RE: Hot Weather/Gardening style

>>Which brings me to a few questions:  what is everyone else's philosophy on
gardening?  How do you choose what you grow?  Is it based on color,
hardiness, form?  Do you find joy in the unusual that you must nurse along
for your growing zone for the challenge?  Do you just enhance nature or cut
out formal patches of garden in your yard?  Are you an
impulse buyer or carefully choose your plants according to some scheme you
have?

Val in KY
zone 6a<<


Hello Val,

My gardening philosophy is to enjoy gardening and to enjoy plants which, if
I am honest, means that I am a plantaholic and, although I try to get a
sense of order in my borders, there are plants where they should not be
(having a tiny space in which to garden does not help when you cannot resist
beautiful blooms in the nurseries and mail order catalogues).

I include plants to attract birds and insects and the colours range from
pastels to bright colours - the latter being mainly Cannas and Dahlias,
which I over-winter in the attic and/or greenhouse.   Lucky you not having
to lift your Dahlias.   I love growing from seed and, initially, check the
propagator almost hourly to see if there is any progress :-).   It is also
nice when visiting friends to be able to take cuttings, grow the plant on
and in later years to be able to say that a particular plant came from so
and so's garden.

My ambition this year is to have a haze of Verbena bonariensis running thru
the borders - it takes up little space, blooms for weeks and weeks, appears
(to me) to go with almost everything and has to be one of my many
favourites.

I wish I had more of an eye for colour: I am certain some of my colours
clash outrageously, but my grasses soften the effect somewhat and as long as
we can sit on our decking during the summer evenings watching the flowers
nodding in a gentle breeze, the birds foraging for insects and bees and
butterflies gathering nectar, we are happy, especially with a glass or two
of Pimms. :-)

I hope we all have a great gardening year.

Valerie, South Yorkshire, England (Zone 8)

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