Planning for Next Spring

Half of the fun of being a Midwest gardener is planning. It has to be! With such a short season, the rest of the year is best spent dreaming about how great our gardens will be NEXT spring. Whether this dream actually comes to fruition is another matter entirely, however, when the ground is frozen there is nothing better than pouring over catalogs and websites to plan for next year. 

With the exception of a few small surprises, I was relatively disappointed in my garden this year. The late start didn't help. The bulk of my tomatoes ripened while I was on vacation in mid-October and promptly froze during that same time period. Weather in Minnesota! The late start in addition to our overly wet weather pretty much did in my garden. At least in my eyes. It was good enough to get my garden selected for the Soroptimist Garden tour next summer however. Add all these things together, late start, bad weather, disappointing turnout AND garden tour yard, you know I've already begun to plan for next year. 

I was hoping to get more done this fall than I actually did but seriously, that whole idea was a complete fallacy because my allergies had something to say about that. Needless to say, I got nothing done. Not really. The weeds are taunting me even now. That's all right, snow's coming...

My first step for next year's garden was to stop at Renee's Garden Seeds for some flower seeds to cover the seemingly acres of bare ground I have in my flower beds. New introductions for 2011 are already available. Some of the seeds I got will go directly into the ground, others I will start indoors earlier to have them blooming by spring. 

In addition to my favorites of narturtiums, Sweet William and cornflowers, I've fallen in love with Zinnias. Yes, Zinnias. I admit, I was not AT ALL in on the Zinnia love fest prior to this summer. My neighbor down the street, however, had them all along the side of her house. Pulling onto my street, the side of her house is the first thing you see. And the zinnias! They were gorgeous! All summer long! I must have them. More exciting is that Renee's Garden has special mixes of zinnias. I chose one called Cool Crayon Colors which is a gorgeous mix of pinks, purples and white. I also plan to throw in some Green Envy Zinnias. Should be beautiful. 

After the garden tour last summer, I fell in love with poppies. The best part about poppies? They are frost hardy and bloom best when planted as early as possible in the spring. Anything I can direct seed and have blooming in June is a plant I want to have. 

Other plants I'm trying for the first time in my garden include Larkspur (my son's birth month flower), Painted Salpiglossis and miniature roses. I've also got seeds for Persian Violet (nigella damascena), White Nigella and Pride of Gilbraltar (cerinthe). The last three I had never heard of before and I'm excited to see what they look like. I'm also aware that many of these reseed although from what I've read, none of them are invasive. Reseeding I love, invasive I don't (you know I'm talking about you Veronica!). I'll see how it goes. 

Besides the seeds, I'm planning to have more ornamental kale, more petunias and better containers. The massive amounts of rain we had did my poor containers no good. I have a multi-tiered container I'm going to turn into a  hardy succulent container because I've given up trying to grow other things in it.  

This is more than I've planned in the past by this time and I'm sure I'll just have more as the winter goes on since I'll have people checking out my yard this spring. 

Have you starting planning for next spring yet? What changes are you making in your garden? What are you planting more of?