gardening | planning my garden for the spring

So we just bought a house, and moved in in November. I don't know what the previous owners might have planted, since it was so late in the year when we moved in. But I have a cunning plan!

... wait and see what comes up when spring comes. Then plan the rest of my garden around those things.

I've been thinking in the meantime, though. It's a small yard but with plenty of places to plant and nourish things. We have a dozen shrubs that I have yet to identify--harder in winter when there are no leaves or flowers left; but I downloaded one of those apps where you take a picture and the magic electrons tell you what you've got. We'll see if that works.

We have a small weeping tree in the front yard, also not yet identified, but I should be able to do that with the app. Same with what I think is a hydrangea and something that seems to be two plants growing all entangled with each other--one is a rose but I don't know what the other is nor why they are growing as they are.

There's a big lavender plant in the side yard and a couple of something-evergreen plants in the front by the weeping tree.

I know what kind of garden I want to plant, though it will probably have to be done over two or three years. I want a combination of: herbs, snowdrops, crocuses, perennials, pollinator-friendly plants, easy-to-care-for plants, native/non-invasive plants. I know there's a certain amount of overlap here.

I want to plant trees, but my impression is they take a lot of work and care and I'm not sure I have enough energy for them. Also I don't want any more leaves to rake than we had when we moved in. And trees can drop leaves in the neighbors' yards and I don't want to get off to a bad start with the neighbors. (But if I had my druthers I would want a copper beech. Just sayin'.)

Probably not a lot of vegetables, except maybe tomatoes in some pots. And the herbs need to be happy wintering over outside, as we don't have much indoor space to keep pots of them. There is one windowbox, by the kitchen window, which we might put some mint in, mint being hard to control if you plant it in the ground.

So! Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. We are in Rhode Island, U.S. Zone 6.

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I'm in a very different area than you (US gulf coast), but do want to give you the heads up that bulbs need to be dug up and replanted every few years because they make little baby bulbs and if you let them do their own thing they'll over compete themselves out of existence. I didn't realize that when I put gladiolus in my front garden bed and am now having weed problems because many of my larger more mature plants died.

Oh, thank you! I knew that bulbs spread but didn't know that they could overdo it. :0)

I didn't know either until it happened. I thought that since we didn't freeze much here that I could just plant them and forget about it forever. Then I started seeing lots of small leaves and fewer mature plants that bloomed, asked a more experienced gardening relative, and learned that I should be digging them up every four or five years to spread them back out.

This depends on 1) the type of bulbs you have and 2) where you put them.

* If you have "landscape" or "naturalizing" bulbs, or any of the native species, they are likely to spread. They tend to have fairly basic colors and shapes, but are vigorous.

* If you have fancy bulbs, then few of them are prone to spreading and they rarely last more a season or few. However, they have more dramatic colors and shapes.

* If you put bulbs in a confined bed with rigid borders, they are more likely to overrun it. They can't get out except by seeding and they have little or no competition.

* If you put bulbs in a yard or a bed that is only defined by a grass edge, they are less likely to become crowded. They have room to move and they also have competition from other plants.

I have naturalized daffodils that have been in place for decades with no problem. I also had to dig out the confined bed because last spring it was more leaves than flowers. I probably pulled hundred of little bulblets out of there, and left the biggest ones in hope of getting some flowers. The extras I distributed around the yard in other places.

To determine what you have in a new house, you can:

1) Observe the flowers in spring and compare them to things in a bulb catalog to see if they look more like the fancy or plain bulbs there.

2) If you see lots of leaves but few flowers, the bed would probably benefit from division.

3) Or you can just wait until they quit flowering, then do a bit of test digging to see if the bed is crowded or not.

https://www.thespruce.com/is-it-necessary-to-divide-spring-bulbs-1402236

Thanks, so helpful.

planning my garden for the spring

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