“Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation
and a pinch of creativity.”
It’s not quite January and already several friends and neighbors have asked me what I’ll be planting in the garden. The question comes up every winter and is inevitably followed by “What should I plant?” I don’t mind offering a plant selection for a dry sunny spot, or recommending a favorite squash or tomato variety for the vegetable garden…but I don’t like telling people “what to plant”. Gardens should reflect their gardeners, that’s what makes them unique and interesting.
Where do you start? Look around. Your interests and hobbies offer many ideas that can be incorporated into a garden. A few suggestions to get you thinking:
- Butterflies: Provide food for butterflies in your garden. Perennials like butterfly bush, Joe-Pye weed, butterfly weed, aster, bee balm, coneflower, daylily, Jacob’s Ladder, herbs like dill and fennel and colorful annuals like cosmos, zinnias, heliotrope and sunflowers.
- Tea: Make your own herbal tea blends from flowers and herbs like bergamot, yarrow, anise hyssop, calendula, chamomile, rose hips, mint, stevia, lavender.
- Birds: Provide shelter by planting maples, dogwoods, viburnums and pines. Plant vines like rose, cardinal climber and morning glory. Provide food with hollies, cherries, currants and elderberries as well as seeds/nectar from columbine, yarrow, beardtongue, cosmos, penstemon and coneflowers.
- Beer/Wine: Great for home brewers. Try planting a hops variety or two, edamame, ginger, avens, grapes, elderberries and sweet woodruff.
- Craft: Dried everlastings make beautiful wreaths etc. Try baby’s breath, strawflower, larkspur, alliums, yarrow and statice.
- Color: Easy! Select your favorite annuals and perennials in a single color. The latest hybrids include green and brown (chocolate) blossoms.
- Habitat: Give back a bit of your yard to it’s origins. Select native species of trees, shrubs and wildflowers that will attract wildlife as well as provide food and shelter. Add birdhouses, bat houses, water features etc.
- Storybook: Fun to plant with kids. Think “Jack and the Beanstalk” with sunflowers, tee pees of pole beans and peas, larger than life pumpkin vines.
There are more… like to knit? Grow plants that can be used as dyes for yarn. Have pets? Plant a pet garden with rye and wheat grasses and greens like catmint that pets enjoy. Be creative, be realistic (you can’t grow shade plants in full sun or blackberries in a bog) and be inspired! Even in limited space plants can be grown in pots, wheelbarrows and other containers. Use your imagination!
