Planting for a party - Garden Northern California Guide

If you're planning to host a backyard garden tour, wedding, or dinner party this summer, You might want to take a few tips from Sebastopol-based landscape designer Maile Arnold, who regularly prepares home landscapes for special events. For each occasion, Arnold's goal is always the same: flower power.

Rather than planting for a succession of blooms through all seasons, she follows a timetable so that every one of the plants will be blooming together when the big day arrives. She plants annuals--or sets out containers of them--to 1111 bare spots between shrubs, perennials, and trees, choosing ones whose flower colors complement existing plants.

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Eight weeks out: Fill bare spots between shrubs and trees with annuals. To save money, use small plants from sixpacks.

Six weeks out: Prune flowers from all plants that can rebloom--annuals, perennials, roses, and shrubs. Clip off open flowers as well as buds. Do not Cut back foliage. Keep in mind that plants take longer to rebloom when the weather is cool and wet.

Start fertilizing all plants once a week. Finely spray leaves with a half-strength water-soluble fertilizer, one that's low in nitrogen and high in phosphorous and potassium. Maile Arnold uses Miracle-Gro Water Soluble All Purpose Plant Food, but other kinds, such as Omega

1-5-5 (available from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, www.groworganic.com or 888/784-1722), also work well. When the weather is hot, feed early in the morning or in the evening; do not foliar feed when temperatures rise above 85 [degrees]

Water plants regularly; annuals may need irrigation daily during hot or windy weather.

Two weeks out: For an instant effect, plant annuals from 4-inch pots and 1-gallon cans, perennials from 1-gallon cans. Discontinue fertilizing all plants until after the event, but continue regular watering.

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