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How to Map and Plan a New Garden

How to Map and Plan a New Garden Featured Image

The cusp of the New Year is not prime gardening season in much of the United States. But, it’s often an excellent time to map and design a new garden or planting border, even in areas that experience real winter. All that is required are bare ground, a relatively mild day, and a few common household items.

Start by considering the garden’s location, size, shape, and desired plants and their growing needs. Roughly sketch out your basic plans. At this stage, don’t worry about precision or specifics. The finer details will be worked out later.

Setting the Garden Perimeter

Measuring tape in grass
A 50- to 100-foot tape measure with a tip that you can stake in place is extra-useful.

Once you have sketched basic garden perimeter designs on paper, grab a couple of tape measures and a notepad and pen (or smartphone) and head out to the new garden site. A 50- to 100-foot tape measure with a tip that you can stake in place is extra-useful. If necessary, also bring a garden hose to mark portions of the prospective border’s perimeter that aren’t already defined by paths, walls, and the like. Place stakes along any hose-defined edges so that you’ll have something to refer to after you return the hose to its winter quarters.

Page on landscape architecture
Curved garden edges have a freer feel but are more difficult to edge and map. Rectilinear bed edges look more formal and are easier to edge and map. (Image from Residential Landscape Architecture)

A border with at least one long, straight edge is a cinch to map. At regular intervals (5 feet usually works well), measure the perpendicular distance from the straight edge to the opposite side of the border. Also, measure the distances to any extant plants and features that will remain as part of the new garden. Transcribe the data to graph paper and – voila! – you have an accurate map of your soon-to-be-border.

A border with curving edges is somewhat trickier to map. In this case, extend the tape along the approximate “equator” of the border, and measure the perpendicular distances from the tape to both edges at regular intervals. Compared to the straight-sided border, a few more dots and a bit more freehand sketching are required to translate these measurements to graph paper.

Mapping the Garden

Designing a garden
After taking measurements, put your design to paper.

A landscape design template is an especially handy implement for the drawing and mapping stage. You can purchase one (as well as graph paper) from most art- and drafting-supply stores, as well as online. It also helps if you have an image of your home’s footprint and yard to sketch upon and include for perspective. This will also help ensure that your garden is placed within your yard’s boundaries.

Illustrated plant renderings
Plant renderings can be illustrated in many different ways. Have fun. Be creative.
(Image from Residential Landscape Architecture)

To map the border’s location relative to the house, measure the length of the nearest side of the house, and the distances from its corners to the ends of the border. Using graph paper and a ruler, compass, or landscape design template, lightly sketch a curve representing the distance from the one corner of the house to one end of the border. Repeat for the distance from the other corner of the house. The intersection of these curves pinpoints the end of the border. This technique also works if you’d like to map the border’s relationship to other landscape features such as property lines.

Choosing Plants for the Garden

Choosing plants for the garden
Choose colorful, attractive plants that meet the site’s requirements and your aesthetic goals.

Next comes the really fun part – choosing plants. Given the border’s conditions and surroundings, what would grow and look well there? Compile a list of candidate garden plants that would provide a pleasing mix of flowers, foliage, shapes, sizes, and textures. When you’re happy with your list, start to play around on paper, beginning with the major “keystone” perennials, shrubs, or trees that will form the backbone of the new planting. A composition of rhythmically spaced “keystone” specimens – interspersed with clumps of smaller companion plants – generally works well. Lightly pencil-in a circle for each plant, spacing the circles according to plant size and vigor. Use a complete circle to represent individual specimen plants (often trees or shrubs), and fused circles (omitting their inner portions) to depict clumps.

De-sodding the garden beds
Once the soil warms, start cutting and de-sodding your beds.

Once you have a good handle on the design of your new border, you can start planning how to execute it. It’s never too early to start sourcing and ordering plants (especially rarities that are likely to sell out early). You also need to consider how you’re going to prepare the border site. Is the site currently occupied by grass or by other plants that will need removing? Now’s the time to formulate a strategy.

Fafard Premium Natural & Organic Compost Blend pack

Perhaps you’ll decide to rent a sod cutter come spring to remove turf from the site. Or maybe sheet composting is the way you’d like to go. Solarization – blanketing the site with heavy plastic to fry the existing vegetation as well as the weed seeds that lurk in the soil – is another excellent approach that works particularly well if you plan to hold off on planting until fall. A soil test might also be in order, whenever as the ground is workable (most state extension offices offer soil testing at a reasonable price). Finally, what’s your mulch of choice going to be? Now’s the time to find a source.

Whatever strategy you choose, you’ll likely need compost and soil amendments to improve the soil. If so, you’ve come to the right place! Fafard offers a bevy of such products, including Fafard Premium Natural & Organic Compost Blend and Fafard Premium Topsoil.

Happy planning – and planting – in 2020!

Garden Journaling: How To Plan Your Dream Garden

Garden Journaling: How to Plan Your Dream Garden Featured Image

A journal is one of the best tools for achieving the garden of your dreams. Your recorded observations of what’s happening today will give you a clearer vision of what to do tomorrow – and many years beyond.

Starting Your Garden Journal

A note pad, smartphone, and/or computer are all you need to build your journal. Use them to record the dates and details of significant garden happenings, such as the following (with photos, if desired):

  • Flowering and leaf-out times for key garden plants;
  • Impactful weather events such as freezes and storms;
  • Disease and pest outbreaks;
  • Sowing and planting (including what was planted and where);
  • Important maintenance activities such as mulching, shrub and tree pruning, harvesting, and major weeding;
  • Garden amendment, fertilization, and other soil preparation strategies;
  • What succeeded and what performed poorly.

Do a weekly journaling stroll around your garden. When you see something that delights or concerns you or otherwise grabs your attention, take a note or a photograph (or both). Is the perennial border up to something particularly spectacular this week? Are sawfly larvae skeletonizing the swamp hibiscus? Does the rhododendron by the front entry need to be replaced? Make a note (with the date!), along with any associated thoughts that might come to mind.

Garden Journaling Methods

Jotting down notes and smartphone on the side
A note pad and/or Smartphone are all you need to build your journal.

Traditionalists will opt for hand-written journals, but Smartphones make especially good journaling tools, especially for photos. Not only are photos automatically dated, but you can also add text to them and store them by subject. Smartphones are also good for note-taking, via apps such as Google Keep (which can link notes to photos). Then you can organize printed photos and other physical records (such as receipts and empty seed packets) in a binder with plastic pocket sleeves.

If you are one for the computer and a stickler for the details, consider creating spreadsheets to track trends in seed germination, harvests, flowering dates, pest appearance, and so forth. In time, you can create charts showing the ebbs and flows of your garden. These can be very informative.

Winter Garden Journaling

Gardening notebook with supplies
Winter is the time to organize any notes, photographs, and data from the past year that are still at loose ends. It’s also the time to record seed-starting data.

Gardening and journaling continue through winter. There are bulbs to force, catalogs to peruse, seeds to order and plant, house plants to enjoy and maintain, and any number of other winter gardening activities to complete and chronicle. It’s also the time to reflect on gardening seasons past and future. What were the garden’s highlights and successes this year? Where did it fall short? What are your visions and overall goals for next year, and beyond? Get it all down on paper (or microchip).

Finally, winter is the time to organize any notes, photographs, and data from the past year that are still at loose ends. For example, a spreadsheet of the year’s planting data – including plant/seed source and sowing/planting information – will be essential when you get around to ordering and planting next year’s seeds and plants. You can move a copy of the spreadsheet to your smartphone, to join the rest of your journal information. A well-stocked, well-organized garden journal from the previous year is just what you need to get rocking in the upcoming year.

Garden Journaling for Design

Thinking about garden design
Garden design must be planned and continuously recorded for the best success.

Journals are essential for the dynamics of garden design. Your journal will make the greatest impact have these essential planning and design materials on hand:

  • Documentation of the garden site’s layout and characteristics, including maps/plans, soil test results, sun and wind exposures, grades, and extant plantings;
  • Garden design ideas and plans, including drawings and plant lists;
  • An “encyclopedia” of information of special interest to you and your garden, comprising entries on plants, materials, gardening techniques, and other relevant subjects (be sure to include a file on Fafard’s outstanding lineup of potting soils and soil amendments!);
  • Short-term and long-term garden calendars, specifying the sequence of yearly gardening activities, and the long-term (e.g., 5-year) plans for maintaining or renovating the garden and for implementing designs.

Combine these elements with the detailed observations of your journal, and you’ll have all the ingredients to make your dream garden a reality.