Growing for Success | Gardening 101: Plan smart, plant right

Whether it is just filling in a few gaps, building a new feature garden or doing a full-scale landscape plant-up on a fresh site, they want to get out and enjoy the spring weather and be creative in the garden.

It all makes sense after being stuck inside all winter thinking how nice it would be to be looking out over an attractive garden.

Spring is a great time to plant, as it makes good use of the strong growth period that plants have over the next few months.

It allows them time to get somewhat established before the stresses of summer kick in.

There are, however, a few common mistakes made when planting up a garden, but with a bit of forethought and planning, they can easily be avoided.

One of the biggest mistakes would be overplanting; is there enough room for the selected plants to grow?

Just because you like them all when they are little does not mean they are all going to fit in when they have grown.

Overplanting is an easy trap to fall into, as a new garden can look sparse when first planted; it often looks nothing like what you saw on TV the other day, with plants touching each other and looking nice and full.

The easiest way to overcome this is to plant your main plants at their correct spacing and then add in short-term, cheap infill plants that match the theme of the garden.

These can be removed as the garden fills out, and you do not then have to cut back or pull out your main plantings because they have become overcrowded.

Planting in one season is another common mistake, and it is also an easy mistake to make.

You walk into the garden centre and go, this looks nice, this is pretty, this looks great, oh, I love this, and you have just chosen everything that is in flower for that season.

Now, once a year, you will have a colourful garden. But it might look a bit lacklustre or dull for the rest of the year.

Ask the garden centre staff for suggestions, or at least read the labels of the other plants you like that are not in flower.

Making garden beds too narrow is probably the mistake that frustrates me the most.

I fail to see why so many people build their gardens one metre wide or less and just follow the fence line around the yard.

Maybe they enjoy mowing that much, they want as much lawn as they can fit on their block, or they like the battle of keeping plants cut back to within a metre-wide garden.

Be creative; it is your time to be imaginative and show some flare; and by the way, gardens are a lot less maintenance than lawns.

Build intrigue into the garden with lines that appear to lead you to something beyond, depth that allows you to layer your planting and room for the plants to reach their full potential.

Prepare for your planting.

Add gypsum to your clay soil or, better still, lime if your pH allows.

Incorporate organic matter into the garden bed.

Dig good-sized holes to plant into.

In clay soils, don’t dig holes and backfill with topsoil. Rather, only remove a small portion of the clay, chop the remainder as fine as you can, add some topsoil to it and backfill around the roots using a bit of planting mix as you go.

Don’t rely on your irrigation system to water plants in. Freshly planted plants should be watered in with a hose, watering can or bucket.

This helps settle the soil around the roots, removing air pockets around the root ball.

Follow up the same again the next day; then, you can water as needed with your irrigation system.

You will find it beneficial to water your plants with a plant starter that contains the hormones indole acetic acid and naphthalene acetic acid, as this will help reduce transplant shock and encourage new root growth.

Remember to stake larger plants. This is as much about holding the root ball steady in the ground as it is about supporting the tree.

There are several methods used to stake plants, so ask the garden centre staff what method suits your tree best and how to go about it.

To make the most of the spring planting season, start your preparation now, have a think about what you want to achieve, prepare the garden beds and do a bit of research on the plants you like and what will grow happily in this region to give the results you have in mind.