Garden Design - Abundance

[maryinkentucky]

I watch a garden TV Show hosted by P. Allen Smith in which he talks about the 12 principles of garden design. One of them is *Abundance* which I've had occasion to notice recently.

1. Last month I visited Amish Country in Western Kentucky. I noticed that several homes had just one plant used in abundance for a standout display. At one home there were celosia planted along an entire fencerow. Another home had sweet potato vine covering a huge area.

2. Today I moved my ferns indoors, and I suddenly realized I have several plants in "abundance." I divided my ferns, repotted them, and moved them to my indoor plant room. I think I ended up with at least 12 ferns after throwing several away. I also have an abundance of geraniums, angel wing begonias and coleus. I plan to take cuttings of the begonias and coleus for next year. I'll try to keep the geraniums indoors in their original pots and take a few cuttings next spring. I seem to do better with them just buying healthy nursery stock in the spring.

[ragdall]

Mary,
It sounds as if you have many plants in abundance.

My abundance has to be on a small scale. This year it was geraniums and petunias.

rags

[ragdall]

Mary,
I'm going with the abundance idea. Yesterday I bought 100 tulip bulbs at half price. They're all large and in good condition. It could snow any day now so the stores are getting rid of the bulbs as fast as they can.

I spent this afternoon tearing plants out of a flowerbed in my back yard in an attempt to get rid of the Creeping Bellflower that's been taking over. I've cleared about 1/3 of that bed. I'll be replacing the soil with compost as soon as I've had a chance to go through what's left, in daylight, and remove any roots that may have been left behind. I hope that I can get the rest of that bed cleared and composted tomorrow. Then I can plant my bulbs and hope for an abundant tulip display in May and June.

rags

[ragdall]

Because of rainy days and because I'm just plain slow, it took me until November 7th to complete that one flower bed in the back yard.



I planted about 80 new tulip bulbs in there as well as returning about 25 bulbs that I salvaged when I disposed of the top six to eight inches of soil and plants. In all, I bought 150 half price bulbs this fall. The rest of them were planted in two beds on the street side of the house and the bed along the back wall of the house. If they all bloom it should be an abundant display.

rags