Theme Gardens - Planning without the Pitfalls

I think about theme gardens all the time. They are fun to design - mentally. They don't always work out so well in practice.

For instance, I tried a cat garden once. I had a pussy willow - or at least a rooted cutting of a pussy willow. That is, I had it until my husband mowed it. I had placed it in one of those spots that he claims was reserved for the lawn. I also had cats-paw - a silvery groundcover that had no botanical name (at least not at the nursery where I bought it) and some pussy-toes. Elsewhere in the yard I knew I could dig up lots of catmint and catnip. And maybe some cattails.

It was the cattails that showed me the error of my ways. Mine have grown up in a pond. I know that they will also grow on land, because there were some growing in an undeveloped area behind the house we lived in when we got married. But there was also an underground spring there. So I had to assume that they would not be particularly happy beside the silvery cats-paw and nepeta. If you see a silver plant that's a pretty good clue that it prefers dry conditions and well drained soil.

That's where so many theme gardens go wrong. In our we often neglect to see if the plants that fit our theme also fit into our cultural conditions.

So the first rule for creating a theme garden is to include only plants that enjoy similar cultural conditions.

This isn't as hard as it may seem. It simply means that some plants that fit the theme are going to be unhappy in the theme garden. Others will love it. So learn to say no to all of the misfits. The rest will do you proud by growing well, and you will not have to spend time figuring out how to disguise the puny ones.