I’m playing with buckets and IKEA boxes again, to plan and design the new flowerbed. I first did this for the bushes and shrubs behind the house and this approach worked better than anything I’ve tried before. It gives a much better idea of the size of things.

I only have a limited number and variety of such design aids, though, so one bucket will have to stand in for a whole group of plants in some places, and the same kind of flower pot saucers means different things in different places.

That’s why phase two of the process is to take a photo of the design and annotate it with specific plant names. That made the groupings more obvious and I went back several times to move some boxes around and take a new photo.

Phase three was shopping, but buying fewer plants than I thought I needed based on the design, and then placing the flowerpots in their intended spots. And indeed as usual I had overestimated the number of plants that I had room for. A bucket looks large but three day lilies still take up more space.