I keep trying different ways of planning the garden and/or allotment design, and this is my latest attempt. My drawing skills are appalling, but I hope the photo makes some kind of sense (it made sense to me while I sketched it!)
This is the basic shape of my garden. Minus any sense of scale or proportion, unfortunately, but I tried my best and I had to re-draw this several times to get this "good" (believe it or not). The bit at the top of the pic is the bit next to the house, then there's a corridor and the bit at the bottom half of the pic is the bit at the back of the house. The door from the house is to the left at the top (I drew the door step as a black narrow "box"), the shed is along the line at the very bottom of the picture.
What I've done is mark out all the containers (the whole area, except a narrow stretch along the fence in front of the door from the house, is paved). Then I've colour-coded them according to which season they have the most interest: BLUE for winter, YELLOW for spring, PINK for summer, ORANGE for autum, and GREEN is for ever-green perennials that have pretty much all-year interest.
And the second thing I've highlighted, with a blue outline around the container, is which ones have annual plants, so I can get a better idea more quickly of what space I've got available when I'm buying bedding plants at the garden centre... (or sowing seed trays in the spring!).
I always feel the planning of the garden gives me almost as much fun as the actual planting or sitting among the final result. Hopefully this visual plan will help me organise and group the plants that I've got better, stop me from buying the wrong things at the garden centre, and place those things I do buy in the right place.
I am going to try to go for a mediterranean-ish look. Stuff that will survive some heat an sun (not that we get much here) without much damage. Since the space I've got is quite small, I'll stick to small and simple things such as lavenders and other herbs (which I already have), and annuals such as pelargoniums next summer (a bit too late to get new ones this year). If I can keep my one pelargonium of this year through the winter, so much the better, but I expect I'll buy a couple new ones next year, along with some tagetes and the like.
Most of my pots at the moment have perennials, but i think for next year I'll leave all the empty ones (with the blue outline) free for annuals because it's also very interesting to buy new things each year and change the look of the garden - it's like buying a new summer outfit every year, I suppose.
Esto, aunque no lo parezca, es un plano de mi jardin. No esta a escala y las proporciones no son correctas, porque no se me da bien dibujar, pero me sirve para hacerme una idea. La mitad de arriba de la foto es la parte cerca de casa, el escalon junto a la puerta es esa franja negra de la iquierda. La mitad de abajo de la foto es la parte de atras de la casa, junto a la caseta (justo abajo) y el banquito (a la derecha).
Lo primero que hice fue delinear todas las macetas (la unica parte directamente en tierra es la franja enfrente de casa, a la derecha). Lo segundo, he indicado con colores en que estacion del ano tienen mayor interes: AZUL para invierno, AMARILLO para primavera, ROSA para verano, NARANJA para otono, y VERDE para plantas que mantienen el mismo interes practicamente todo el ano.
Lo tercero que he indicado, con un borde azul, es cuales de las macetas van a tener plantas anuales. El resto (la mayoria) tienen plantas perennes, pero quiero dejar tambien espacio libre para anuales que puedo cambiar cada ano, porque es divertido cambiar parte del diseno cada ano, un poco como comprarse un vestido de verano a la moda todos los anos. Con suerte este plan me ayudara a elegir mejor que plantas compro, no comprar lo que no quiero o no pega bien, y agrupar las que ya tengo mejor.
He decidido darle un aire mas “mediterraneo” al jardin, en parte porque me gustan las plantas (algunas huelen de maravilla) y ademas sufren menos con el calor y la sequia del verano (no es que tengamos mucho ni de lo uno ni de lo otro en Londres, pero al estar en macetas se secan mucho antes). Ya tenia algunas lavandas, tomillo, salvia y romero, que son plantas simples (y ademas comestibles), y como no tengo mucho espacio seguramente con esto casi me baste. El verano proximo comprare unos geranios (pelargonios), algunos tagetes, etc para darle color, y posiblemente con eso baste. No creo que el geranio de este ano sobreviva el invierno en la caseta, pero estaria bien!
