You might think that we have lost our minds but…now is the perfect time in the season to begin planning your garden and landscape for next year. Look at your garden. What do you see? What would you like to add or improve? For comparison, look at the neighborhood landscapes including roadway medians and business landscapes. What do you see that you like? Would these plants or design work for your landscape application?
Consider this, every day that you walk through the garden or relax on the patio you are making small observations about your flowers and landscape. What is the star of the season? What did not turn out so well? How are the plants growing? What would you like to stay the same? What would you like to change?
Because your gardens and landscape are now in full flower and form, now is the time to critically evaluate your landscape from Container gardens and hanging baskets to perennial beds to shrubs, trees, and roses. Then, take a couple of minutes right now to jot down a few notes for next year. What new plants should be added next spring?
Creek Side August Garden Planning
Creek Side is working on the same process right now. All our plant varieties and flower recipes are reviewed and graded at the end of the season. Now is the time of year we begin making changes in the plan to improve what we do.
In addition to color, another very important factor is to evaluate each variety for heat tolerance. The very warm weather we have experienced, especially these last couple of years really put our beautiful flowers to the test. Creek Side wants to be sure to offer you only the very best variety in each category so that you will have the greatest opportunity for success.
Flower Trials and Evaluation at CSU
In addition to our in-house flower evaluations, the Creek Side Green Team visits flower gardens and new variety flower trials in our region. Colorado State University in Ft. Collins hosts one of the largest and most respected flower trial gardens in all the US. This past week, hundreds of industry professionals visited the trial gardens for a formal evaluation of each of the 1200 flower varieties on trial. This information is especially helpful as we are now making choices for what flowers to grow for 2023.
The CSU Flower Trial Gardens are open to the public and would be a great stop for your next visit to Ft. Collins. Let us know what you liked the best?
Flower Breeder Catalogs
Our flower industry breeders and plant suppliers begin to offer their new catalogs during the late summer months as well. We visit them at trade shows around the country and attend private flower trials and demonstration gardens located throughout the region. Of course, each of the breeding companies believe they are offering the newest and latest and greatest flowers out there. Now it is our job to sort through the hype and choose what Creek Side truly believes will be the best.
Best of the Best
As the summer finishes up and we move into the fall season, it is time to consolidate all our evaluations, and put pencil to paper. How are we going to offer our customers the best of what we have discovered. What varieties are best for Hanging Baskets? How about which varieties are going to be best for the Container Gardens? Did we identify new vegetable and herb varieties for the home gardener? How about the new roses, trees and shrubs?
Forecast
Now that we have the flower varieties selected of what we want to grow for our customers, it’s time to pull out the crystal ball to help us decide how many we are going to grow. If we had flower varieties or pot sizes that we ran out of, we want to consider growing a few more. And the plants we had left over, perhaps we should consider reducing those numbers. And then there’s the weather forecast to consider. Is it going to be a warm early spring season? Or is it going to be cool and dry again like last year? Do you think it will snow again in May? Your guess is as good as ours.
