Posted on: March 19, 2009

Simple Pleasures:

6 Ways to Make Your Garden Special

By Jennifer Parrish
CTW Features

1. Befriend a Tropical Plant

Rather than waiting for a vacation, enjoy a taste of the tropics at home. Adding a wildly colorful, unlikely tropical specimen to an outdoor patio or backyard garden can lend a touch of drama and ease that's hard to beat.

"Tropicals are showy almost from the moment you plant them. There's no waiting around like when you plant perennials," says Pam Baggett, author of "Tropicalismo! Spice Up Your Garden with Cannas, Bananas, and 93 Other Eye-Catching Tropical Plants" (Timber Press, 2009).

Since tropicals don't have a dormancy signal, Baggett says nothing short of a sudden frost will stop them from flowering. (And by then, of course, a wise gardener in the snow belt will have moved them safely inside for the winter.) Since they love humidity they're able to survive both in southern climates and the hot and humid northern summers. The beauty part? Despite popular misconception, tropicals are easy to plant and maintain - once established, they don't need more watering than the average perennial.

Baggett says good soil, decent mulch and the patience to wait until nightly temperatures stay around 48 F are all that's necessary for success. With those ingredients, your plant will grow so fast you can practically see it moving and you'll be free to have fun with your display strategy.

"Think about texture as well as color," Baggett says. "Some of the best gardens I've ever seen stretch the textural palette to the limits. Get something with small, fine leaves, then add something with medium-sized leaves, then something with ultra large leaves." Mix and match tropical colors, using to best advantage both foliage and flowers. For instance, enhance the red or yellow flowers of a dahlia (a perennial in some U.S. zones) with a coleus (considered an annual in most climates) such as New Hurricane, which has red and yellow leaves.

Tropicals can also come in handy to fill in the inevitable gaps that occur in any garden. Once the heat kicks in, Baggett says they'll catch up with any perennials. Just be sure to separate plants that need decent moisture, like elephant ears and bananas, from more drought-tolerant plants. The important thing, she says, is to have fun and be creative.

2. Create a Safe Haven

Any serious gardener knows the garden is often more than just a workspace - it can also be a special place to relax and gather your thoughts. This year rather than just creating personal space indoors, consider making your garden a getaway of its own.

"I talk to my clients about creating outdoor rooms," says Texas-based landscape architect Kerry Burt. "You have rooms in your house, so try extending that outside. Do things that will help create a sense of enclosure in the garden. A gazebo is obvious, but it may be done even by the placement of trees creating a visual barrier."

Burt recommends following the basic design principles of balance and proportion, considering shapes, sizes, colors and textures of the elements you choose for an outdoor room. A good design, he says, will naturally produce a relaxing atmosphere.

"Try grouping objects and plants in odd numbers - like three or five - because it gives your eye a focal point," he says. "Any time you use two it creates a window that your eye goes between, which is distracting, particularly if you live on a small property with a neighbor beyond." Giving your eye a destination can help focus your thoughts. Other ways to do this include installing a fountain, sculpture or an area with a lot of annual or perennial flowers.

If you would rather stay indoors, think about both about what you will see and what you will be hear in the room.

"Some of the same ideas translate indoors and might be done by using small trees, like palms," Burt says. "Also running water is very soothing, so fountains are an easy way to get that tranquil feel. Lots of self-contained fountains work both indoors and outdoors."

3. Mix and Match Edibles and Non-Edibles

Mixing edible and non-edible plants is a great way to match beauty with practicality.

"It's about style and fashion," says Rosalind Creasy, author of a book on edible landscaping and her latest, "Rosalind Creasy's Recipes From The Garden" (Charles E. Tuttle Co., 2008). "Fashion said only farmers grow food, that it's ugly and in long rows. You never saw edible plants put into a decorative setting. It was considered tacky." No longer.

Now, Creasy says people are becoming more familiar with the idea, which makes them less afraid to try it. Here she offers a few easy and attractive ways to get started in your own garden. Before starting, make sure and assess your land - if you're planting underneath a rose bush or a lawn highly treated with pesticides, there are too many chemicals to plant edibles.

• An herb-filled wine barrel

"I call them edible plants with training wheels because they're so easy to grow in almost all climates," Creasy says.

Purchase a wine barrel and fill it with good soil.

Select six or eight of your favorite herbs and plant them in the soil. Good choices include parsley, sage, oregano, thyme or any herb you enjoy cooking with.

Fill in the barrel with flowers such as zinnias or marigolds for a fun touch.

• A berry border

"Another wonderful way to add some edible plants is with a flower border," Creasy says. Both strawberries and blueberries can add flavor with flair.

For strawberries, Creasy recommends using the recently developed "day-neutral" varieties, which bloom regardless of the day's length. Put them in a border about 18 inches back from the lawn. Or try using a big planter box so the strawberries can cascade over the side of the container, which will keep the berries cleaner with fewer insect and bird problems.

Blueberries also offer many options. "Blueberry-bush breeders have come up with new varieties that grow from Maine to northern Georgia and most of the rest of the country except desert," Creasy says. Blueberries offer good health benefits, and some varieties produce 8-10 pounds of fruit per year. They may wither if your soil isn't acidic enough, but she says adding sulfur to the soil takes care of the problem. "They're beautiful all year round, with pink or white flowers in the springtime, red leaves in the fall, and even some red twigs in the winter," Creasy says.

4. Get Garden Smart

According to the Garden Media Group, lack of knowledge is still one of the big reasons people don't garden more. This year, have fun growing your gardening expertise through friends, classes and workshops, magazines, books, the Internet and even bloggers.

If you're a visual learner, consider scanning your own hometown for inventive gardening techniques and excellent display tactics. Big cities especially are home to a great number of gardens: container gardens, community gardens, great decorative displays on main streets, innovative green roofs and even victory gardens. Feed your imagination. Try something new.

5. Build Up

If you're wondering how the last plant you purchased will ever fit in your garden, it might be time to look up.

"I always suggest when you can't go out, you can always go up because there's unlimited airspace," says Greg Stack, a Chicago-area horticulture extension educator at the University of Illinois. "This applies to small-space gardens, but we're also seeing many people with condos and apartments do a lot of things easily vertically. It's a fun way to garden."

Vertical gardening is ideal for almost any gardener who wants to utilize space well. And according to Stack, it's no more difficult than gardening horizontally. Begin by selecting a structure or support, like a trellis, pole or wire fence. Then find anything from ornamental vines to vegetables and flowers to plant near the support.

"We're even seeing tree shrubs and fruit trees being trained vertically to the support," Stack says. "They give not only a colorful addition to the landscape but many times are very useful, producing fruits and vegetables."

Many plants will naturally grow vertically. Stack recommends trying cucumber seeds, squashes, gourds, pole beans, spinach and even tomatoes. Simply check the label. Those labeled "indeterminate" are the easiest to train. After you plant near the support, you can train it to grow vertically by tying it loosely to the structure. The plant soon figures out what to do and sends out tendrils that will grab the support.

Not only will a vertical garden provide you with fresh fruits and vegetables no matter what type of available space you have, it can look beautiful, too.

"With a structure covered in foliage oftentimes these plants will flower, plus often the fruit is highly ornamental," Stack says. "It beats looking at a plain old wire fence - the nice green lush is much more friendly. Also, if you have a balcony or small space, you can screen out a view you don't like." Whether you pick out a fancy support, like an obelisk, or something practical, like a simple pole with a few strings, he says the intricacy of design is up to you.

6. Invest in a Shrub

This year, consider making a commitment to some new shrubs in your garden. They are eco-smart, asking for very little by way of maintenance and providing long-lasting enjoyment - more solid returns than most financial investments these days.

"Shrubs have always been popular because they provide structure to the garden," says Cindy Haynes, associate professor of horticulture at Iowa State University. "But now they're becoming more popular because they're easy to care for. You plant them once and then prune them maybe once a year."

Though shrubs can be more expensive, they last for a long time and an easy way to join in the "quick and simple" movement in gardening. To begin, decide what purpose your shrub will serve.

"Shrubs come in so many different sizes and shapes," Haynes says. "It's important to decide if you want it in a sunny site or a shady site, if you want something small or something that gets large. How do you want to use it in your landscape?"

Haynes cautions gardeners to read labels carefully when searching for a shrub. With varieties that can be 15-feet wide to those that are 15-feet tall, growers should be aware of their plant's end result. "If you buy something thinking it's really cute and small, you'll be disappointed if five years from now it quadruples in size," she says.

Using different kinds of shrubs can mix up your garden's dynamic. "I typically like the odd things," Haynes says. "Try finding something that will bloom at an odd time and mix up the background, or things that do more than one thing, like blooming and then turning a fall color." Along with junipers, evergreen shrubs, roses and lilacs she recommends fothergilla, a "pretty small shrub that blooms in the spring and also has a nice color in the fall."

The best technique? Get out and get inspired. Says Haynes, "Once you get to a garden center, you will get lots of wonderful ideas."

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