Trying on plants

Jackie Maas, who blogs about her garden at Through the Garden Gate writes about keeping an eye on scale and proportion in The Perfect Fit.

Too bad you can’t use the dressing room idea to try on plants before planting them. Then you’d know if they were a good fit or not for your gardens.

Well, I have an idea. Early this spring, before the ground was ready for digging, I cut back the tall, dry stalks of some of my taller perennials. Then I "planted" some of them in an area were I was considering adding some height. This gave me some time to think about how I liked a group of tall plants in that spot. Seeing them in the ground, catching them out of the corner of my eye, walking past them and seeing what they blocked and revealed -- all of this was so much more valuable than a couple of circles on a garden plan.

Right now I'm doing the same with some brush branches I pruned.