I think morning glories would look wonderful with the clematis you already have on the fence. Heliotrope is a pretty purple flower. I heard it smells like vanilla, but I didn't think it did, either. My mom has some and really likes it.

Herbs are so much fun to grow and usually very easy. I'm planning to put in dill, basil, sage, bee balm, maybe tarragon, winter savory, and some more spearmint. I love spearmint, but it needs to go in a pot or someplace you can mow around it. I got two plants last year and now have about ten :) My spearmint is along one side of the house and we mow around it. It's great for tea and it keeps the mice away from the house!

I know what you mean, at least planning the garden makes you feel like you're out in the garden. Right now, I'm planning my kitchen garden and my magical/fairy garden. After that, I'm hoping to mix roses and perennials in a front bed and eventually plan my antique roses in front of the lilac hedge with lots of fragrant potpourri/tea herbs. Great to plant together and helps keep the deer away! Roses are a challenge but they're so pretty and there's lots of things you can make with them.

If you haven't already been there, try the herb forum. There's lots of nice people and they have great recommendations for books on herbs and rose petal recipes! Very fun :)

I have two specific areas I'm concentrating on this year, the meadow and the gully. One is dry, compacted clay. The other is wet, soggy clay. I'm on the hunt now for white texas star hibiscus seeds for the wet area. I've got all my seeds for the meadow, mostly annuals with a few perennials and some grasses. The gully won't get much done to it until all the firewood has been cut, chopped and removed to another area of the yard. I'm hoping to get it done this weekend. My parents and nephew will be coming up Saturday to help. He loves running the wood splitter. Makes him feel grown-up.

I have two big plans for this year. A vegetable garden (DH and I are in disagreement where and how - we may have separate gardens!), and a climbing rose garden. I have plans for the rose garden I want, but the cost may be too much (several arbors), or the site may not be right. Our septic tank is on that side, and I need DH to walk with me to tell me where I can plant and where I can't. Maybe that'll happen when it warms up a bit. :)

I am anxious to get outside and have things start blooming, but it's good to get all the plans finalized first. Otherwise, they would never get finished!

Token- Sounds like you have some big projects! It's nice that your family can help you with the garden. I bet your nephew is quite the little man on the wood splitter :)

Holleygarden- Separate vegetable gardens...LOL. That would be funny. Would yours be a kitchen garden with flowers and your husband prefer the traditional rows of crops? Planning a new rose garden sounds fun. What kind of arbors are you planning to use?

Good subject. Everyone's ideas sound lovely - especially with more snow on the way here. :-(

I'm going to build up the area around my shed a bit. Maybe make a pathway to it with catmint and purple coneflowers on either side. I bought a nice weeping pussy willow on clearance last year, so I've already started on that area. Also going to put in a bird feeder on a pole. Tired of the deer tipping the feeder and eating it all. (Although I love deer too.) :-)

Lilyfinch, I have a chain link fence too. I found sweet pea vines cover it beautifully. I got mine from either Springhill or Michigan Bulb three years ago for a super low price. (I know they're risky companies, but they've always replaced anything that didn't do well and many plants from them have really shined.) Anyway, here's a picture. This is one plant.

{{gwi:634062}}

Scully- I order from them too :)

You're sweet peas are beautiful!

Lavender lass - Separate vegetable gardens would be ridiculous, but he wants rows and I want raised beds, in square shape, three or four placed on the diagonal like diamonds.

Can you tell that he wants vegetables and I want something pretty whether anything grows there or not? lol

I am looking into arbors for my roses. Getting something affordable and durable seems to be quite a feat! A lot of people here at GW make their own, but we are not that talented. :O

I have a mess of new garden projects for this year. My goal is only to complete as much as I can. That includes orchardizing the back yard on one half.
Installing bottle border pathways.
Planting a wetland area mainly with medicinal herbs and native plants
Starting two more food production areas - one for mainly fruit, the other for vegetables.
Fencing all around the entire property.
Two patios installed.
Hopefully by the end of summer an outdoor kitchen too!

My hubby also likes to garden in the ground, I am a raised bed person. So I am planning out a few areas for the things he prefers to grow such as corn (near the wetland, we heard from a farmer his does best there).

I am planning on incorporating a LOT of new shrubs as well, and hopefully vines. Working on the structure of the garden, so hubby can get a better picture of what I am planning.

I think GGG wins. :)

Only complete as much as I can. That's a good way of putting it.

Big plans here too. I took out the raspberries that were no longer producing. Will replace them in a better designed bed. We took down 2 plum trees and one apple tree. They were old and starting to rot. Am going to replace with 2-3 more apple trees. I am going to put raised beds in for veggies. Am getting more blueberries to extend the season. I am also going to put in some Austins. I have other roses, but the Austins look lovely. I will have to enlarge a bed where I already have some HT and Floribundas, with some perrenials to accomadate the new roses I have ordered. I still need to finish the beds I started last year. Only a few hours left there tho.
Jackie

I think I'll build a couple new low stone walls to further enclose the garden and plant more arborvitae for more privacy. If I had them money I'd build a long tall trellis along the property line in the orchard instead of waiting for my little shrubs to get tall. I feel like I'm running out of time.

My goal is not to get ahead of myself! We moved to a new home this fall, so I have ideas running rampant. I managed to get some picket fencing around part of my cottage garden, and get most of the plants that moved with me situated there. It needs a good pathway, and something to extend the fence a little. I was thinking possibly a low hedge of peonies - dh loves those. And then something to mark the entrance, or at least make it inviting.

The cottage garden is on one side of our sunroom, but I don't have a plan on what to do on the other side (where our patio is) yet. I may just do an annual cutting garden there (against the privacy fence) for a while while I focus on the cottage side. Can't do too much at once, unfortunately!

I love hearing what everyone wants to do! Its true the list will never end, but the garden is worth it! I tend to start a project, then move to another, then have a new ida i must try now...and have 3 going at once and none near completion! I hope to get that undercontrol this summer.
Mayblooms, i bet your new house is full of possibilites! It must be fun to start a new garden in a new place.

Scully, i have a pack of seeds for sweet peas, ill defiantly put some on the fence!

Back to day dreaming...

I just move to ND from MN this fall and had to leave my garden at our old house. We have rented out our old house and the guy who is renting says he will not touch it, thank goodness, all I needed was to worry about someone trying to help and pulling things.:O We are staying in a rental and so my dreams are far far away. We plan on buying land and building in 1 or 2 years, hopefully. We have house plans drawn up and I have my garden plans drawn right in with them. Sadly the dirt will likely be clay and just got my dirt back in MN just how I wanted it and now I have to start over. :( After I get the dirt straitened out I plan on a trip to our old house to get what I can of my old garden. So, you see, my plans are FAR FAR away. I do plan on ordering some plants for my deck here at the rental that are in the garden plan so they will be nice size when I am ready to put them in the ground. "CLINK CLINK" Here is to hope!!

I've got two main areas to work on this year - the front, and dd's border. I've got the front mainly planned out - I just need to figure out where I want to buy everything.

Dd's border is more challenging - she has definite opinions, but little experience! (Hey, what do ypou expect from a five year old?). We know she wants roses - we need to finalize those and get them ordered. She also wants more shrubs, I think - I'm thinking maybe viburnum of some sort. I also picked up seeds for hollyhocks (mixed singles), dianthus (mixed) and Shasta Daisies Alaska, and I know we'll be moving some stuff from my main borders, like the overgrown yarrow, some stachys, and a few other things. It's a little weird since she claimed one of the main border spots, not a section far from everything!

Moved to a newly built home in the fall. This will be my first real garden, so I already know that I am biting off way more than I can chew. This weekend the hubs is finishing the fence to keep the pups out of the garden. Our soil is the wonderfully clay soil that grows almost nothing. Hubs insisted on seeding grass on the whole yard so that the pups could run around out there before the fence got up, so I will be fighting with the grass. Also this year, my goal is to lay out my walkways, raise a bed for a vegetable garden, find a home for all of my winter sown babies, learn what these flowers actually look like by name, and convince the hubs that gardening will be fun. :)

I have as usual a ton of garden projects I hope to either A finish or B start! I have been planning planning planning and already started on finishing up some I started in the fall with this beautiful spring like weather we are having right now.

1) Finish layering the lasagna rose and perennial bed I started and am almost finished with from this past fall.
2) Plant the 7 new roses I got last fall and those coming in that bed,and transplant some Becky shasta daisies in their as well.
3) Have DH build me 2 arbors for the side and back yard.(This is the most challenging of all) lol
4) Pressure wash the house and back patio and stain and seal patio. (A major chore!)
5) PLant a cutting garden along my back fence with Zinnias, cosmos, love lies bleeding and thai basil.
6) Build a couple pathways using that cobblestone mold you fill in with concrete. Stone is waaay too expensive around here.
7) Last but not least (I think) I hope to have the money to get a new shed attached chicken coop and rabbit hutch built.

So that is my plan for this coming year! ~Meghan

I think I'm getting radical here. I want to uproot all my plants with exception of the ornamental grasses and a couple of salvias, and plant only a tree and lavenders throughout the bed. Maybe I'll change my mind before the weekend.

Ianna- I think you should go for it! Why garden, unless you can take an idea you see in your head and make it a reality? I think people change their ideas and what they like all the time, at least a little. It's only natural that sometimes what seemed like a good idea, or maybe you really liked a garden when you started, no longer is what you envision for a space.

I know I'm new to gardening, but I think part of the fun is trying new things to see if they work out the way you'd like them to...mixing butterfly bushes with coneflowers in front was a result of buying some perennials on sale, but I really like it. The coreopsis seemed like such a great addition, but didn't work out, so I'm giving it to mom, who loves yellow!

Just my two cents worth, and now I've got one more post to check and then back to work (LOL)

Last year I didn't see very many Monarch butterflies and the few I saw were very late; a month later than usual. So - I am going to devote myself to thinking of those flutter-bys a little more. I already gear the gardens toward having host and nectar plants; but I'm adding to that effort this year.

I'm also adding more reseeders. Guess I'll have to throw away my PDN t-shirt that says "friends don't let friends buy annuals..."

That's the fun stuff to look forward to. I also have to put a new roof on the carriage house and I'm adding a new fence to my 2 year old garden in the front/side yard. I live in town and the city has some specific requirements (Don't they understand I do too!) so I have to really focus on what I want that will be permitted. The city requirements pertain to height, distance from sidewalk percentage of openness; I think I can work within that!

Mickie

Here is the preliminary blueprint I've drawn up...it feels a bit too ambitious...since right now the area is pulverized concrete, dirt, sand and the remains of all our kitchen cabinets...sigh

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Plans

Scottyboipdx, That is one of the loveliest garden plans I have seen. Mine are always just scribbles in a notebook! I love how you're going to divide the driveway and make a seating area behind the shed. Great use of that space!

You all have some wonderful plans for the spring/summer. I enjoyed reading all of your ambitious lists. May you all have good rainfall, sunny days and enjoyable evenings!

My plans:
Delete the long bed along the fence, in front of the house. Plant grass in it's place.

Build a few more raised beds in the back yard for vegetables.

Plant more live mulch (ground covers) in the cottage bed to help keep the weeding to a minimum.

Plant more grass seed in the farmyard around the house to help cut down on weeds.

Paint the soffits on the house, if, I get up enough nerve to climb a ladder.

RV as much as possible. We are hoping to make a trip to Washington State, to visit DD1 and family, this summer. And with a new grand baby due any day now, I'll probably be heading for the city a lot too!

MeMo

This is great reading about everyone's plans. When I'm snowed in during the winter I always think about all the ambitious plans for the garden. I usually have one big project going on (last year it was the new backyard area where we did manage to get about 13 trees and 60 or so shrubs planted).

This year I'm going to work on moving more plant material into that area (it's a pretty large area and I like to plant fairly close so I don't have to mulch). I have about 35 shrubs to relocate into that area and then bunches of perennials will be moved in. I really need to get my daylilies divided (which is my resolution in the New Year Resolution thread, so I must get that done this year....been thinking about doing it for about three). I'm going to divide them and then plant multiple divisions of the same daylily together in the backyard to give big impacts of color.
My mom and I are heading to Paris in the late spring (with a trip to Monet's garden), so I need to curtail my garden spending which is why I'm hoping to do more transplanting in the garden as opposed to buying more plant material.

Now for all my questions!!

LL- do you find any herbs in particular keep the deer away. I've heard they really don't like lavender. Do the herbs keep them away from the garden, or do they just not eat those particular plants?

Token, are all those WS soda bottles in your picture on the other thread for your meadow garden?

Hollygarden, I think I like your plan better than your DH's! Raised diagonal beds sound great!

Scully, I love that sweet pea vine. How long does it bloom?

GGG, what is a "bottle border" pathway?

@ thyme2dig, I was wondering the same thing, and I've been seeing bottle borders mentioned in a few forums recently. Below is a link that might be useful.

I need to figure out where I am going to put all the winter sown babies I am preparing to sow.

I would like to figure out how to make borders that are not straight lines, rectangles, or boxes. Connected to this, is finding border-making materials that are inexpensive to free.

We have lived in our house for over a decade, and I have not been successful at finding flowers that will grow under/within the drip line of a HUGE (80 yr old? 100 yr old?) maple. Annabelles and hostas work, lilies survive but don't thrive. With winter sowing, I figure something I grow has gotta work there one of these years. :)

cheers,
Norabelle

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:634061}}