Phased Planting
Planning a new garden is exciting, and can also be overwhelming and budget breaking. If you’re doing it yourself, the time commitment can also be intense! Phased garden planning resolves all of these issues and is easier then you think.
What is Phased Planting?
Phased planting can be either staggering the planting based on plant types (trees, shrubs, perennials) or planting fully in smaller zones within a larger space. What is key to making phased planting successful is to approach it with a thoughtful garden design plan.
How Do You Create a Phased Planting Garden Design?
Master Plan
Don’t hold back based on budget or time. If you are designing the space yourself, make sure you have done research such as zoning, by-laws and building code and have locates done.
Determine what you want the end goal to be and lay it out. Include outbuildings (sheds, garages), patios and hardscaping areas (decks, pathways), lighting, electrical and water, trees, vegetable gardens, perennials and annuals. If you have never designed a garden before and are not sure where to start, I’d recommend checking out my article on mastering your microclimates.
List Limitations
Is it time, budget, or physical ability holding you back from tackling this project all at once? Are there other factors at play that might be beyond your timeline control (a neighbours tree being removed and altering sunlight, an addition or new building that will cast shadows, family phases such as aging parents or new babies?) List all the limitations out.
Check Your Priorities
Having mature trees, a safe enclosed yard for the dog, privacy, colour, lower maintenance; everyone’s priorities look different. The key thing with a priority is that you have one or two. Three at the most, otherwise its a wish list and not a prioritized list.
Cause and Effect
If you don’t have a background in construction or renovation projects this may be a section you struggle with, and where a professional can be of great value. In order to protect your efforts and financial investments, understanding how one project will impact another is key.
An example of what I mean is this: You may want to build a deck with a pergola and lighting, and surround this with luscious garden beds, a espaliered fruit tree and a rain garden. If all you can afford to do at the moment is pick up a few plants and place them in the ground, you will be burning money and effort. They will need to be dug up, transplanted if possible or will be destroyed in the process of building the deck and grading for a rain garden. Placing the tree before the structure is in place to espalier it, also problematic.
Once you have all the information in front of you, you can now begin to pick how to approach your application.
Two Options for Phased Planting
By zone or,
By material.
Zone:
To do this, you simply chop up your plan into smaller pieces. You may eventually have large connected garden beds weaving through your property with interconnected paths, but you start with one small zone. Perhaps a foundation planting, or a bed beneath a tree. Or you build the shed or lay out a patio.
The size of this zone will be determined by your limitations list.
What zone you pick will be based on the cause and effect list coupled with the priority list. Even if something is a priority, if its going to be, well… trashed, then perhaps it’s best to skip to the next and be better stewards of our resources. Alternatively, it may be entirely worth focusing on a zone now that will be redone or removed in the future. Only you can make that call for your own project.
Material:
A material focused approach looks like this: The grading and drainage concerns are dealt with. Then the hardscaping stonework, then decking or other wood elements. Next trees go in. Then shrubs. Then perennials. Then bulbs. Finishing it off with accessories like sun sails, statues, bird baths, wind chimes or furniture.
In a project without major construction it can simply be planting trees in the first year. Shaping garden beds a second year. Placing shrubs in the garden beds the year after, and then filling in the rest as the years progress.
What I really love about this approach is that the trees have time to mature a bit, and fill in. If you have designed plants that will do well in shade, but plant them at the same time as a baby tree in a full sun yard, they won’t thrive and may even die while waiting for that tree to fill in. By waiting, the root zone of the tree is not yet problematic but the tree is able to put on some girth.
Real Life Example of Phased Planting.
I used a combination of the two approaches on our property. The ‘garden’ when we moved in consisted of a foundation planting with some sad but symmetrically planted perennials and a circle full of thistles. Turns out there were a lot of other weed varieties in there but it was mostly a thistle forest.
I listed limitations: 8 months pregnant, pretty much no budget, and since we rent, no opportunity for hardscaping or major construction. I also laid out my priorities which were, make a safe, spike free zone for the new baby and build a garden filled with sensory plants. I have listed a number of my favourite sensory plants for a kids garden in this article.
And then I got to work. I kept the existing footprints of the garden beds and focused on weed control and existing plant health. I knew I needed spring colour though, and opted to put in bulbs even though they’d likely get dug up again later.
The structure of the future garden was the next task. Shrubs and just a few perennials were added to the existing circular bed.
Then the garden bed was expanded. It had a very funny shape that I’m sure boggled the neighbours, but since I knew what was coming it made perfect sense to me.
More shrubs were added to this new space as well as perennials.
The circle was then joined into the oddly shaped bed and the aha moment came to those who were watching.
A third expansion and tree addition followed. Later perennials were added, then more bulbs and ground cover, stepping stones and log borders.
Most plants were shared from others garden or rescued from garden show display tear downs. And I killed a few plants. This meant that some alterations to the master plan had to be made as I went but the overall design intent was maintained. Looking back, the plants that didn’t make it would have been lacklustre compared to what is currently in their space. Not all failures are bad!
Now in it’s fourth year, it looks very intentional and like it was done at one time. As a garden matures, no one will know it was phased other then you.
On a personal level, I feel that a garden is never complete, therefore a phased planting plan is a natural foundation of gardening. As a culture we have strayed from this approach with our instant makeover goals and expectations. There is nothing wrong with dreaming big and then making it a reality in small steps rather then in one season.
If you are ready to make new garden beds then check out this easy-on-the-body-approach to starting a new garden bed.