Picking plants

Castor bean at Kanapaha Botanical Garden
Originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute

Yesterday I ordered a bunch of seeds from  Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in preparation for planting the new bed in my front yard. Here is the list of the seeds I ordered, many of which are both edible and ornamental. Don't you love multi-tasking plants?

• Gobbo di Nizzia Cardoon (AR103)
  
• Garden Mix Castor Bean (FL280)
  
• Double Purple Queen Datura (FL313)
  
• Lime Green Nicotiana (FL521)
  
• Mexican Sunflower (FL729)
  
• Royal Purple Zinnia (FL806)
  
• Lime Basil (HB103)
  
• Cilantro (HB125)
  
• Lemongrass (HB162)
  
• Leonitis (HB167)
  
• Hill Country Heirloom Red Okra (OK112)
  
• Thai Red Roselle (RS101)
  
• Green Zebra Tomato (TG103)
  
• Cherokee Purple Tomato (TP101)
  
• Japanese Black Trifele Tomato (TP107)
  
• Striped Roman Tomato (T105)
  

I figured it would be cheaper to start some of my own plants from seed rather than buy established plants at a nursery. We'll see -- I guess it depends on how successful I am at growing plants from seed!

The tomatoes and cooking herbs will go in the backyard, and I may not end up using all of the others in the front bed. I just couldn't decide.

I do still plan to buy a few plants from the nursery to help give the front bed some good bones. I don't want it to look too empty in the winter. The options include:

• Forest Pansy redbud
  
• muhly grass
  
• Bulbine frutescens (less winter hardy, but still pretty)
  
• Yucca smalliana 'Bright Edge'
  
• Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' or Ensete 'Tandarra Red' (both cold sensitive, but root hardy)
  
• paddle plant (which apparently is actually Kalanchoe luciae and not Kalanchoe thrysiflora, as I had been calling it)
  

The next things to do are to make a sketch of the bed so that I know how the plants should be arranged and look into buying limerock that I can use to edge the bed.