Plotting Your Course for Plant Purchases
Last updated May 2019
To get started, you’ll need to know your garden’s soil type and acidity, how things drain, and how much sun different parts of your property get. When making a plan (or adding to an existing one), you’ll want to match plant types with areas where they’ll probably thrive. You should account for how your property will look both right away and years from now when your plants have grown. Without a plan, you could wind up with an assortment of plants that do not complement each other in size, shape, or color. You might end up with shade where you want sun and with the view from, or of, your house obscured. Worst yet, you might pay for expensive plants when inexpensive ones would work just as well.
Make like an HGTV star and do a rough drawing showing your house, other structures, property lines, and desired plants. Get guidelines and ideas from gardening websites, friends with attractive outdoor spaces, and the experts listed below.
If you want professional help, you have several options. A garden center or landscape contractor can send a designer to your place. And if you want to do your own buying and planting, you can pay a consultation fee for help preparing your own plan or a design fee for the designer to draw the plan. Or get a free consultation by asking a nursery for a landscaping estimate.
You can also hire a landscape architect or garden designer to provide complete service, including consultation, design, assistance in selecting a landscape contractor, and supervision of plant selection and contractor performance. Or get only the consultation or the design. Your first conversation with an architect may be free; from then on, fees are set in various ways.
For more information on landscape designers and landscape contractors, see our article on landscaping help.
Your county’s cooperative extension office has master gardeners you can call for advice and help with diagnosing plant problems if you bring or send them specimens. Other local sources of gardening expertise:
University of Delaware College of Agriculture & Natural Resources
113 Townsend Hall
Newark, DE 19716
302-831-2504
http://extension.udel.edu
New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers University
88 Lipman Drive
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
www.njaes.rutgers.edu/extension
PennState Extension
323 Agricultural Administration
University Park, PA 16802
877-345-0691
www.extension.psu.edu
Bartram’s Garden
5400 Lindbergh Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19143
215-729-5281
www.bartramsgarden.org
Camden Children’s Garden
3 Riverside Drive
Camden, NJ 08103
856-365-8733
www.camdenchildrensgarden.org
Chanticleer
786 Church Road
Wayne, PA 19087
610-687-4163
www.chanticleergarden.org
Morris Arboretum
100 E. Northwestern Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19118
215-247-5777
www.morrisarboretum.org
Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
100 N. 20th Street, 5th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-988-8800
www.phsonline.org
The Scott Arboretum of
Swarthmore College
500 College Avenue
Swarthmore, PA 19081
610-328-8025
www.scottarboretum.org
Tyler Arboretum
515 Painter Road
Media, PA 19063
610-566-9134
www.tylerarboretum.org