As if I don’t already have my own plans in mind, here are MORE to peruse. I haven’t looked through these myself, afraid I’ll see something that will take me another direction and get me started on YET another project/path. But I wanted to keep them here as reference, in case I have one of those days when I draw up a blank. Hasn’t happened yet, but you never know .

Right now, on my personal plan list: a butterfly garden and a cutting garden, in addition to the all-over-the-place Mary garden-herb-veggie-flower garden. Other things on my mind that I’ve been toying with: a Stations of the Cross garden, a “name” garden (for family members’ names), a Bible garden, etc., etc. Haha! We don’t even have enough land to have all these different gardens. Oh, and I’ve been checking out indoor gardens too. I’ve never had me one of those, because inside the house I’ve earned a Master’s Degree in Killing Plants. Even that one plant our friend gave me for my birthday, which he PROMISED I couldn’t kill, died a slow death under my care (or lack thereof).

Garden Plans.com
More from GardenPlans
From Better Homes and Gardens — WARNING: the pop-ups can get annoying!
Landscape Design Site (some annoying ads here too)
from Gardening.About.com
Garden Designer
Garden Plans from BlossomSwap
Creating a Butterfly Garden from the U of Minnesota

I have updated (most of ) my flower seed exchange list at Gardenweb. Check it out and let me know if you’d like to trade!

I’m also making another database for seeds that I have (not just the Mary Garden one) — heh, wouldn’t it be neat to find Mary names for ALL the plants, including oriental vegetables… I’m compiling name, height, spacing requirement, sun requirement, water requirement, companion plant recommended, bloom season, and type (annual/perennial) on a spreadsheet.

Once the spreadsheet is done, I’ll group them according to sun and water requirements, then we’ll draw up a plan. At our last house, I had the kids measure the whole lot, the house, etc. then we drew the plan on grid paper. After that they lost interest and I did the planning myself.

This time around I’ll have them draw the plan themselves (great geometry lesson!), then we’ll cut up the plan into sections, assign a child or two to each section, cut up colored pieces of paper to represent the plants, and have them plan the garden themselves, giving them a general guideline (tall plants at back or center, shorter ones in front or around). I’d like a mix of veggies, herbs and flowers in each site, except for the ones nearest the road. The goal is a mix of edible landscaping and a 4-season tribute to Mary.

At lunch the other day, I thought I’d ask the kids’ suggestions for WHAT OUR YARD *REAAAAALLLY* NEEDS. I honestly was expecting them to say “swimming pool” (not that we would have complied) seeing how much they enjoyed themselves at the pool on our most recent hotel stay. Instead, they surprised me by saying they needed/wanted a TREE HOUSE. I’ve wanted one for a while but they were a bit too small to help out and dh and I don’t really want to do it all ourselves. We want them to invest themselves and their effort if we were to undertake a project such as this. LOL, the ideas they came up with! Aisa wants a treehouse with a floorplan to match the garden path below surrounding a honey locust tree, so that people can walk on the path, under the treehouse, AND be able to climb up the treehouse. Paco says this isn’t a good idea because even if we cut out all the locust thorns before building, they’ll re-grow every year and it will be a pain to maintain. Wise words. He wants to use the black walnut tree instead, and has made a list of design features — e.g., three levels, spiral staircase, etc. Yena and Migi both have their drawings as well. Who knows when we’ll get started on this, but I’ve put it on the project file and will review every week until we’ve got things ironed out enough to pick a start date. Sigh…. so many projects, so little time… I feel like I’ve written that numerous times before.

One book that I read recently was Perennial Vegetables — the idea of a 4-season harvest just sounds so good! I’ve made a preliminary list of things that I might try, but while most of the suggestions there sound attractive especially to a culinary nut like me who wants to try everything — some of the plants are just not practical at all. Imagine planting vegetables that you’ll have to cook 9 hours in a pressure cooker! It may be fun to grow, but I’m not sure I want to use that much fuel cooking something when I can have healthy broccoli in under five minutes instead. Besides, some of the seeds/plants are hard to find. Maybe one day when I’m old and gray and can sit around knitting while the veggies cook for nine hours….

Just placed orders tonight with Value Seeds and Gourmet Seed International — there are a bunch of 99 cent/packet seeds!!! I’ll try some summer-sowing next week, despite the drought — but I’ll save half the seeds for winter sowing. I’ve also placed my garlic order for some hardnecks to grow this fall. Hurry — they run out quickly!

I’ve also worked a bit on updating the Mary Garden spreadsheet, which is now a Google spreadsheet you can view here. If you’re interested in co-editing it with me, just lmk. Still tinkering with it — may offer it as xls and pdf when it’s completed.

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to end of yard

More later…

We’re late, but trying…

Planted out today:

to the back of the yard
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I must have sowed something like 500 seeds today, in a 4×4 plot LOL. These are older seeds from trades in past years, and seeds that I meant to wintersow and never got around to… then the vacation in early April, so starting late, and directly in the ground, which I haven’t had much success with before, but what the hey…. with a 10% germination rate, that would still be 50 plants. Some of them probably would kill each other vying for nutrients in that tiny area, but we’ll take what we can get.

Just to keep track of what’s there, in case they do sprout and I need to see what they are (LOL, no, I didn’t reallly have a plan, nor did I draw it out this time) — how uncharacteristic, for spreadsheet- and graph-crazy me!:

Chrysanthemum Eastern Star from Mr. Fothergill’s (2005)
Centaurea Cyanus ‘Jubilee Gem’ (blue) — I grew these, and they were BEAUTIFUL — in 2004.
Gomphrena Globosa
Scabiosa ‘Ace of Spades’ – this was from a trade that I never used.
Galliardia / Blanket Flower – from 3 different trades in ’04 — still have a bunch leftover for next year, in case this doesn’t take.
Zinnia Cherry Profusion (2004) – from 2 different trades
Petunia multiflora mixed colors – from The Butchart Gardens
Helianthus annuus — one of Paco’s sowed seeds (before we left) has sprouted, and has two true leaves right now…. might as well plant this in the same general area as the others tomorrow. It will have at least 5 for company, if they all germinate.
Matthiola incana (Stock) – dwarf “Ten Weeks” — a failure 2 years ago — let’s see what it does this year.
Silene armeria — I grew this in 2004 but we left before I could gather seeds, so I hope this lives so we can enjoy it again.
Cosmos bipinnatus — I’m taking a big chance sowing this there, as the one plant that was successful in ’04 grew SO big and flopped over one stormy day — but ooh, what lovely flowers and leaves!
Cleome spinosa — another trade that I meant to sow but never got to.
Ipomoea purpurea — hope I recognize this if/when it sprouts so I can stake it in time!
Papaver Rhoeas Shirley Double from the Butchart Gardens — not my Ziar breadseed, those will wait ’til next year.
Delphinium ajacis — another one “postponed”
Alcea Rosea Indian Spring – another one that will need staking! Out of 10 that I sowed in ’04, only 3 made it, and 2 were puny little things — but the one that grew — WOW!
celosia wine — another failure in ’04.
Gloriosa daisy — from one of the most generous GWers I ever traded with
Maverick violet geranium — I’ve got some geraniums in the back, but thought I’d try this one again — from 2005
Coreopsis Tinctoria Tall
Lots of French marigolds — Tagetes patula — can never have enough of these!
Rudbeckia Becky — sometimes I hate them, sometimes I love them, but this is one year I’d like to have them again!
Yena’s Lupines — the ones she wintersowed died from lack of attention when we went out of town (sob), I’d love to see the smile on her face if they do grow! (She specifically requested these after reading Miss Rumphius!)

1. A
   • Thymus serpyllum
   • Lemon balm
   • Dolichos lablab
2. B
   • Lincoln Shell Peas
   • Okra Burgundy
   • Squash – Horn of Plenty
3. C
   • Sugar Pod 2 Snow Pea
   • Culantro
   • Costoluto Florentino
4. D
   • Winged Bean
   • Lemon Basil
   • Red Beard Negi
5. E
   • Serrano chile
   • Spearmint
   • Yard Long Bean
6. F
   • Shiso Perilla
   • Ocimum Basilicum
   • Butternut Squash

a shrub.

about 8 inches high, spreading.

About a foot high.

Tihs is another tall tree in the yard. Don’t remember which one, and I haven’t looked to see if the leaves of the honey locust are similar.

Thanks, vdanie and other Gardenweb folks!