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Spring is a busy time of year for plant nurseries and garden centres – next time you’re out shopping for plants remember these tips before you buy the ‘wrong’ plants for your garden. This month we are talking about common planting mistakes.

The right plant for the right place

When identifying a plant you like, it’s important to remember its mature or fully grown height and width. It’s an easy one to do as the plant is in a small pot and can eventually crowd out its neighbours or block all your sun. You can check the label or ask the garden centre for advice on mature size, remember this can vary on the conditions you provide it with and how it is trimmed and shaped. However, if a plant is 2m high x 1m wide check you can provide the space and what impact this plant would have on the plants around it. If you are spacing all of your plants with the same gap have consideration for how this gap will be filled in a year’s time.

Busy garden palettes

It’s easy to get carried away in the garden centre or rescue plants from the clearance trolley, however, try to keep themes or styles around the garden rather than mix them in a tight space. Groupings of plants with similar or complimentary colour, country of origin for theme or similar look. For example, cottage garden mixes such as salvia, lavender, hyssop, cistus and osteospermum all have similar growing conditions but can look very chaotic if too many varieties within this palette are planted together. In nature, you are likely to see a few of the same plants near one another – our eyes look for this uniformity in gardens so random singular plants can look out of place easily.

Location of plants

It is very typical of kiwi gardens to have lawns taking up most of the area in our gardens and plantings are right up to the boundary or up against the house. When placing tall plants around the garden, they do need room for roots, water, and don’t forget they create a lot of shade. Avoid planting these near your house or windows as it can cause issues with damp and shade. Remember that taller trees and shrubs can block views from your windows so give them a focus at the end of a path, in front of an archway or away from a corner in your garden. This will stop your garden feeling small and mean you can appreciate the plant in the right spot. Keep shorter plants near your pathways and taller ones further back, this helps open your views during walks around your garden and makes maintenance a lot easier. Finally, if you find yourself squeezing in plants into your already busy garden beds, see if you can sacrifice some of your lawn for a little more garden this year.

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