Include Your Camera in Garden Planning

I firmly believe that there is no 'bad' garden photo but there are a few things that I've discovered that are an advantage to keeping my camera in mind when I'm garden planning:

1. If you're like me you think of practical things first. This always leads me to think of flowers last and sometimes I don't have space remaining after all of my vegetables are planted. My camera make me think of colors against a mostly green backdrop and most importantly of pollinators who like to sample from all kinds of plants.

2. I'm a creature of habit so I generally plan on the same crops every year. This year I've decided to order artichoke plants. I had grown some from seed a few years back but the growing season here didn't seem to synch with the time that the plants needed. While looking through a catalog I saw an artichoke thistle and thought how much I would love to photograph one. It's worth trying to see if getting plants help the chances of seeing one as opposed to trying seeds again. I also happen to like artichokes quite a bit.

3. Another color point that I think of is that I do not like processing tons and tons of green. It's not that I don't like green it's just that there's only so much a person can do before it's redundant. My garden has taught me to think in shades and variations of green. Light, dark, mint, deep, yellow tinted - green comes in all sorts of variations according to the plants. I love the blue green of some of the grasses that I've photographed. When you can get several variations together then it can be beautiful.

So - keep your camera close and enjoy garden planning.