The Planning Stage

I have spent most of January perusing garden magazines and books and making a Garden Plan For 2010. I think I have it down now if I can just keep this up. This is the first time I have actually spent much time in planning and I think it will certainly pay off in the end.

The first things I did was to make many lists. I made list of what I wanted to do and things I could do on my own and things I will have to hire some one to help. I made lists of plants that I already have and seeds I will be sowing for spring. I made lists of my gardens and their particular conditions.

The following is the results and I will tell you what I did. First I had to have a list of what I would be working with and all the particulars. I don't think I did very well placing my photos but here it is.

This is the plan for the first 4 months "2010 Garden/Landscape Planner". I placed the weeks going down and month across. This way I can see exactly how I can fit the projects in and at a glance determine what I need to do next. This planner I will write on and change as time passes making note of the completed chores.


I had to have more room and more specific information for implementing these goals. Here I created a page that I write a lot of notes and additional plans. This is to help me to be accountable and reach my goals. "Monthly Goals/Things To Do"

I have photos from 2009 gardens and I printed the photo and jotted down info about that particular garden - the conditions such as amount of sun, site problems and maybe how to remedy a problem. I also write down goals for this particular garden.

I made me a calender off of Word and this is where I note plantings and weather conditions.

Here I determine a theme or whatever and determine which seeds to plant where based on sun requirements.

I have a list of seeds I will be working with. I went to specific blogs whom I received seeds from and looked at the plants in their garden or to plant websites to obtain plant specifics. Two columns for notes about a specific plant. Columns for plant color, sun, plant height and spacing.

The last thing I have done is to prepare a time line. This is a seed start schedule and planting schedule for the baby plants. Across the top are in weeks with the date. I started with the first week I plan to start seeds which is Feb 13 and worked my way out to the week of April 24.

I am a planner for sure. Implementing my plans are something else. I think I will be able to work this plan pretty easy. Now comes the labor hours and hard work.

I can't wait to see all these pretties blooming this year. I must be patient for those perennials that bloom on the second year.

I hope that this may help someone else devise a plan. If you already do this each year pass on your tips to everyone.