. The point is to express your vision for this target area.

The fourth step is to select a theme for the target area. A theme could take any of several forms. It could focus on blossom color (the white garden is a classic), a combination of colors (a coordinated array in a border), a genus (e.g., a rose bed), or a plant type (e.g., succulents, tropicals). You might have other thematic concepts in mind, but choosing a theme helps in narrowing the range of possible plant selections.

The fifth step is to narrow the range of plant types that would work well for your target area. Depending on the size of the area, several plant types could be suitable. Here are examples: tree, shrub, columnar shape, fountain shape, vine, espalier, trellis, container, groundcover, and bulb. The combination of plant types for a given planting area could follow basic landscape design principles, including the ever-popular “larger plants in the back,” but still reflect your individual inspiration.

The sixth step (we shouldn’t have an even number of steps!) is to follow your heart. Select the plant that charms your eye, that stirs fond memories, amazes your friends, or magically succeeds in your unique garden space.

Enrich your gardening days

The stepwise approach outlined in this column might not be your preferred way to select plants, but more intuitive or spontaneous or expert methods probably go through similar steps at high speed. For those gardeners, that’s fine, and I congratulate you for reaching successful results.

Still, if you should feel botanically overwhelmed, try game planning your plant selection.

Advance your gardening knowledge

LeeValley, which I know as a source of excellent tools for gardening, woodworking, and other activities, has posted “The Gardening Journal with Niki Jabbour,” a series of brief videos with “useful tips, techniques, and tool demonstrations to help you to grow the garden of your dreams.” The website also offers well-done articles on aspect of gardening. Visit leevalley.com/, click on “Discover,” and then click on either “GardenVideos” for Niki Jabbour’s videos or “Garden Articles” for information on gardening (mostly about edibles).

Garden Gate magazine offers a series of brief garden-related video recordings online. To check them out, visit youtube.com, search for “garden gate’ and scroll down a little way to see the list of video recordings.

The Cactus and Succulent Society of America will present the webinar, “Oaxaca Meanderings in Search of Succulents, Adventure and Fun,” at 10 a.m. Saturday. The presenter, Kelly Griffin, is the manager of succulent plant development at Altman Plants, in San Diego. An exceptionally knowledgeable expert on succulent plants, Kelly is known as a plant hunter, hybridizer, collector, and engaging speaker on the subject. If you are interested in succulent plants, Kelly’s presentation is a high priority (and free) occasion. To register, visit cactusandsucculentsociety.org/.

Enjoy your garden!

Tom Karwin is past president of Friends of the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, Monterey Bay Area Cactus & Succulent Society, and Monterey Bay Iris Society, and a UC Master Gardener. He is now a board member and garden coach for the Santa Cruz Hostel Society.