When you don’t have the budget or inclination to do the landscaping projects you really should do, downsize. Downsize with smaller landscapes and smaller plants. Small sized gardens can be used effectively to enhance bland foundations, corners, and entrances as well as add color, fragrance and interest to patios and other sitting areas.

Small gardens use small scale shrubs and perennials. Anchor shrubs should mature around 3 to 4 feet tall and are typically placed in the back 1/3 of the area. Planting one or two evergreen shrubs makes a good base. Colorful small shrubs and shrub-like perennials are other good choices.

Small garden anchor plants:

Boxwood Winter Gem
Boxwood Wintergreen
Nandina Firepower
Sungold Cypres
Sunjoy Gold Pillar Barberry
Bloomerang (reblooming lilac)
Barberry Royal Burgundy
Arctic Fire Dogwood
Clethra Sugartina Crystalina

Karley Rose, Prairie Dropseed, Karl Foerster and Adagio are some of the more striking ornamental grasses that are attractive as single specimens and can be used in lieu shrubs as anchor plants.

Plant perennials of varied heights keeping within 12 to 40 inches tall for added interest. Some of the friendliest and brightest varieties are:

Lo & Behold Blue Chip Buddleia
Lavender (Munstead, Hidcote & Kew Red)
Pineapple Sage
Walker’s Low Catmint
Echinacea Day Dream (yellow) & Hot Lava (orangey red)
Purple Dome Aster
Heucheras Plum Pudding & Mystic Angel
Gaillardias Arizona Sun & Burgundy
Monardas Fireball & Blue Stocking
Veronicas Red Fox & Sunny Border Blue
Little Spire Russian Sage
Hostas
Ferns

Small scale groundcovers are the last touch for small gardens.

Select from:

Creeping rosemary
Corsican Mint
Elfin Thyme
Red Creeping Thyme
Blue Star Creeper (Laurentia)
Big Blue Liriope
Highland Cream Thyme

Use spreading plants that have a spreading habit to fill in over several years such as:

Red Drift Rose and Apricot Drift Rose 
Beauty Bush Dreamcatcher
Rudbeckia Autumn Colors
Moonshine Yarrow & Summer Pastels Yarrow
Shasta Daisy Crazy Daisy
Dianthus Firewitch

How to plan a small sized garden for your enjoyment:

Select at least one small scale shrub to anchor the garden
Choose 3 or more perennials in varied heights
Use one variety of groundcover for the front most part
For even more interest add a butterfly house, bird house or whirligig just off the center point
For more ideas on small sized gardens, visit Greenwood Nursery.

Related articles

Landscaping around Decks, Patios and Porches (gardeningwithcheryl.com)

Greenwood Nursery
www.greenwoodnursery.com

Greenwood Nursery Announces Weekly Contest for Plant Give-A-Way

Beginning the week of May 16th, Greenwood Nursery is holding a weekly plant give away for members of their Facebook Fan Page. Each Saturday one lucky member will receive a plant or garden product. Contest to be held weekly through June 25th.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – May 24, 2011 – Greenwood Nursery, McMinnville, TN announces their weekly plant and garden product give away. Beginning the week of May 16th through June 25th, they will draw a name from their Facebook Fan Page Membership. Drawing will be held on weekends and announced at that time. The winner will receive one of Greenwood Nursery’s Proven Winner plants or one of their gardening products such as The Gardener’s Hollow Leg fabric gardening sack, African market baskets, or wildflower seed kits.
For an opportunity to win in this contest, visit the Greenwood Nursery Facebook Fan Page and Join or Like their Fan Page. The winner must reside within the continental United States as prize will only be shipped within the contiguous U.S.
GreenwoodNursery.com is your one stop online garden center for trees, flowering shrubs, ground covers, flowering perennials, organic lawn care products and more. Rated a top 5 online nursery by About.com. Find your next plants at their online plant nursery.
# # #

Rated one of the top 5 online nurseries by about.com, Greenwood Nursery offers a wide selection of shade trees, flowering trees, flowering shrubs, evergreen shrubs, ground covers, perennials, and gardening supplies.
Related articles

Landscaping around Decks, Patios and Porches (gardeningwithcheryl.com)
Planting a Small Sized Garden (gardeningwithcheryl.com)

Greenwood Nursery
www.greenwoodnursery.com

Selecting Plants for Borders and Edging

Greenwood Nursery
www.greenwoodnursery.com

New from the Knockout Rose Family, are the Drift Roses. Drift Roses are gorgeous compact growing groundcover-like roses with miniature roses that will bloom continually from early spring to frost. Like their Knockout Relatives, the Drift Roses are tough, disease resistant and cold hardy as far north as zone 5.

They are sure to become a favorite for any type border. Prune back to 4″ in early spring (after the last hard frost) for best performance. Regular deadheading encourages re-blooming and helps maintain a tidy appearance.

Currently, we are booking our Drift Roses for shipping this spring. We will have the Red Drift Roses and Apricot Drift Roses available.

P. Allen Smith talks about Drift Roses in his recent newsletter. This is a good short article on these new landscape plants. I hope you take the time to read it. http://bit.ly/9UfjpB

Greenwood Nursery
www.greenwoodnursery.com

Like most garden lovers, Cheryl and I enjoy reading books on our favorite subject. However experienced you are, you can always learn something new (or re-learn something you had forgotten) and many of today’s books are a delight to look at with page upon page of lavish photographs.

Here are a few books that recently landed on our desks at the Nursery. They might be treasured additions to your own garden bookshelf.

“The Homeowner’s Complete Tree and Shrub Handbook”

Penelope O’Sullivan (Storey Publishing)

Trees and shrubs are the heart and soul of the home landscape. You can learn how to use them effectively with this comprehensive handbook, covering all the essentials of woody plant gardening.

In addition to basic design principals and plant selection and care, the handbook features an extensive encyclopedia of more than 350 tree and shrub profiles.

“Garden Bouquets and Beyond”

Suzy Bales (Rodale)

If you love to see an abundance of flowers growing in your garden but are somewhat hesitant about how to bring their color and fragrance successfully indoors, “Garden Bouquets and Beyond” could be the ideal book for you.

Combining her lifelong experience as a gardener with her skills as a floral designer, Suzy Bales puts together fresh flowers and foliage from her landscape for dozens of enchanting seasonal designs.

The book’s subtitle, “Creating Wreaths, Garlands and More in Every Garden Season” points out that getting creative with your flora is something you can enjoy all year round, for special occasions or just your own pleasure.

This is an all-encompassing guide, from when to cut and how to arrange to using flowers, leaves and vines in all types of decorations and arrangements. Lavishly illustrated with more than 150 photographs, Suzy’s book takes found objects, foliage of all colors and seasonal blooms to put together deceptively simple, beautiful arrangements.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Year-Round Gardening

Delilah Smittle and Sheri Ann Richardson (Alpha)

Most people in temperate zones think of gardening as a seasonal endeavor, but there is a way to stretch the planting season and harvest fresh produce year-round. The authors of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Year-Round Gardening” take you through every step of both covered outdoor and indoor gardening.

I’m not suggesting you’re an Idiot (honest!) but both a complete novice and a more experienced garden lover will find plenty of tips to keep the goodies coming all year long. Particularly useful are the in-depth sections on the best use of row covers, cloches, cold frames and greenhouses. It’s an easy-to-follow guide with straightforward information presented in bite-sized chunks.

Grow Your Own, Eat Your Own

Bob Flowerdew (Kyle)

If you’re looking for something a little more lavish than the Idiot’s Guide, look for this new book by Bob Flowerdew (Could there be a better name for a gardener?) one of the world’s most respected authorities on organic gardening.

The first part of the book begins in the garden, showing you how to achieve a more continuous crop as well as how to extend your harvest. But Flowerdew’s book goes beyond the garden and into the kitchen to show the best way to preserve and cook these crops by bottling, drying, jamming, smoking, freezing, juicing, soaking and candying. It includes a ton of luscious photos that will appeal to both the gardener and the home chef.

“Dead Head”

Rosemary Harris (Minotaur Books)

Subtitled “A Dirty Business Mystery”, this is a novel that has all the elements to appeal to gardeners who also love to curl up with a good mystery. Wise-cracking gardener and amateur detective Paula Holliday is back, following her two previous adventures in “Pushing Up Daisies” and “The Big Dirt Nap” in this quick-witted and fast-paced mystery.

Author Harris is a master gardener and a former television producer, and knows how to cultivate a mystery that appeals to gardeners and non-gardeners alike.

The Plant Man is here to help. Send your questions about trees, shrubs and landscaping to steve@landsteward.org and for resources and additional information, including archived columns, visit www.landsteward.org

Greenwood Nursery
www.greenwoodnursery.com