Previous articles have dealt with laying out your landscape plan. This week, you will learn to determine how many plants to buy. I believe following these suggested steps would keep you from overbuying plants.

You will want to refer to your own landscape plan for this article. Just follow the directions and you will have an excellent estimate of how many bulbs or plants to purchase.

Divide your total garden area into different planting areas. I've labeled mine with the numbers 1 through 4 to indicate 4 different planting areas. The next step is to gain an estimate of the space available for planting each area. May I suggest creating a series of rectangles representing areas 2, 3, and 4. This doesn't have to be perfectly accurate and it's much easier to calculate square feet of rectangles.

Length x Width = square feet

Record this information for each planting area. I suggest using two rectangles to represent area 1 to make it easier to come up with the total square feet. I take measurements of the width and length and round the result up to the next whole number to make future calculations easy. Now you can calculate the total square feet in each rectangle. The area of a rectangle is expressed as width x height to give you the total square feet. Record this information for each planting area. Here are my results along with my plant choices for each planting area.

Area 1 measures totals 16 square feet. I've selected daylilies since they can take the sun and heat coming from the concrete driveway. The individual plants will be 18 inches wide at maturity. This means a circle 18 inches in diameter is needed for each plant. Your planting area is roughly 3 feet deep by 5 feet wide. You should be able to fit two rows of plants set 18 inches apart (determined from center of plant) in this space. You will need a total of 6 plants to fill the area. (I used 3 plants wide x 2 plants deep). It's better to leave a bit of extra space between the plants than to have them quickly overgrow their allotted area.

I will use hostas, bleeding hearts, and primroses in areas 2 and 3. Areas 2 and 3 are roughly 3 foot wide by 7 feet long each. The total square foot for areas 2 and 3 is 21 square feet each. The hostas will reach 2 feet in width, the bleeding hearts, 18 inches in width, and the primroses 1 foot in width. The primroses will be used as along the front edge of this garden. The hostas will grow in the middle portion while the bleeding hearts will at the back of the border. After finishing calculations, I will purchase 6 hostas, 12 bleeding hearts, and 14 primroses. Although it appears that the hostas and primroses are too crowded, I happen to know that the primroses will be done blooming before the hosta leaves are fully expanded. The hosta leaves will help cover the primroses once they start dying back for the season.

This is really easier than it sounds. Just be sure to take your time and do your research about the plants you will use. With the information in hand, you should be able to make a close estimate of how many plants to buy for areas 1, 2, and 3.