I am planting a personal cutting garden this year as well. I used the "plans for cutting gardens" from Gardener's Supply Co. as a jumping off point. My garden is a mix of perennials & annuals, although heavier on the annuals. Among the perennials I have yarrow (achillea), coreopsis, shasta daisy, dianthus, echinacea, scabiosa, lavendar, campanula. I have also included glads & dahlias. I had plans for more bulbs, but my budget wouldn't allow them this year. I did almost everything from seed. There is a plan for a perennial cut-flower garden here: http://gardening.about.com/od/gardendesignplans/ig/Perennial-Cutting-Garden/Perennial-Cutting-Garden.--d0.htm and another here: http://erthturf.com/DesignsPerennialGardensCutflower.html Also, there are lots of books with plans & ideas at the library. Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: plans for a cutting garden

I would ready my beds now Get weeds out and a good layer of compost on them) and them stock it with bulbs this fall. THen in spring you can put the flowers and shrubs in over the bulbs. There is just nothing like a nice display of tulips and daffodils, alliums (If they grow in your zone) and all the other "Minor" bulbs. This fall you could also start a patch of sweet william and some foxglove and any other biennial plants like columbine. THey will stay small this fall but bloom next spring and summer. Next summer you will want some of the neon dianthus (Too bad, they are only annuals! Gorgeous bright cherry and grape colors on thick healthy stems! I also love Orlaya for a lacy white flower. I would recommend one plant of highland white dreams daisy from Wayside (You wil have more in a couple of years if you love them as much as I do! Leave room for some sweet peas, zinnias, sunflowers and batchelor buttons in the summer...Just a few of each will give you lovely bouquets. IN the shady area I would grow ferns, hydrangeas if they work where you are, and other woodland type flowers. Maybe hostas would do well? IN the sunny area, think about trellising some flowers then they take up little ground space. A nice hardy rose that will be fragran most of the summer would be top notch! And then there are the lilies...plant every kind of lily that grows in your climate! THey will bring you more joy then you can imagine! FInally, tuck in a chrysanthemum and some autumn joy sedum for late fall bloom. And maybe a tall blue perennial astor or a lovely dainty white like Monte Casino. Ummm, Isn't it LOVELY!

Shasta - here's my list - Doreen. Flowers Columbine – red [canadensis] Cosmos – orange Hibiscus [hardy] – Cherry red/Luna pink/Luna white Million gold Mina lobata Pepper, Ornamental [capsicum annum] Phlox [hardy] – white,pink & lavender mix w/ bicolors Rudbeckia - Autumn Sun [r.herbstonne] Rudbeckia triloba [prairie coneflower] Vegetables & herbs Broccoli – Calabrese green sprouting Carrot – Nantes coreless Catnip Chicory – Blue southishe Dill Lettuce – Buttercrunch Peas – Sugar snap/Little marvel Pepper , bell – yellow/orange Pumpkin – Jack O'Lantern Radish – early Scarlet globe Spinach – Bloomsdale longstanding Thyme Tomato [heirloom] – Black Krim/Solar Flare/Hillbilly/Wins All/Great white beefsteak/Beauty king/Pineapple/Paul Robeson Turnip – Purple top white globe Vines Clematis – sweet autumn Hyacinth bean - white Morning glory - mix [includes Milky Way, Grandpa Ott, ivy-leaf blue, Crimson rambler and various others] /Grandpa Ott/Orange Nah Pea vine – white butterfly Trumpet vine – orange/red Trees/Shrubs Crepe myrtle Hydrangea - white [Annabelle] Rose of Sharon – single pink w/dark eye/purple

Snuffles, How's your longan doing now? The little plant there looks gorgeous--leaves are healthy and blooms fantastic. If you decide to keep the blooms, I hope you get some fruit forming for you. I would keep the blooms too .. just because blooms aren't always guaranteed year on year. Right now, I have got 3 juvenile longans growing in the ground. One of them actually isn't too juvenile. I got it 9 years ago when it was about 2-3 ft tall. So, it must be about more than 10 years old now. I planted it in the ground at first, but it kept getting sick with white flies. So, I dug it out again and nursed it to health. A couple of years back, I planted it back into the ground and since then it has grown to 8 ft tall with a lot more new leaves, but the white flies came back to attack it. Now that it's bigger, I think it's also more hardy to withstand the white flies attack. I used to clean the sticky stuff off the leaves, but now that it's bigger, it's hard to do that. Anyway, here's a picture of it bearing some fruit now: Longan Kohala at 8 ft now: close up of the little fruit formation: The second longan I have is a Biew Kiew (slightly more than 5 ft tall). I'm guessing the age is less 5-7 years. It was blooming last year, but I got no fruit from it. This year, no sign of any blooms. Longans have a habit of growing long floppy limps. I just chopped off two of the lanky limps in the middle. If you look closely, you'll see the old dark green leaves beneath the new flushes that shot up. Here's a third longan which is also a Biew Kiew. It's a little over 5 ft too. No blooms this year. The problem I noticed a while ago was this tree was in a "frozen" state, meaning the little budding shoots from last year got dried out. I was waiting to see if they would grow, but they never did, so I decided to rub them off the branches. A few weeks later, I saw lots of new flushes coming up. So, I did learn something new. I was having so much troubles with my lychees and decided to pay more attention to my longans to see if they will perform better for me. At least, with the lychees, they are pretty pest free except for web worms ... which unfortunately is prevalent when there are mature hard wood trees around. Oh yeah, we have some humongous Oak trees around here ... lol. I hope you enjoy your little longan tree now and hope it'll do well for you in the years to come.