Fall planting

Seems like the right season to start musings about gardens and gardening.... Running through the neighbourhood I saw a bunch of freshly turned beds filled with rich choclatey earth pleases me immensely. It looks so alive with possibility - the future site of the perfect border - fragrant, floral and a wonderful reason to smile. Of course the moment of placing all the seedlings/plants in the exact places and stepping back to look at the time-lapse movie in your head - where the bed is all filled in, perfectly textured and beautifully colored - some 2 years hence is qute sweet too! Every gardner has quite an imagination - just take a look at all the gardening catalogs - they shamelessly trade in on the gullibilty of gardners to believe phrases like "carefree perennial" or "guaranteed success for even the casual gardner" next to luscious blooms that privately employeed at least three immigrant families! And yet I happily give my money to them and dream on - one day to photograph such luciousness in my own garden.

Garden design is such a treacherous term - there are zillions of books and magazines all purporting to have solved the problem and waiting to hand hold you through the steps. But while they can shwo you the beginning and the end pictures (both quite glorious in their own ways) no one tells you about the in between when your plants are not quite tall enough in the back or full enough on the sides and the whole thing does not look anything like what you wanted! Beware - this is a vulnerable time for the impatient gardner, You are so desparate to fill in that gaping hole in the mddle of your bed (the buddlea is not looking quite as arching or leafy as it's supposed to and the butterflies are giving it the cold shoulder) you impulsively buy something like achllea and stick in in the ground. This then grows all out of proportion - leggy and attracting snails like the dickens! aaargh. On one such trip to my favourite nursery, my haggard state must have shown on my face. Daphne who works there is both knowledgeable and wise. She listened to my increasingly unintelligible need and finally said " If you can be patient and allow the plants to settle in and feel at home, they wil reward you sooner than you think" It was how she said it - i often recall her words when the retail-urge is upon me! I'm convinced Daphne feels the plants deep in her mind's eye. But I digress....back to garden design...

There must be a better way to teach someone to grow a garden and help lead them through the intermediate joys and sorrows of watching this painting (you hope!) come slooowly to life. Mixing and matching textures seems so easy to say and so hard to do !!