Best garden plans should leave rooms for undiscovered gems

I enjoy the process of planning a garden, be it for vegetables or flowers or a bit of both. I pore through the Rolodex of ideas haphazardly cataloged in my brain in no particular order, finding ways to incorporate bits and pieces of them in a new garden or how to work them into the existing garden spaces. 

These plans don’t translate to paper too well, thanks to a lack of art skills, but I know what they mean. Plant lists come together over time, and eventually a two-dimensional garden gives way to the three-dimensional space that more or less resembles what I envisioned.

So it’s ironic that some of the best moments in my garden have come not from all those well-laid plans but abject panic.

When things don’t go as planned — a plant dies in prominent spot in the garden or an area I meant to get to was put on the back burner and looks horrible — a desperate gardener starts thinking out of the box.

I’ve resorted to this kind of thinking when other people will see my garden, right before a tour or, this year, before a pair of photo shoots happened in August. 

I was at the whim of garden centers when it came to finding annuals to fill in areas where something didn’t work, so it wasn’t a situation where I could decide what I wantedt. I had to pick from what the online nursery had (local garden centers were long sold out by this time). And I just happened to score some real gems that I obviously overlooked earlier in the season.

The first was Sunpatiens, an Impatiens hybrid bred for sun tolerance. I plunked a few bright pink Sunpatiens in the south-facing border, arguably the hottest and sunniest spot in the garden. They didn’t have a lot of time to start showing off before I needed them to look really good, but in a matter of a couple weeks they delivered and bloomed nonstop until a few weeks ago. For continuous, pure color, I’m not sure I’ve grown a better annual, and they certainly one-upped the petunias and zinnias. 

I also picked up a cute little plant to fill in some edges. Santivitalia procumbens has the misleading common name of creeping zinnia (it’s not a zinnia at all), and Proven Winners sells it as Sunbini, but either way it is a charming little plant with diminutive daisylike golden yellow flowers with dark green foliage that was flying completely under my plant radar. And since it was still available in August, I clearly wasn’t the only person who wasn’t paying attention to it.

Blue Felicia daisy, in particular a variety called Cape Town Blue, landed in my garden because I needed something blue and it was available. That’s hardly well-thought-out criteria for plant selection, but I lucked out with a plant with a natural feel, much like a wildflower with tiny blue daisy flowers with yellow centers.

All those garden plans didn’t have a place for these plants, and yet they were exactly what it needed. They will definitely show up on next year’s plant lists, which perhaps will also leave room for a few undiscovered gems.

Erin Schanen is an Ozaukee Master Gardener who lives and gardens in the Town of Belgium. She is the author of the blog The Impatient Gardener.