By: Charles Bankston
www.PerennialAndRoseGardening.net
Monroe, Louisiana

Have you ever walked out into your flower or perennial garden in the early spring and asked yourself, “Now where did I put that Coreopsis, or where is that new coneflower plant that I planted last summer?”? If you’re like me you do it quite often. Once you obtain more than a handful of plants and your yard or garden becomes a collection of perennials and other plants it becomes rather difficult to remember where everything is located. If you find yourself in this predicament I’ve found a useful, simple way to avoid this gardening dilemma. One way is to document each plant in your garden with a simple map. But if you’re like me, your plant locations change frequently and it’s time consuming to maintain a map of plants. So, I elect for what I think is an easier, more realistic method.

Each spring and summer, I put an entry on my calendar—once for late spring and one entry for summer. This entry reminds me to make notes on garden plant locations and “to do” areas for next season. I have placed samples of my notes on my website, www.PerennialAndRoseGardening.net. Click on the “Garden Journal” section and look for the sample notes.

When the calendar reminds me that it’s time to make the more formal rounds in the garden with notebook and pen in hand I begin the simple process. I typically begin with a quick freehand drawing on the landscape sheet of blank paper an aerial view of my house and landscape. Be sure to draw in where fences, driveways and flower beds exist in your yard. Next, as I begin walking through the garden I take notice to things such as non-performing plants, plants that I didn’t like, plants that were too high or too short for its location, too sunny or too shady, and even things like soil that needs amending, etc. When I find a section in the garden of which I want to make personal notes and not forget about I simply insert a letter of the alphabet into my landscape drawing in the spot that best correlates to that specific location in the landscape. Inserting a single letter rather than wordy phrases keeps your drawing less crowded and more organized and legible. Then, on a second sheet of blank paper I simply list the letters that I used in the landscape drawing and write any associated notes beside the letter. Finally, the following spring all I have to do is retrieve my notes by looking at the letters associated to the drawing.

Doing this each year is a great way to remember where you planted things and also can help remind you of things you need to do to the garden come spring—things you may not otherwise have remembered. Below are some examples of entries I made this year for the upcoming spring of 2008:

A – Soil needs built up more and needs more organic matter. Heavy clay—plants performance suffered.

B – Move rose bush to new location as it is receiving too much shade in this location and is not performing as it should. No issues with soil, so must be light requirements causing poor performance. (on this entry, it’s important, because this location is overgrown with vegetation from neighboring plants and shrubs that are causing lots of shade to this rose bush. In the spring, however, I wouldn’t be able to tell that it received too much shade because the shrubs and neighboring plants have no leaves (due to winter and pruning, etc.). This is an example of why one should do this when everything is in full bloom and in the midst of spring and summer).

C – Try adding something of color and height aside from Purple Indigo Spires in this location. On the right and/or left of Indigo Spires.