Plants And Your Soil.

The purpose of your soil in your garden is growing plants. You might wish to be utterly predictable, with turf grasses forming a central lawn which is edged with borders and spotted with flower beds. These beds and borders are filled up with shrubs and bedding plants. You will almost certainly find room for some Rose bushes along with a woody climber or two for your walls of the house. For many the lure of home-grown vegetables is irresistible.

This standard pattern of the suburban garden is slowly altering, flowering shrubs, evergreen ground covers and small trees are gaining popularity, plus the classical herbaceous border is losing its appeal.

You may wish to depart from your routine pattern. There are people who devote their front gardens to alpines and bulbs, others create Rose gardens, some create natural gardens with shrubs and wild flowers, and there will be the organized chaos of your cottage garden with its herbs, annuals and old-fashioned perennials.

The choice of plants for you to choose from is quite staggering. The catalogue of a seed nurseryman contains thousands of varieties, the list of a general nurseryman is all the more bewildering with all of its shrubs, trees, climbers, herbaceous border plants, alpines, and so forth. A stroll around a modern garden centre is a most pleasurable experience which was denied to our ancestors, but it is also a perplexing job when the object is to choose a number of plants that will be right for your garden.

You may think the choice is up to you. It is simply a matter of liking the picture in the catalogue or the specimen at the garden centre. Well, no it isn't - there are actually a number of factors which must be considered if you do not want to waste a lot of time and money, and some of the factors are outside of your control.

Follow the step-by-step guide below so as to make sure the plants you would like growing will thrive in your garden. You need the right plant from the right supplier.

Step 1. Will you need a lasting feature or a short-lived display? Trees and shrubs are employed to establish the permanent living skeleton of your garden. Hardy perennials will live in the garden for many years, but they do die down in your winter. Annuals are for short-term display only. Will you want a labour-saving plant? Herbaceous perennials and 'hobby plants' such as Dahlias and Chrysathemums require much more work - staking, feeding, dead-heading, dividing etc. Most shrubs and trees require just a little yearly maintenance, but well-timed pruning may be a necessity. If want leaves to remain over winter? Choose evergreen, but it is not always the best plant to grow. A Garden filled up with evergreens can look dull and unchanging - deciduous plants add an additional dimension with fresh leaves opening in the spring and changing colours in autumn.

Step 2. Choose the correct plant type. What shape and size will be suitable? One of the commonest mistakes in gardening is to buy a plant which at adulthood is much too large for the space available. Cutting back yearly means that both natural beauty and floral display can be lost. Always check the expected height before purchasing. What will the growing conditions be like? Check if your plant has clear-cut requirements with regard to sunshine, temperature, soil, lime tolerance, drainage and soil moisture. Some plants are remarkably tolerant of extreme climatic and soil conditions, others are not. Nearly all annuals will want full sun, rockery perennials demand good drainage and Pieris, rhododendron, Camellia, Calluna and Pernettya loathe lime.

Step 3. Is money your main factor? Seed purchased in packets or saved out of your own plants is easier on the pocket, but it might take years to raise a shrub or herbaceous perennial using this method. Rooted cuttings taken from plants in the garden are another cheap source of plant material. If simplicity is the main consideration, containers have revolutionized planting out. Just choose a container grown specimen at any time of the year, dig a hole in the garden and pop it in. But containers arent quite that straightforward, but they are surely probably the most convenient and 'instant' of all plant materials.

Step 4. As a general rule you get what you pay for, but this does not mean that there is a 'best' supplier for all situations. A 'bargain offer' from a mail order nursery might be the correct choice if you are short of cash and have a big space to fill with common, garden shrubs, but in many cases it is preferable to see what you are purchasing beforehand, and it is definitely wise to seek out a supplier with an excellent reputation.