Over the years I’ve learned that the best designed gardens, whether they are expansive tracts of land, simple flowerbeds or even just containers on your patio, all benefit from some thoughtful planning. Having a plan to follow can save you time, money and energy when you go to the nursery as well as help make your garden more beautiful.

It’s best to plan ahead and prepare for your visits to the garden center and nursery before the spring rush. One way to do this is to follow that old adage “A picture is worth a thousand words.” A few snapshots will go a long way in describing your particular situation. A plot plan of your property can also be very helpful to the professional assisting you. These plans can be done by a surveyor or you can even prepare one yourself. Accurate measurements are the key.

Another suggestion you might consider is to make lists of plants that you like and take photographs of some of your favorite gardens. These can help you describe and illustrate your tastes and preferences. Keep this information in a file so that you will know where to find it when you have the urge to plant.

Garden centers and nurseries are full of well-trained professionals. So, remember if you’re prepared, they can help you make the best choices.

Every time I come to a garden center or nursery in the spring, I’m always dazzled by all those beautiful flowers and varied colors. I find myself wanting to take them all home, but that’s really not the best approach for the well-designed garden.

To help me focus, I let color be my guide. A simple rule of thumb I follow is to choose plants that either have blooms or foliage in the same color family. The good news is that there are lots of different color families.

Just take the primary colors. Consider all of the variety just in the color red. And when it comes to blue, it can range from sky blue all the way to purple. And among the yellows, you can go from chartreuse to orange. And then there are the flowers that bloom white and the plants that have gray foliage, they are the amiable sort of relatives that get along with every color family.

Color can evoke certain moods. Reds and oranges can make are energetic, while pale blues and pale lavenders can evoke a restful, cool feeling.

The other thing these hot and cool colors seem to do is play with our sense of space. You see, hot reds jump forward and make a space seem smaller, where as subtle colors like pale blue make a space feel much more expansive.

Another thing to consider when putting color combinations together is the individual growing requirements for each plant. You can get that off the tags or through the nursery.

Oh yeah, one other thing. Don’t forget. Green is a color, too.

I can’t imagine my garden without roses — their fragrance and beauty are hard to beat. You know, I grow more than 30 different varieties of roses in my garden, and I’m often asked, “How do you take care of them all?”

Well, it’s all in how you choose them. You see some rose varieties are just easier to care for than others.

Many of the roses I grow are old-fashioned shrub roses. You can find these old-fashioned roses from a variety of sources these days but in the past they were actually handed from one gardener to the next from stem cuttings.

The ideal time to make stem cuttings is later in the summer once the flowers have faded and the new growth has matured just a bit. To help you prepare for this technique, let me tell you how the process works.

It all begins with selecting just the right stems, ones that are just under the diameter of a pencil. I make my cuts at an angle just above a leaf node, making sure the cutting is at least 4 to 5 inches long and has a couple sets of leaves. With your cuttings selected, you’ll want to treat them just as you would fresh cut flowers. Get them in water immediately before moving to the next step. Now make sure you moisten the medium your planting in, and I always make my holes first before slipping the cuttings in. To encourage those roots to develop stick the ends of the cuttings into a rooting powder or hormone before putting them into the planting medium.

Set the planted cuttings in a location where they will receive bright, indirect light and keep them consistently moist. Root systems should develop in 3 to 6 weeks. Once they are rooted, they can be transplanted into larger pots or directly into the garden.

Not too many years ago, if you wanted to have a garden from one year to the next you had to save seeds. Vegetable and flower seeds were a vital part of farm life and exchanging them with neighbors and friends was an important part of rural culture.

Today, with so many seeds available to us from seed racks and catalogs, it may seem a bit pointless to save. But if you garden, you know that seeds can get expensive, so why not save a little money?

My basket flowers were spectacular just a few weeks ago. Since the seeds are difficult to find, I save as many as I can. After the flowers fade and the seed pods dry, I break them off and sort out the seeds. Whether it is basket flower or any other seed producing flower, I like to take the seed heads and place them on newspaper in a tray. As they dry, the seeds begin to fall, and then I store them in film canisters or jars and label them for planting in the spring.

I save seeds from a wide range of my old garden standbys — everything that is not a hybrid because these don’t always come back true from seeds — plants such as my Formosa lily, verbena-on-a-stick and even flowering tobacco.

One of the nice things about saving seeds is that you may preserve an heirloom strain that is no longer commercially available. So by spending a little time in the garden gathering seeds, we may keep some of our favorite garden flowers from being lost forever.

We’ve talked a little bit before about gardening on MLuxe. If you’re a fruit-grower, consider making some freezer jam. This is perfect for when you have a bumper crop of berries you can’t possibly eat, but it’s also an easy way to enjoy summer’s flavors on cold winter days.

About.com’s Frugal Living offers up some great tips on how to make freezer jam. You’ll want to collect the following things:

• Fruit: the riper the better! Raspberries, strawberries and rhubarb all make great freezer jam
• Pectin: acts as a thickener
• Sugar: makes the jam sweet
• Jars: you will want to make sure they are able to be frozen. Don’t forget to clean them well before beginning

The actual process for making the jam is simple. The Web site notes that some freezer jam recipes do call for cooking the fruit, so it never hurts to look around for recipes.

After washing the fruit and removing any stems, mash it with a potato masher. Combine sugar and pectin in a separate bowl. When they are completely blended together, mix them with the fruit for three minutes. Pour the jam into jars and let it thicken for 30 minutes. Freeze and enjoy!

Photo courtesy of thebittenword.com on Flickr

Have you ever wondered how people dealt with problems in the garden long before so many different products were available to us? Well, many times they used products that were common to the household or farm and perhaps designed for other purposes but could have a positive impact on plants.

For example, it was discovered probably quite by accident that throwing dirty dishwater out the back door onto plants could rid them of certain insects. And over time, this practice of using soapy water in this way became fairly common.

I’ve had reasonable success going up against certain insects in my garden by mixing a couple of teaspoons of dishwashing liquid to a quart of water and spraying them. Now, what this solution does is break down the outer covering or cuticle of an insect, making it more susceptible to disease, dehydration and other insects.

If you do this, you need to be careful because the same sort of outer covering or waxy coating is also on plants. Applying this solution can damage young, tender plants in particular if you get too much on them. I recommend spraying a few plants first, wait 24 hours and, if there is no problem, go for the pests.

A simple solution of 1 part rubbing alcohol to 3 parts water can have a similar effect on these little devils.

I’ve tried just about every type of fertilizer there is in my garden over the years, but regardless of what I use throughout the season, every spring I always try to work in a generous amount of animal manure around my plants.

I like to work it in with compost, some of the existing soil and sand for great results. But if you use animal manure, you need to realize that, like other fertilizers, it can burn your plants if you use too much of it.

I found that established trees and shrubs can take a little more than tender perennials and annuals. And I like manure because, when I apply it, if I’m a little heavy-handed, it’s more forgiving than conventional chemical fertilizers and the results can be astonishing.

The type of manure I use in my garden depends on what I’m trying to accomplish. If I want to build up the soil by adding more humus or vegetable matter, I’ll use something like horse or cow manure. If I just want to increase the nutrients, I may use something more concentrated like poultry or chicken manure.

You can’t believe how chicken manure greens up my hedges — there’s almost three times as much nitrogen in it as there is in cow or horse. Whatever manure you use, you should always gently work it into the soil around the plants and never apply it directly on them. And just like any other fertilizer, you want to make sure to water it in after you apply it.

If you use this stuff directly out of the barnyard, you can expect weeds, so you may want to use some of this filter fabric and then cover it with a generous layer of mulch. And always make sure it’s well rotted and aged. Fresh manure can contain some of the same dangerous E. coli bacteria that can be found in undercooked beef. That’s why I like to get it aged, put it in my compost and heat it up, so it reduces the chance of any getting any on my vegetables — especially some of those that I eat raw, like lettuce.

Now if you’re planning on using compost with manure in it on your lawn or your ornamental flowerbeds, you obviously don’t have to worry about the bacteria.

We all enjoy vacations, but it is important to remember to make plans for our houseplants for the time that we are away so that we can return home to healthy plants rather than a heartache. Here are a few tips that you may find effective.

If you don’t plan to be away too long, you can help conserve moisture by placing the plants in a location out of the direct sun. This will slow down the growth of the plants and reduce the amount of water they need. Just make sure they are well watered before you head out of town.

Now if your trip is going to be a bit more extended, you may want to take all of your houseplants that are planted in clay containers and place them in a wash tub or bathtub. Just place the plants on unglazed bricks and fill the tub with a few inches of water. The clay containers will absorb the moisture through the bricks and transfer it to the plants. Also you’ll want to make sure that they have plenty of light so if you put them in the bathroom, leave the lights on.

The houseplants that have been taken outside for the summer will survive best if they are sunk, container and all, in the ground in a shady location where they will be watered by a sprinkler.

If some of your houseplants have problems with pests, if you can find the time before you leave, separate them from the others and give them the treatment they need.

Now if you plan to be gone for say two weeks or longer, I recommend you find someone to come in and serve as a plant sitter to check on them.

Houseplants may need a little extra care from time to time but they certainly are worth it.

One of the reasons I’m attracted to gardening is that it allows me to use and reuse materials. This has a lot of appeal for a pack-rat like me. It gives me a good excuse to hang on to things because I often find another use for them later. Nothing goes to waste in the garden.

A prime example of this is my compost bin. I can take material that I might otherwise throw out, such as leaves and grass clippings, and turn them into big dividends next year in the way of healthy soil for my vegetables and flowers.

Many people I talk with are intimidated by the whole process, but there is really nothing to composting. It is all about getting the mix right.

The recipe is simple. The only ingredients you need are organic materials such as autumn leaves, grass clippings, and raw vegetable scraps from the kitchen. Items to avoid are woody stems, weeds, diseased plants, cooked food and meat products. These items either take too long to break down or have the potential to spread pests and disease. The final two ingredients needed for compost are water and oxygen.

I find it works best if you layer green, nitrogen-rich clippings with brown, carbon-rich material — such as the autumn leaves — at a ratio of about 1 part green to 1 part brown. The nitrogen will help speed up the decomposition of the dead leaves.

You can further accelerate the process by adding a source of nitrogen in the form of granular fertilizer high in nitrogen or well-rotted cow manure. At one time, manure could be obtained from a local farmer, but with the risk of E. coli and diminishing access to farms, I recommend using bagged, commercial cow manure.

Combining all these elements generates heat, which is the final ingredient needed to create compost. When your compost heats up, you know it’s working. It’s no surprise that weather plays a factor in how quickly your compost heats up. The process works best when outdoor temperatures are 50 degrees F or higher.

Of course, if you are starting your compost pile in fall when leaves are most abundant, you won’t have this advantage. To keep your compost going strong through the cold months, there are a few things I recommend. Make sure your pile is at least three feet high, that it stays moist (not sopping wet) in dry weather, and that you turn it about every two weeks. Covering it with plastic will also help to hold the heat in when it is cold.

By taking advantage of all of the garden trimmings and leaves available in the fall, you can have plenty of rich compost in about six months — just in time for summer planting!

There’s been a lot written lately about the Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter, a simple device that lets you grow your tomatoes upside down.

The manufacturer says it helps water and nutrients flow better to the fruit on the plant, prevents spoilage by keeping tomatoes off the ground and can save you the back pain of performing the necessary maintenance on the ground.

The folks at Shelterrific point out that your tomatoes don’t need a $20 infomerical product to grow well upside down. Rather, they include a link to a do-it-yourself set of instructions, which would free you to use whatever look and feel you want for your specific purpose — not to mention saving some money.

The blog Green Joyment has some instructions and a bunch of videos showing similar projects, so you can get an idea of how these plant hangars work.

And if you’re interested in the original Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter, here’s a pretty thoughtful review.

Photo courtesy of kkimpel on Flickr