After all the planning and placement decisions, this, for many of us is our exciting annual gardening pleasure. Planting!

There are so many types of planting areas to enjoy and unlike hedges and trees they can be more readily subject to our whims and fancies each year.  Shrubs like trees, are less moveable but it can be done. Hopefully by now, if you were starting from scratch with your garden design, you know where you want to plant and if you are amending what you already have, these next pointers still apply. Also hopefully the soil has been amended to form a good crumbly loam or as good as you can make it.  Refer to the previous articles on Soil Structure if you need to.

Make your beds big enough to accommodate mature plant sizes. The smallest planting area might be a pot or a narrow border. The biggest might be a long deep border of mixed shrubs, perennials and maybe some annuals. I tend to keep the annuals for the pots and for fillers in the perennial border.

A large border needs structure and winter interest, so it is a good idea to put some shrubs in the border to add height, backdrop, shape and form. A mixed perennial and or shrub border really needs to be at minimum six feet deep and ten feet long. Bigger is better and will give you the flexibility for rhythm and repetition. For a smaller planting area plants need to be smaller in scale to suit the space.

Plan for colour, different heights, textures, successional interest and bloom times. If the planting is deer accessible, that needs to be planned for also. All the elements that were introduced to the general design apply to individual plantings so you are looking for some patterning, unifying elements, rhythm and year round interest.

Generally speaking in a mixed border, tall plants and shrubs will be planted at the back or middle if there are paths both sides and move to the front in descending heights until you reach low edging plants. It is a good idea to scale up the planting area and draw it. Check for the mature size of the plants you would like to put in and draw ovals or circles to scale to represent the plants. Colour them in with the flowering colour and note the time of flowering.  A brand new planting area may look scant the first year and weeds will creep in. The blank areas can be weeded or annuals can be planted to fill the holes until everything matures. Mulching with fine bark mulch will help weed suppression.

I must mention landscape fabric at this point. I do not recommend using it. Weeds will eventually grow over it and through it. It will eventually become uncovered, flap in the wind, and look unsightly. Far better to either mulch really well, keep weeding or keep the bed smaller and more manageable. It can always be made bigger later if you planned for that.  Once the plants are established weeds will not be such a chore especially if you work at them the first few years. Landscape fabric is not good either for the soil food web that lives beneath the surface. Worms cannot access the dead plant material to incorporate into the soil and landscape fabric being black, heats the soil beyond normal temperatures. It also reduces air circulation to the roots.

 There are many styles of planting beds; shrub border, perennial border, formal annual border, single plant type border e.g. Dahlias only, prairie planting, Asian style border, shade border, sunny border, vegetable garden, grasses only, etc.

For now I will focus on a mixed border. It is a good idea to make an inventory of the plants you do have and the plants you would like. If you are new to gardening, start visiting the internet catalogues. Be sure to check the recommended zones for all plants. You may choose the try some perennials listed for higher zones but be prepared to only enjoy them for one year. If they survive and surprise you – fantastic, that is always a real joy.

There are so many plants to choose from and choosing is the fun part. All the plants I spotlight on this blog are plants I know well and all, so far, grow in my zone three garden.

I have hundreds of plants to talk about but a basic example might be three shrubs and three perennials that could be planted in repetition and make a fabulous sunny border.

Shrubs; Forsythia, spring interest; Roses, summer interest;  Euonymous. Fall interest. There are different varieties of these shrubs so you would look for sizes to fit your border and you might have to reduce the shrubs to just one type depending on the length of the planting area.

Perennials; Cushion Spurge spring interest short; Delphiniums summer interest, tall; Fall Asters, fall interest medium height.  All these perennials can be started from seed if you start early enough giving you several of the same plant.

I will focus on particular planting lists for different areas in the future but this is the time to plan those planting areas. Here are some different borders for inspiration.

Most of these types of beds could be underplanted with bulbs for spring interest. Once the flowers and foliage has died down the perennial foliage grows up and covers them.

Lists help when planning these borders but so does your heart. Zone rating, mature height, width, bloom time, colour, deer resistance and visual appeal to meet your style will be your main deciding factors of what you plant.

A very old imperfect sketch to illustrate planning a fairly narrow border.