Suzy I am so delighted to have you back!!

I appreciate all plants but my niche is perennials with a limited number of biennials. Living in a cold climate my biggest thrill is seeing the plants emerge from the soil in spring. I embrace pretty much any genus hardy to my zone, sometimes growing the genus first then species of. I do plant with pollinators in mind

Suzy!! You're back!!

I'd say I'm a combination of aesthete and plantswoman, leaning more heavily toward the aesthete.

I am a Darwin (survival of the fittest) gardener. I plant, babysit until I decide they should be settled in, and then it's live or die, the plant chooses. 😉 There are very few that I'm willing to continue to babysit.

Oh, and yes welcome back 007. We missed you.

idianagirl, you are too funny!

I am... a time-constrained gardener. I often call myself a neglectful gardener, but if I really think about it, it has more to do with time. I just don't have the time needed to pay attention to my garden as it is, at the size it is, or to get it to be the way I want it. This is one reason why I am trying to switch over to shrubs and more reliable perennials, and cutting back on my annuals and high-maintenance plants. But I'm even having trouble finding time to cut back lol!

Also, and I'm not sure what single adjective to use, but I'm also a gardener who has kind of a mixed bag of plants and garden styles, and I tend to be a plopper (see time issues above lol). I DO an awful lot of research and thinking and planning, but in the end I still do some impulse buying, which can screw up my plans, and then some plopping of said impulse buys when I need to get them into the ground because (see time issues above lol)

Good to see you again Suzy!

:)

Dee

Indecisive... do I control the garden or it controls me? I waffle back and forth about self-seeders, which ones are weeds, etc. for example 'I can enjoy those native geraniums before they go to seed, let the bees have them, they're so pretty' ... then - how did that happen, there are more and more every year, I thought I was making a smart and ethical decision, now things are out of control' (even though I thought I had done a good job 'deadheading'). And that leads to dismay, but on the right day I can sit back and feel joy and peace so there's solace in that. So I aim for more tidiness but am my own worst enemy I suppose.

I don't know the label for that, maybe wishy-washy, I'll take it, but there's quite a bit of gray area out there when considering the right approach. Kudos to those with good routines and decisiveness, you make the world go 'round, but there's room for us second-guessers too.

And thanks for coming back, your posts are very fun!

"...I aim for more tidiness but am my own worst enemy I suppose..."

Bingo! I could have written your post, lat62!

I told myself this was the year I was going to be ruthless with those self-seeders. I DID rip out about two-thirds of my rudbeckia triloba but I see now I have only delayed its plans of world domination. Now that I can actually get into the beds, there are still thousands of smaller seedlings of it, even after I ripped out the taller stands of it. But I feel like I made a bit of progress.

Not so much with my larkspur in particular, and my nigella and buplereum also. I started off removing seedlings as I weeded and cleaned the beds, but after about ten minutes I was like, well, maybe I should wait and see what I'm going to plant here. Might as well have the (insert name of self-seeder here) here instead of empty space.

Now, my garden is, as usual, overrun with larkspur, nigella seed heads, buplereum, Queen Anne's Lace (and a dark pink variety of it I can't recall the name of - Dara??), agastache, and feverfew, not to mention my spreading perennials like digitalis grandiflora.

But just a half hour ago I took a quick stroll to assess things and despite the wildness and unkemptness of it all, it does have a certain beauty. All those reseeders, all my daylilies in bloom, the hydrangeas in various stages of bloom, and all the buzzing going on, well, it made me feel such joy in the beauty of it. And that's all that counts.

:)

Dee

Aw, this must be one of the few humble and honest corners of the internet, in a morass of best life boasting and sheer toxic nastiness which led me to declare an internet free few months. That and onerous caring responsibilities meant I had literally nothing (useful or reasonable) to say. But yep, too much isol;ation makes a person a bit...odd, so putting my head above the parapet again. Plus, I honestly missed the camaraderie.

Well we are glad you have raised your head above the parapet! Hopefully here, at least, the slings and arrows are fewer and farther between than in most corners of the internet!

:)

Dee

Im glad you are writing to us again, Suzy.

I wish I had a drift of Love in a Mist.

I decided to grow it again after decades and the 1st packet of seeds delivered were stolen off my steps and the second batch of seed I bought never germinated. I was sort of interested in exploring Nigella's culinary uses. I scattered all my blue larkspur seedheads under a very large and old blue spruce. I want to turn the large circle under the spruce into a dappled sun bed. The Brown Eyed Susans have expanded exponentially this year. It's so weird how they can grow right in the middle of taller perennials without being noticed. Sometimes it's hard to tell a small Brown Eyed Susan from a small Purple Coneflower. I have a Lactuca thats wreaking havoc in a few beds. It spreads by very thin and weak looking rhyzomes.

I never recieved a notification for your message Susy. Sorry if I got back to you too late. I could have used your help with getting a package of Tulipa montana and Tulipa sprengellii seeds from Plant World Seeds. They sent them but I never recieved them. What's funny is that Im often looking for rare and hard to find plants snd seeds, and Plant World Seeds always claims to have everything, but they really don't.

I need to create a more attractive rock garden for these beauties. I get non-stop bulb advertisements now. I want to grow them all.

What a great topic. I am a bit of all of them. Aesthete, collector, scientist and sometimes lazy. I plop things in with only a cursory thought as to when it blooms or what it's foliage will look like in contrast to this or that, only considerations are sun, shade and spread. I am trying not to add plants that become annual chores to control. Now over the years I have begun to try and have more of an eye to design, but have a hard time preconceptualizing and what design there is, is a process of editing after the fact. I love propagation, seed cutting, division, all of it is fascinating and great fun. It's partly why we run a small nursery business. And as @diggerdee zone 6 CT said, despite what I call a "hodgepodge" garden, it really is beautiful and full of birds, bees, butterfly's and one cat.

Who oversees the work...or should I say play? Because that's what it feels like, despite the more than occasional days of fairly hard labor, it is a labor of love and deeply satisfying.

I was just thinking about this sort of topic the other day, after listening to a podcast or reading an article, I forget, where someone opined that a garden should be cohesive and more than just a collection of plants. I have to disagree because I think people garden for all sorts of reasons, and not all of those reasons are to impress outside viewers with a color story or some notion of "elegance". My very favorite gardens are the ones the gardener can walk you through and tell you about each plant, each pass along they got from a friend/loved one, or the rare plant they just had to have that you've never even heard of, or the prize they got from the clearance section when it was half dead.

Personally I think I am somewhat of a collector. My garden is made almost entirely to please me alone and I do tend to get obsessed with some species and feel the need to grow many varieties, so I end up with a rainbow of roses and sedums and clematis. I like learning the quirks and personalities of all the different cultivars and seeing them bloom at different times. I also have a strong preference for evergreens and perennials. I envy people who can grow beautiful container gardens and lots of annuals but I don't seem to have the knack or the patience for it. In terms of design I'm also kind of an acquire first, ask questions later kind of person. I've tried several times to preplan a garden and that goes more or less out the window eventually. If I see a plant I love I will get it and find a place for it.

I do also prioritize plants that attract hummingbirds, hummingbird moths, and other pollinators.