Get the right plants for your garden
Monday, November 30th, 2009A good place to start when choosing plants for your garden is to make sure that they like the climate you got in your garden. By doing your research and choosing flowers that du well in your climate and your type of garden you can save a lot of energy by not having to battle the environment.
If you for instance live in a hot and arid part of the world, try going for plants that are adapted to such conditions. If you live in a dry area you can as an example seek inspiration from classical mediterranean gardens. A mistake that many gardeners in warm parts of the world make is to assume that any tropical plant will thrive in their garden. This is not true, since tropical flowers hailing from the rainforest will have a hard time coping with dry air (often regardless of how much money you spend on lavishing their roots with water) while tropical flowers used to more arid conditions easily succumb to fungal infections or simply rot away when planted in humid parts of the world.
As you can see, several different factors must be taken into account when choosing garden plants. You must also decide how much work you wish to put into altering the conditions of your garden. Do you need new dirt, e.g. by adjusting its nutritional content or tampering with how fast it drains? Do you want to plant trees to get shaded areas in the garden? Do you have the time and money to maintain the garden you are considering? Do you wish to build a green house to accommodate for certain plants?
One of many advantages of having a “natural garden”, i.e a garden based around plants that actually likes the prevailing conditions, is that you will have more time left to spend on a few darling plants that may not be as though as the others. By choosing easy plants that do well in your garden for much of your garden you can free up time that you can use on a few special projects e.g. a wetland plant that needs a lot of extra watering or a delicate flower that require constant protection against parasites.
One way of going about when choosing garden plants it to visit gardens in your local area and talk to the gardeners. Which plants need constant tending to survive and which ones love the conditions so much they are almost turning into weeds? What is the ground conditions where they will grow? Do they prefer a bright spot or a spot in the shade? You can normally get a wealth of information by chatting with local garden keepers; gardeners who are familiar with local conditions and know what will work in the long run.
Another way of choosing garden plants it to be inspired by other parts of the world with a similar climate and soil conditions. Certain areas of New Zeelann and Australia does as an example have conditions very similar to those of the mediterranean, plants from Himalaya is often suitable for gardens in Canada and Scandinavia. Make sure you don’t use plants that are consider invasive species. Don’t use illegal plants or import plants illegally.
