A fragrance garden sounds lovely and it's something I've thot about. I find tho that having various scented flowers throughout my garden works well. Even the flat of petunias I placed in several areas last year scented my entire garden beautifully.

I have thot about doing an all white garden which would look lovely at night, especially with careful lighting. However for this year I have enough to do so won't even think about it - for this year at least.

Last year I added a shade garden and a rose garden and thot that would be all I'd (ever) add. The garden is already large enough. *However* as many gardeners I probably don't know when enough is enough! I always plant some herbs in with the flowers and am definitely planning to grow more herbs as well as other edibles altho not sure what yet. I'll probably mix them in with the flowers wherever I can find space.

We often sit on the deck which is well above the garden in the late afternoon and it's very pleasant. By the time the sun sets there are too many mosquitoes to enjoy being outdoors.

How do you plan to grow jasmine in your climate? I don't find my lavender or mint really scent the garden much altho I loved running my hands over the large potted lavender (zone 8/9 plant) I had last year. The scent was fantastic. It's still surviving indoors so hope to enjoy it again on the deck. Perhaps you could do the same with jasmine.

Luckygal- You have such beautiful gardens! I can see why it's hard not to add a few more :)

I love star jasmine, but it is an annual, here, so if/until I get a greenhouse, I won't have any climbing over an arbor.

The last few years, I've tried the star jasmine from Lowe's, which are very nice (and fragrant) and put them in pots, with the white petunias. They're very pretty together and really light up the corners of the porch.

My mom got a few jasmine, too...but has managed to winter hers over in the kitchen, as you suggest. I might try that next year, which might let them get a little bigger, but still able to take them outside, in the summer.

I've had wonderful luck (so far) with my Hidcote lavender...and it has a lovely fragrance! I have several plants in the front garden and along the corner, and when you walk by in the summer heat, you can really smell them! Very nice :)

{{gwi:251323}}

The spearmint has a wonderful fragrance, but only when I pick some.

What a lovely pic ll! I would love to edge a path with lavender, but am leaning toward catmint since it blooms forever.
I think the garden I'd like to add is a small veggie and herb garden. I don't have any growing yet and since I'm learning how to cook now I realize the value of one! But I'm not sure where to add one . Also I am no where near close to finished with my back garden I just fenced in last year so I'll be working hard on that. I will be adding a birdbath (makes 2 back there), and lots of roses. I also plan for lots of fragrance too. I have been looking online for some lilac cultivars so I can have a couple different colors of lilacs as well. I may only have room for 2 since they get so large tho!
I think my favorite time in the garden is the evening As the sun goes down. I love how the bees start to slow down and fragrance starts to be released. Love a good glass of wine while watching the day come to a close!

Ps, not related, but my iPad seems to not run this site too smoothly so I get to read everyones post but not often can I post back. But I'm here planning along with you! :)

Last fall I started a fern walk in the woods, I intend to continue that this spring. There will be a lot more native shrubs and dwarf conifers added to the woods garden this year, and I had started a "stream" of grape hyacinths a couple of years ago, which I would like to further landscape with rocks along the edge and a some species hostas, carex and wildflowers.

At least, that's the plan!

LL - beautiful pic of your lavender.

And a fern walk sounds so enticing!

I am thinking of a little conversation area surrounded by flowers, and possibly another area like that fairly far away from the house, a 'destination' area.

The main thing I need, though, is a good pathway to these areas. I would like to put stones (or concrete squares or something cheap) as a trail to these areas, but need to put them flush to the ground so DH can mow over them. I'm thinking a grass cutter is the way to go, and fill in around the stones. I'm certain DH won't think that's necessary, but I don't want to bury every step in our hard clay by hand!

I've been trying for years to figure out what I can plant on the septic side of our yard, and still haven't decided. Guess that's a project for another year.

A white garden would be cool, but I only have so much space.
My veggies take a lot of room. Maybe if I get more organized.
I would also like a shade garden, but I have very little of that,
but I still ordered coleus seed, lol.

lilyfinch I can picture your favorite time in the garden. Sounds
lovely. Here we have so many mosquitos, especially at dusk,
but I do love to look up in the night sky at the stars. The mosquites
must be asleep at night.
My favorite time in the garden is in the morning when the birds are
singing so happy.

I enlarged the island beds in my lawn last fall when things froze (It made me feel like I was still gardening) so this year will be spent filling them in with perennials, shrubs and annuals. I've been using peonies instead of roses because the deer haven't eaten them. I'd like to add more peonies. Holleygarden - I have a septic line that runs down the side of my back deck. I placed 5 wine barrels with lattice squares next to each other over the septic line instead of planting shrubs. No worries about roots and if I have to dig up the line, just empty the wine barrel. The lattice square works as a rail for the deck and I'm going to plant black eyed susan vines on them this year. Lavender Lass how do you keep your lavender growing from year to year? We have the same zone-4 but I haven't met anyone in my area that can grow lavender it. It freezes to hard here! Do you mulch, cover them? They are beautiful!!!

I second (or fifth) the lavender, even though it's hard to figure out how to grow, if you can get it right,... the smell is heavenly.

And on the subject of roses, I must pimp my favorite, Jude the Obscure. It's so very wonderful. The smell is so great I convinced two coworkers to buy it just from bringing a bloom into work and my whole office smelled delightfully like it.

This year, for me, I'd really just like to continue working on the garden that I have. It's only my second year of having it and I'm still learning about plants and caring for things properly. I'd like to get my arbor in the next month or so and transplant a few roses.
... though, I did just remember, I did want to add that mostly Hybrid Tea small bed in the front yard. Guess I should find a landscaper soon to help me put in the irrigation for it! (I've pretty much given up on my older landscaper, he's too flakey...)

eventually I'd like to have shade gardens on the sides of my house,... but I get stressed out even thinking about that. So that'll have to wait for another year.

I haven't posted on GW for a long time but couldn't resist this topic. I am starting all over AGAIN with new yard in a new state. I never thought that gardening in Alaska would be so different then gardening in northern Minnesota. We bought a little piece of property that just screams secret garden visions. We have been conscentrating on cleaning up the property (quite overgrown) and figuring out drainage, native plants ect. I have visions of tucking in some rose bushes, peonies and lilies in and around some of the clumps of native ferns. I haven't lived here long enough to know what smells will carry in our cool maritime climate. But...it is all good!

It's fun reading about what everyone is thinking about for their gardens this year.

I didn't have any plans for a new garden until I read Mosswitch's post. I have so many woods around my house and am not ready to move onto the next big phase of my garden (a secret English garden) that the idea of planting some woodland plants in the woods sounds very appealing to me. Looks like I now have a plan!

Glad to be of inspiration! I forgot I have one other project....my new hosta bed. But then, I always have a new hosta bed in the works!

Sandy

Its not so much adding a new garden, as the garden bed is already there with some plants in it, but is hasn't gotten almost any attention and I'd really like to work it over this summer. I first envisioned it as a "red bed" but have decided to expand a little. I want red flowers, red foliage but also dark foliage, lime foliage, dark flowers and just a couple light yellows and whites thrown in. No pink or purple at all (the dominate the rest of the garden). So far the garden contains Roses "Night Owl" and "Happy Child", Barberry "Royal Burgundy", Ninebark "Coppertina", Heuchera "Pistache", Weigela "Midnight Wine", Penstemon "Husker red", Lobelia "Queen Victoria", Iris "Immortality" (white), and a couple really nice pale daffodils.

If anyone has any suggestions for flowers/foliage to check out that would fit the colour scheme, I'm all ears :)

I plan to extend my front slope garden bed which I have posted about before. Kudos where they are due, it was inspired by Susan/Thyme's gorgeous front slope garden. This year, as I was digging it up closer toward the house, I did run into gravel over landscape cloth that I later found out is part of the septic leech field(?). So no shrubs or plants with big roots there. The field stops about halfway lengthwise. I'll plant Benary giant rose-collored zinnia mixed with cosmos for height there. And where it stops, I'll put my red twig dogwood and flowering almond -- the two shrubs I have decided to buy for this spring. I'll tuck in more boxwood for accents of green, and add more purple-leaved heuchera and purple sedum. I had to make a small vertical path up to the house thru this bed for the oil delivery guy. On the other side of this path, I got a big (for me) smoke bush, and planted lots of pale yellow daffodil bulbs that I can't wait to greet this spring. I REALLY want to do a stream of blue crocus twining around this bush and up toward the house -- someone did a great post on this in the fall, does anyone recall it? But alas, it was too late for me, all the crocus bulbs were sold out. Ahh, next year. All this doesn't sound too ambitious, does it? Right now, all my plants are sleeping beneath a big thick blanket of Conn. snow. It's up over my knees in the backyard. At least two feet. It is the perfect time to dream and plan. My only outdoor chores are shoveling and filling the birdfeeder. And another storm on the way this Wed! Enough! So it is GOOD to think about spring.
lucia

No chance of adding anything to my tiny plot. It's already full to the brim.

If you can see the link (not sure if it's possible in the US) you might find some inspiration.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ideas

Aimeekitty, I have Jude the Obscure too. LOVE it. I think it is the citrus tones that intoxicate. Well my new garden plan is to use hardy Geraniums as companion plants threw out the garden. I emailed Geraniaceae.com,a specialty Geranium nursery, for advice. The owner told me of a fantastic book, Gardening With Hardy Geraniums by Birgitte Husted Bendtsen. I got a used copy from Amazon. When I finish reading it this week I will be making a good sized order at Geraniaceae which has a huge selection. They have good prices too. $1 to $5 less per plant then many of the good multi plant nursery's online. I have tried many companion plants that have grown bigger then listed and not worked. With the variety of size and growth habit of the hardy geraniums, I am hoping I have found the workhorse of the garden that will unify my cottage garden. I stuff the garden as weed control which is another plus to having a plant with so many forms.

I want to plant lots of Ox-eye daisies in the orchard, line both sides of a wide path with them. Maybe some annuals mixed in like Bachelor Buttons or Pin Cushion Flower. I want it to look natural, but I know I'll have to till up at least some soil in order to plant the seed. The area is all grass and weeds now.