Garden Quandries

Despite my flurry of gardening this weekend, I still have some things that need thinking through. Shall we review them?

First, I impulse-bought this Orphium frutescens, which is a nice little shruby plant that grows up to 30 inches tall. It likes sand, which is good because we have sand and a lot of it. But where shall I plant it?

One place I'm considering is at the end of the row of citrus trees. But if I want to add to the citrus collection at some point, that would mess up the symmetry. And it's hard to see how this would look when it grows out; the main problem with buying shrubs when they are this small is that it's hard to visualize their future size.

A purchase that was not as impulsive but still involved not really being sure where I wanted them were these three Red-Veined Dock (Rumex sanguineus ssp. sanguineus "Red Veined Dock"). I keep moving them around to different places, but they never seem to work as well as they did in my mind's eye when I decided to buy them. I hate when that happens.

And finally, as the garden begins to move further back into the yard, my mind turns to what is going on on my largest patch of temporary grass. This area is covered in grass primarily to keep the sand down, but eventually it will mostly not be grass (and mostly not be irrigated, as well).

I've been putting in shrubs to break up the masses of fence, but I realized standing in this spot that I'd fallen victim to Perimeter Syndrome, in which you plant around the perimeter of a space as if it were a picture to be framed, rather than filling it in and making a real structure. So it's time to figure out what my plans are for pathways and lower plantings here, even if I don't get round to making them happen right away. That way I can move any shrubs or trees that need moving before they get too large for that to be practical.

So that's what I'll be pondering this week, as I make expeditions to buy masses of potting soil and several large planters. Maybe if the weather isn't too crappy I'll climb out on the roof and take a photo from overhead. That always seems to clear my head.

Technorati Tags: design, gardening, grass removal, landscaping, plants, shrubs

posted by ayse on 02/08/09