Most of the plants we have are xerics that are grouped and then surrounded by expanses landscaping pebbles, so I really have to have a good reason, or just really-really want to do it to transplant anything. Nevertheless, I do have one L-shaped area along the front porch that is mulched rather than pebbled, and this is reserved as my 'experimental' plot. Some of the things we planted after we first moved in just didn't work so we moved them, and others inadvertently got dug up by the neighbor's puppy or our kitties. It gives me an excuse to keep going back to the Santa Fe nurseries and buying more! I also have a little tweaking I can do with a strip along the back of the house that isn't pebbled. We moved several plants this month that matured into much bigger plants than we had realized they'd be. It's difficult to envision how they'll look when you buy them as young and scrawny as we do, even considering the dimensions the tags indicate, so some tweaking and moving is inevitable I guess.

I think gardens are always in a state of flux. Some plants don't like where they're planted, some like it too much. Some get attacked by pests, eaten by deer and rabbits, trampled by kids and dogs, damaged by Mother Nature.

Gardens aren't static, like furniture. You don't have to coax a sofa to cover an arbor, or prune an ottoman or provide shade to a coffee table.

It's completely normal and reasonable to move things about in a garden.

seagrass

Wouldn't it be nice if you could arrange your garden like your LR? I tell my DH that when we win the lottery, I'm going to hire (a) a cook (b) a gardener -- someone who will rearrange the plants exactly the way I want them.

Oh, and I went looking for a picture of a "sofa garden" and when I googled the phrase, I found a store called "Sofa Garden"! They specialize in funny sofa pillows, like this one:

{{!gwi}}

Sorry for the hijack... carry on!

There is nothing wrong with a little ADHD of the garden variety :-)
Cheers!

I do it, too! Last fall I bought six small trees and moved them around a bunch of times. What I like about decorating the outdoors is being outdoors. I much prefer going to nurseries than furniture stores. Much more relaxing.

Yes but your sofa doesn't die if it gets too much sun.

Although.... sometimes it might be useful if sofas did die...

yes.

We have moved sooo many shrubs and trees. Some have required a backhoe (fortunately we have a good neighbor who has a backhoe in his barn). It is a constant thing we do.

Constantly! Much worse than inside, in fact. The sofa doesn't grow...it just feels too big all the time! ;-)

I have even dug up and moved plants 1500 miles between summer and winter homes -- exotic coleus I couldn't get down here, a passiflora I was growing as an annual in MA, even a window box herb garden planted for me by a friend for my birthday. I limited myself to three milk crates which I would carry into the hotel room every night so the plants wouldn't die.

I move plants around all the time. On Monday, I moved a nepeta over by only ONE FOOT! I just needed to balance that particular vignette of plants!

We had some plants left from where I was selling to raise money for greyhound rescue this weekend. I had to do some rearranging to fit the leftovers into my garden.

Cameron (garden obsessed)

Here is a link that might be useful: my gardening blog

I have a climbing rose that is over 10 years old and is only a couple feet tall with just two canes...that's because I dig the poor thing up every other year and plant it in another place! My garden is like a conveyer belt the way plants move around here.

DH and I just spent the weekend digging up shrubs I had put in last year and putting in new ones. When the neighbours came over and said "what the heck are you doing?" DH just smiled and said that gardening was one of those process things rather than a destination thing. Which I thought was very nice of him, since he had looked at me like I was insane when I said the shrubs weren't working and we'd have to change them.

Now, what to do with 3 golden elders?

I think I will have to show him this thread so he knows he's not alone.

I am constantly transplanting, rearranging, and reconfiguring my garden. Much, much more than I ever do indoors! As others have noted, a garden is in a constant state of change anyway--plants get larger, die off, blooms fade, and there are often changes in light, rainfall, etc. that require rearrangement.

Imagine this: My daughter has a job this spring and summer working at a local plant nursery. She is allowed to bring home plants--annuals and perennials--that are broken or struggling in some way. We are both avid gardeners, so it's no problem bringing those plants back to a state of health. To say nothing about her employee discount, which has tempted me to buy several specimens I have lusted after... My garden has never been in such a state of plenty, and I have never had so much gardening to do, putting in plants, enlarging beds, and moving things around!

OK, I'm feeling better now. And wondering it I should move the three digitalis that I planted yesterday up to the raised bed. But then that would through off the arrangement of the azelias that I moved to offset the digitalis.....

Amy, I think you win, though, with moving plants from home to home, though I could see myself doing that as well... if I had a vacation home.

I love gardening and it is fascinating to me how some of the same principles that we use with our decor regarding color, scale and proportion work for the garden as well. It's just that we need to wait for the plants to grown and prune to the best shape! I'm also realizing that those with beautiful gardens have evolved over time through years of attention and care. You cannot just relandscape and be done with it. A few houses in our neighborhood did just that and now they are looking a little ratty. Every beautiful garden that I see, I always see the homeowners working in it--and not the mow-and-blow gardeners.

I am looking on this as a grand experiment. When we bought our house almost 20 years ago there were all these little "decorative" stones in the back and front, basically a low maintenance/water landscape. It just stiffled creativity as we could never plant anything. First we dug up the front and last year finally got rid of the rest of the rock in the back. Problem is, I found my landscapers had burried some on the rocks in one of my beds so everytime I transplant, I am digging out more of the little red rocks.

Read any gardening book and they all say the same thing....a garden is never finished.There are always things dying, needing pruning or perennials that need to be split and planted elsewhere.With the exception of probably the first two years or so once you can see how the garden is developing the itch starts to start moving things, either more shade or more sun.Sort of like thinking this room needs something...new paint perhaps. lol

WE have a deck and two patios, which all have pots. It is these pots between 20-30 all told that I have fun trying out different combinations every year and as such get moved around. NO my garden proabably changes more often than the inside of my house.Plus I can move those pots by myself but no so much the furniture.