Frozen Landscaping? Time To Plan For Spring

By Holly Newby:

A Garden With Good Bones
    If ever there was a week to look at your garden’s “Good Bones” this is it. After the freeze the elephant ears are flat, the perennials are pooped and the lawn is golden brown.
    What seems like a messy clean-up, with frozen poinsettias and azaleas alike, may be just the planning opportunity of the year. There is basically an 11-month growing season in Florida so there aren't many weeks of not mowing in which to plan.
    Up north in Vermont, folks can dream over gardening catalogs for six months of the year while they wait for winter to melt away. Here in the hearty south, we have to chase weeds and mow lawns almost every month, so planning goes by the wayside.
    If you really want to make your yard a beautiful oasis to enjoy, now is the perfect time. Make some plans while it's dead on how you can improve its bones. The structures of your garden that looks good with or without foliage and flowers.
    Grab a sketchbook and take a lawn chair out in the sun. Think about ways to make your yard more inviting by cleaning up her frame. Where does your garden begin and end? Simple features like a gate or trellis can say "Start here…comes this way."
    One of our favorite things in our garden, besides the overhead strings of lights we got for Christmas last year, is the pebble rock walkway to our parking area. It was been great for stormwater drainage, diverting water away from the house quickly during heavy rains, it doesn't wash away like mulch, and it knocks a ton of dirty off the kids' shoes. It is like a 25-foot boot scraper before they get to the door. All it took was some landscape cloth and some bags of pebbles from Ace Hardware. The mower rolls right over it, no problem.
    Do you have a comfy place to sit out and enjoy your yard? No? Why not?
    The garden shouldn’t be about all work and no play. When you are done weed eating, mowing, and blowing, why can’t there be a great spot to sit on a bench or chair in the shade? The average temperature in Florida is 70. That is the perfect temperature for making the outdoors part of your daily routine.
    Just to get you daydreaming, here is a short list of the good things that make up good bones in the garden: entry walk, seating, patios, brick, or concrete edging for beds, trellises, pergolas, herb gardens, picket fences, hanging art, fountains, rock stepping stones, or found objects.
    Dan and Joe's Used Stuff in Umatilla might be just the right place to find a couple of old containers, a wagon, a planter to give your garden some personality. They have yard furniture pretty regular, metal items, wacky old stuff, who knows what's even in that big old barn. One of our favorite features of an older friend's farm garden was his collection of old iron skillets and tools hung artfully on the trunk of an oak tree. They always look cool and interesting any time of year.
    J & S Cypress Things has swings and picnic tables, chainsaw sculptures, carved benches, wishing wells, art, and all kinds of cool durable wooden items to perk up your yard. Check them out online at www.cypressthings.com/. Please be sure to tell them you read about them here in the ‘Outpost’.
    You might even check out the many web pages that show you how to create garden features out of pallets. There are tons of them from making potting benches to herb gardens.
    Whatever your garden’s bones are this week, you can see them clearly. Take this opportunity to come up with a renewed and freshly inspired set of bones for this spring. A little trimming back and sprucing up could take you through a beautiful spring season.
    Please send us pictures of your blooming plants and garden projects to hollynewby1@aol.com or mail them to P.O. Box 1099, Umatilla, FL 32784. We love to share the fun in the garden with others. Please send me a picture of what is in your garden this week to hollynewby1@aol.com. or drop a photo with your name on it by our office at 131 N. Central Avenue. Keep growing…