Plan your DREAM GARDEN: 2024 Step by Step Guide

Welcome to my comprehensive step-by-step guide for garden planning in 2024! In this video, we will walk you through the process of designing and organizing your dream garden for the upcoming year. _________
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Howdy neighbor how is your garden growing today what we’re going to be doing is we’re going to be starting to plan the garden of your dreams so what I’m going to be doing is taking you through step by step the process that I use to help plan out my garden and that

I’ve used to help others plan their Gardens and in your first step what you need is you need a couple things to help you along so you can grab my wild Floridian garden planner to help you or just grab a pen paper or crayons or markers or whatever thing that you can

Use to start documenting all these thoughts that are in your head so let’s start with step one step one you may be like me there’s a lot of stuff happening in this head there are lots of ideas from plants that you want projects you want to do styles that you like you love

That English cottage Garden but oh wait you saw some really cool pots the other day and it made you kind of feel like you were in Morocco but then you saw a chameleon you went I want that and I want to figure out a space for it but

Then you saw a joar Rhonda tree and you thought wait where would that fit in my yard and then you know what I’m saying like this is what’s always going on in my head all the time so in order to help me kind of quiet it all down I have to write it

On a list and it doesn’t need to be a complicated list it could be just something as simple like this wish list you could do a brain dump brainstorming session but all the idea is it’s just it’s a place of yes there’s no practicality to this list there’s no but

Where will you put it how much does it cost do you have the right soil do you even live in the right climate don’t worry about any of that you’re just going to write down all the things that when you picture your dream Garden this

Is what you wish it would be this is what you wish it would look like you’re going to put that down now that you have a wish list a brain dump you’re going to set this right here step two we need to think about why do we Garden because in

Order to have a garden of our dreams it won’t be a dream if it doesn’t fulfill the emotional need of why we want it so after having so many conversations with my fellow gardeners both both in person and in my community I found that there are five categories that kind of sum up

The main reasons why people Garden the first category I’m going to say it’s Joy it makes them happy it’s pretty it just makes them feel good there’s no tangible thing that they get out of the garden they just walk into their garden and whatever it is makes them feel good

Could also make them just feel like it’s a place of control in a chaotic world or on the flip side it lets them feel like they can let their hair down in a world of too much control but at the end of the day it just makes them happy so the

First reason you might be wanting to Garden is just Joy the next reason a lot of people say they Garden was health health kind of breaks down into two different ways one that’s kind of external to you and the other one that’s kind of internal to you when it comes to

External this is really like kind of the like it’s the digging of the holes it’s the moving of the mulch it’s just physical activity and I know when you look at research papers a lot of people say it’s moderate exercise um I’m sorry have you gardened before well if you

Garden the way I Garden it can be be extreme exercise removing tons and tons of materials or it can be very light and little and just putting a little plant in here and a little plant in here but it gets you off your feet it gets you outside breathing fresh air enjoying

Getting a little bit of vitamin D but on the other size internal to you from a health perspective is a lot of people GED because they want to improve their nutrition growing fruits and vegetables that are even closer Farm to Table because what’s closer Farm to Table than

Your own little mini Farm it doesn’t matter if it’s in a container pot or in a giant raised bed or you have like a whole inground system then you almost look like you’re a mini farmer so many people are looking to get better Nutrition By growing their own food

Number three reason a lot of people are gardening and you may be too is to save money now there is the one that a lot of people think about which is growing your own food so you can cut down your grocery bill and that can be an

Excellent way to cut down your grocery bill other things people do to be able to save some money is while creating a low maintenance landscape so that they don’t don’t have to pay someone or they don’t have the money to pay someone to come and maintain it so this could be

Anything from converting your lawn from a very high maintenance grass to a lawn alternative or it could be something like saving on your water bill because you don’t have to water as often because you have something like a much more drought tolerant plant and often overlooked it could be something that

Like saving money on your energy bill because is one of the best return on investments for decreasing the amount of energy your house uses is plants through putting in landscape like shrubs or trees to shade your house so that it keeps cool in the summer or gives wind

Breaks and helps insulate your house during the winter the number four reason that a lot of people are gardening is for security yes this can be things like putting up privacy Hedges or putting up plants with thorns to keep unwanted neighbors or Wildlife out but also can look like something like food security

Not wanting to be 100% reliant on our food supply chain or you live off in an area that’s a lot harder to go and access food food security may be something that you need to prioritize and want from your garden and number five the number five reason is wildlife

And environmental reasons when it comes to why you may want a garden is you want to start building a habitat for wildlife this could be anything from bees butterflies birds or all sorts of other creatures other things this might look like is for you maybe about reducing how

Many chemicals are being used on your lawn or not overusing water especially if you’re in a drought area a couple other reasons that you may be gardening for wildlife and environmental also could be that you want to sink carbon into the ground whether through trees or building up layers of carbon through

Good soil or you’re looking to help have a lower impact on the heat that radiates off your property and so you’re adding plants to reduce the heat load of your property now just to be clear there is no right or wrong answer there is only your answer and you can of course have

More than one answer but I do challenge you to be as you think through this list of reasons why you Garden is which is your biggest priority many people may find that they want to get get joy out of it but they really really need to

Save money you need to be clear about your priorities because as we plan out the garden you’re going to have to make some choices often times we can’t do all of the things we might be able to do a couple of the things but not all the

Things and it can’t really be a garden of your dreams if it’s not like fitting your dream so take a moment and note down what is the reason and of course I would love to hear from you if you share in the comments why do you Garden let’s

Talk step three what style do you like because here’s the thing while you might want to save money and get joy out of your garden or get security but help Wildlife there’s a lot of like looks for these things there’s a lot of right ways

You can do this so I want you to take a moment to think about what styles of garden think about which YouTubers do you watch and what do their Gardens look like what kind of pictures on Instagram do you like Pinterest or when you Google whichever one you want but look at a

Bunch of pictures and start to think what’s the style that I like when it comes to where I live here in Florida there key styles that I see repeated over and over one of course is that a lot of people like that English cottage Garden look it’s kind of organized but

Not it’s flowing and winding and there’s color and things are mixed together it’s got this natural but not like too crazy kind of look or we have what I would call the French manicure it’s tight and boxy and everything has a very clear border with a border around the border

And very interesting Styles and very much controlled look not getting overflowing and winding you’re getting a lot of straight lines very clear geometric shapes but kind of in the style of English kaj garden but with less focus on colors and necessarily just low mounding and more focus on

Textures it’s what I would call like the Japanese zen garden look it still has pops of color but there’s way more texture going on it plays into that winding look but it focuses on how different layers of green can really just pop a space and make it look really

Nice but maybe you don’t live in such a luscious zone or you have a space that’s a lot more um hard spaces you may integrate something that’s more desert Chic a lot more focus on the containers to draw in the color and more visual interest and supporting some plants

Versus the plants doing the heavy lifting I can see this for a lot of places that have droughts but also people when they’re trying to design for like pool deck areas Courtyards where they don’t just have space to shove tons of plants but when they do have plants

How do they make them really pop and kind of in the vein of the Japanese Zen and the English cottage garden with overflowing abundance is your tropical oases now kind of playing into that Japanese end that focuses on those textures or the English cottage garden with those wild flowers and Pops of

Colors Tropical Oasis if you really like that mounding layering winding look but you want to get the feel of the tropics with vibrant colors and plants that can work in both shade and high moisture you don’t need to live in the tropics to get this look things like Ferns and elephant

Ears and Palms of All Sorts can help give you this look but of course maybe you want to push out even beyond that and just go wild and free using native plants and allowing the space to kind of do more what nature does not trying to

Manicure it to look into any of these looks but just use the plants that are from your area and just letting them go so we have our wish list we have why we’re gardening we know what styles we like but we also need to think a little

Bit about just like the plain old function of it so it’s good to say we want food and nutrition or we want to support Wildlife but like what do you like what aspect needs to be in there do we need to have a veggie garden do we

Need to have a tropical food or an orchard or flower beds or a wildlife space these very basic fundamental ideas it may seem like we’ve talked about it but we haven’t talked about that so I want you to create in step four another list that’s just like I want it to have

A veggie garden like when I say food nutrition save money I mean a vegetable garden or when I talk Wildlife I’m talking about a wild flower garden like that’s the kind of like just basic it’s just functional doesn’t have a style it’s just functional I know we’re

Turning the coordinat to set five and people are probably like we haven’t drawn anything yet usually most step-by-step guides already have us like drawing and measuring how you to draw and measure something you don’t even know what you want this is the whole process of figuring out how what we want

We got to figure out what we want before we start like drawing I mean you can draw at any point you want like Feel Free Step five we need to just put down plant ideas this is basically saying if you want a veggie garden that brings you

Joy what veggies bring you Joy or you want to track butterflies in a wild flower garden what flowers that you already know about do that but for many of you guys who are at the beginning of the plany face you just don’t even know and there’s a couple ways to go figure

This out one you’re on YouTube there’s lots of advice here on YouTube I have lots of advice on YouTube I would recommend going and finding list videos if you want to attract butterflies go find videos about attracting butterflies there’s I like to call them the list videos you know 10 plants to attract

Birds 10 plants to save you money 10 plants that whatever you know you got it you know why you’re doing it you kind of know what the function is so if you want to know what vegetables save me the most money go look up a video on it and then

Read people’s lists or Google that there’s just people lists all day long another way is you could just go over to some of your local nurseries I mean the local ones not the Home Depot and the loads go to your local nurseries and just go like ask people hey I want to do

This thing what kind of plants would help me do that I mean you could go to your Home Depot and Lowe’s too I mean sometimes they can be really useful and sometimes they can’t but if you want to just get your dream and your ideas going

Just go wander around go look at flowers go look at vegetables that people are selling in your area go talk to some of the gardening groups and just make a list we have so many lists at this point do you realize this we have so many

Lists now what I want you to do is go back to that wish list and brain dump and I want you just to look at that is there anything on that that should go onto your plant ideal list is there anything in that now that you’ve thought about it that should influence what

Style or function does it all make sense in your head just take out a moment and just like review that because sometimes well I don’t know you might be like shiny object syndrome right I’ve been showing you some stuff and you’re like oh that seems good I want that but then

When you step back and you look at your first list do you still want that is that the thing you still want or you just like what you saw and like now that you think about it maybe that’s not what you want again no right or wrong answer

Just your answer so now that you got all this ideas you know and you can kind of see it in your head this like image is starting to form I want you to go out in your garden and go pick the space that this is going to go be in you may find

That you have a couple of different spaces but like out of all of them for your next project like which one are are you going to go do and if you have my planner at this point we want to go to this page the project page give your

Project a little name it doesn’t have to be complicated I’m really bad at naming things so I’m very literal I’m like north side of house vegetable bed like that’s what I write or South house wild flower bed but maybe you’re more creative than I am which would not be

Surprising you probably are probably want to have some sort of beautiful name like you’re going to write something super creative please share with me because it helps inspire me for conventions honestly I used to joke about when I was going to name my boys like I was just going to name them boy

One and boy two cuz I’m really bad with being creative like that but give yourself a little project name and now what we’re going to do is we’re going to go and measure out the space now if that feels super stressful to you and you’re like I don’t have a measuring tape long

Enough you don’t need to over complicate this all you need to do is have a couple of feet and then just start walking it’s going to look a little something like this you’re going to just walk it now don’t put yourself feet to feet especially if you’re a lady our feet are

Not a foot long so what you want to do is you want to just take a step with a little bit of a gap and that is one foot so if my toes starts at the very beginning of wherever I want to do the project go one 2 3 and just walk out

However far you think the space is going to be and then just start noting that on your piece of paper so is it 8 ft by 4 ft is it 3 ft x 2 ft whatever no right or wrong this is an ish and honestly all

You need is an ish now that you’ve got the rough measurements just draw that out go ahead put it down on your little grid paper or just on a random piece of paper and know how big is the space next thing I want you to do when you’re

Drawing out the space is I want you to know which way is North which way is east west south we’re going to step six still but we kind of are doing like substeps right now so first we walked out the space and we got the measurements two we drew that down three

We went and we figured out which way was north east west south the next thing you’re going to need to do which is like step 6.4 is you’re going to map out any structures that are going to create shade for this Garden so your houses your garages fences giant trees anything

That as the sun moves around throughout the day and the year that are going to throw shade onto that Garden I want you to think about that now a few of you right now are going like but what if my drawing is bad what if my drawing is

Ugly don’t worry about this this is for you this is not going up on the wall of some Museum this is just needs to be clear enough for you to know what you were thinking that’s it that’s it the first plan you ever draw is going to be

Like or maybe it’ll be great who knows you won’t know until you do it but the next one and then the next one and the next one you get better over time you only get better unless you practice okay but why does that matter okay well step

Seven what amount of sun does your space get cuz we must answer the question is it full sun is it full shade or is it something in between because this is going to make the difference on which plants are going to work or not work in the space and that goes for everything

Whether you want to go with Tropicals vegetables fruits native wild flowers it doesn’t matter we need to know what kind of sun because full sun plants don’t like full shade and full shade plants don’t like full sun that’s just how it works so now we know whether it’s full

Sun full shade or somewhere in between and for of course my floridans we know that full sun means a whole bunch of different things but a couple other things you might want to think about this would be step eight is there any infrastructure that you want to do in

That space for this project are there things we’re going to build for it so are we doing inground beds or are we doing raised garden beds other things do you want other structures like trellises do you want Arch trellises flat trellises oish trellises sometimes these

Are just for the look I’m all about it I love a flower going up and over a trellis yes give me Blue Ocean morning glories yes give me Jasmine oh yes I love it or maximizing space I’ve got Puerto Rican black beans going up and over mine yes Tris can be amazing maybe

You’re using those to maximize your space and maybe potentially offering a little bit of shade to some of the plants around them do you need to add any irrigation into the area do you need to raise the area a little bit maybe it’s a little swampy and muddy just some

Questions to think about as you’re thinking about your space now as you thought about all that look at your space and go sketch out some things feel free to use templates online there’s so many people who have like different like do you want a square garden do you want

Triangle garden different variations of beds and go ahead and put any of your major infrastructure in place and now we need to go and start placing plants so Step n whatever key priority plants that you are thinking for this I want you to focus on the top plants that both

Fulfill what you want while you Garden plus the style plus the function I want you to think about those because in Step nine on that short list I need you to go get the plant spacing because in order to be able to draw plants into your

Picture you need to know how close they can be to each other it’s just it is what it is like you can’t have tomatoes 2 in apart so I want you to go look up your plant spacing guidelines for my peoples who have wild Floridian planner

Of course they know that all the veggie spacing is already listed in here so they can have that as a quick cheat sheet and now that you’ve got your plant spacing listed yes go for it number 10 just start putting plants in places on your drawing taller plants in the back

Going ahead and putting layers below you can of course do layers that are like in aligned or you could do them where they kind of uh do the three five method so if you have something really tall put three of them and then do clumps of

Threes in front of them slash5 you could use arcs there’s a lot of like I said there’s so many right ways to do this it just depends and also remember as you go through your garden dreams experimenting is part of the journey now that you kind

Of have that General stuff down you do want to go back and double check any plant needs so you might have all full sun plants but also make sure some of them might want to be in really dry conditions some might want to be in swampy conditions This Is Not Unusual

Especially if you’re into native wild flowers like me you can end up having swamp plants next to like Highland plants and these have different watering needs and this might be a very bad idea but sometimes you might want to push the boundary I do it all the time but I’m

Just mentally prepared that some things might die on me so in Step 10 go ahead and make any markings down on what kind of soil needs do they need very acidic soil do they need different compounds to be getting them in the ground also you might want to note down things like

Maintenance frequencies like how often they should be pruned how often should they be cut back when you shouldn’t cut them back because they’re going to flower or fruit and if you of course are using something like my planner then once you have all this information about

Your key plants what you want to do is note in either the season or in the month what do you need to do for fertilizing pruning harvesting in each month so you know you don’t forget to do the things that take care of your dream Garden is this all starting to make

Sense to you how we went from that original wish list brain dump and why we garden and we worked our way through you’re finding this a little bit like wo I have a lot to think about that’s okay definitely think of this as an iterative cycle process go back to your wish list

Remember your why the function go back through your drawing again are there other plants you don’t have to overthink it and if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed that’s okay you can cut out as many of these steps as you want you can still create your dream Garden through experimentation these steps are

Just to help increase the chances that you get there faster and quicker and on the first try actually part of creating the garden of your dreams it’s a process it’s a journey and and that I find is more of the dream than the final product so if you’re getting excited so that you

Can plan your dream Garden you can pick up of course my planner at www.w.net planner and if you’re looking for some inspiration on a wildflower Garden go ahead and check out this video right here or if you want to know what got me some of the best return on

Investments and help me grow 500 lb go ahead and check out this video right here okay I’ll see you soon bye