Does your garden have good bones?

When you’re designing a garden, there’s a great way to tell if you’re on track.  Since it’s going to take a few years to fill out a garden anyway, AND since you’re not going to be doing much in the winter, use that time to check out your plan.  I call it the “bones” of a garden.

Your garden should look good year ’round.  I know you won’t be spending much time in it in the winter, but you’ll still see it, and it should give you many of the benefits that it gives you the rest of the year:  calm, peace, satisfaction, yadayadayada.

The bones are made up of those things that stay all year long — the trees, bushes, sculptures, paths, arbors — and anything else that stays.

Take a walk through your flowerless (and maybe leafless) garden.  Does it flow?   Is your eye led from one area to the next?

Do you need some color?  To start, how about green?   As in evergreen.   Evergreen hedges and trees not only provide privacy but do great things for promoting and protecting wildlife.  And how about red, as in berries?    Color and food for the birds.

Arbors and trellises are great year round additions.  Cover them with evergreen vines.

The best gardens are gardens that look good all year long, even without flowers, even covered with snow.

Filed under: Planning a Garden, Urban Gardening