Four fun garden projects for big and small spaces
Get creative in your garden this spring by tackling a new project or design. Perhaps you want to support native butterflies or learn how to grow your favourite tea herbs? Below are four fun garden ideas for big and small spaces.
HERBAL TEA GARDEN
Growing your own tea herbs isn’t just easy (it is!), but it also allows you to harvest when the leaves or flowers have reached peak quality for maximum flavour. If you’re a frequent brewer of herbal teas, growing your own can also save you money because most tea herbs are pricey to buy but easily dried and stored for year-round use.
Popular plants include chamomile, stevia, lavender and mint, as well as lemon verbena, lemon balm, and lemongrass. If I had to pick just one of the lemony herbs, it would be lemon verbena, which offers the biggest flavour punch.
As for mint, peppermint is my go-to for tea, but there are dozens of mints, including chocolate mint, apple mint and orange mint.
A tea garden garden doesn’t need a big space to be productive. Herbs like mint and lemon balm are invasive and best planted in pots, not garden beds. I grow mine in a 15-inch diameter container filled with potting mix and compost.
When brewing herbal teas, you can use a single flavour or blend your own custom teas by mixing plants like lemon verbena, peppermint and chamomile.
SALSA GARDEN
Summer is salsa season and one of the pleasures of having a garden is harvesting vegetables at the peak of ripeness for homegrown salsas.
There are different types of salsas you can make and essential crops include tomatoes, hot peppers, onions, scallions, cilantro, garlic and tomatillos. Plant them in raised beds, in-ground gardens, or pots, but if you’re growing in containers, it’s best to choose compact varieties of tomatoes and tomatillos.
All of these vegetables grow best in full sun so look for a site with a least eight hours of direct light. Onions, scallions and cilantro are cool-weather crops and can be planted in early May. Tomatoes, tomatillos and peppers are heatloving vegetables and are best transplanted outdoors as seedlings when the risk of frost has passed.
VEGETABLE SOUP GARDEN
A bowl of vegetable soup is filling, comforting, flavourful and nutritious. Elevate homemade soups by growing ingredients like tomatoes, potatoes, peas, beans, zucchini, broccoli, onions, carrots, kale, parsley, basil, or garlic. I like to take advantage of the summer garden glut and make and freeze big batches of soup for autumn and winter meals.
If you’re short on space or new to food gardening, plant in pots, opting for containerfriendly varieties like Celebrity or Roma tomatoes, Early Frosty or Knight peas, Prizm kale, and bush beans. Soup herbs like parsley and basil also thrive in containers.
BUTTERFLY GARDEN
To create a garden that truly supports butterflies it’s important to consider their entire lifecycle. This means choosing plants that offer nectar to adult butterflies as well as host plants for caterpillars to eat.
We often think of perennial and annual plants for butterflies, but many butterfly species lay their eggs on trees and shrubs like willows, cherries, birches and poplars. If there are certain species you wish to attract, do a little research first to ensure you select the right plants.
Black swallowtail butterflies lay their eggs on parsley, queen Anne’s lace, dill and celery. Monarchs lay eggs on milkweeds like our native swamp milkweed as well as common milkweed and butterfly weed.
Good perennial nectar plants are milkweed, blackeyed Susan, bee balm, Joe pye weed, goldenrod, asters, and phlox. Butterfly-friendly annuals like zinnias, cosmos, lantana, and verbena are also perfect for pots and garden beds.
Plant a butterfly garden in a sunny spot as butterflies need sun to warm themselves, especially after cool night temperatures.
Niki Jabbour is the author of four best-selling books, including her latest, Growing Under Cover. She is a twotime winner of the American Horticultural Society Book Award. Find her at Savvygardening.com and on social media.