Why plants “fail” (and how to choose the right ones for your site)

Oftentimes, we try to do things in the wrong order.

You go to a garden centre (or shop online) for plants first. Then you try to figure out where to plant them. After that, you start adjusting the soil and growing conditions to make them thrive.

And it often leads to… disappointment.

What if you reversed the order?

You would start with the growing conditions your site naturally offers.

Then you start dreaming about what you want your planting area/border/flowerbed to become.

After that, you plan, shop, and plant.

Suddenly, maintenance gets easier — and your plants actually thrive and bloom.

Your starting point for a thriving garden

It starts with two simple things: a little background information gathering (online is perfect) and a slow stroll around your garden. (That’s what professional designers do, too.)

And when you look closely, you begin to notice patterns:

• That spot that stays damp long after everything else dries.

• The corner that looks sunny for an hour... but feels shady the rest of the day.

• The bed where you’ve planted “easy” plants… and they still look offended.

Noticing is a great start. But if you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “Okay, but what do I do with this information?”, you’re not alone.

You just need a simple structure to understand why your yard behaves the way it does. And it’s not rocket science. Once you can read your light, soil, moisture, and micro-conditions, plant choices become much more predictable.

You’re not ”bad with plants.”

It’s usually about this one thing: choosing plants before you truly understand the growing conditions you’re asking them to live in.

We’ve all done it. I remember saying goodbye to plants in my early years, long before becoming a garden designer.

Plant confidence isn’t about trends.

This isn’t about chasing plant trends or copying someone else’s dreamy border from Instagram.

It’s about learning how to read your site, so you can make plant choices that actually make sense for your garden.

When you can do that, something shifts:

Plant shopping gets calmer. Planning gets easier. And your garden starts to feel like it’s cooperating.

If you’d like support with that, here it is

I made Confident Plant Choices for exactly this “I’m done guessing” stage.

It’s a workbook + videos that helps you identify your garden’s key growing conditions in a fast, doable way:

• Hardiness zone
• Light levels (and what “light” really looks like in your garden)
• Soil basics
• Moisture
• Micro-conditions (the sneaky stuff that makes one bed different from the next)

The goal is simple: move from noticing →  understanding... so you can choose plants that truly thrive.

Who this is for

You’ll probably enjoy this mini course if:

• You’ve bought plants with good intentions… and they didn’t last.
• You want fewer do-overs (and fewer “why did I even plant this?” moments).
• You’re designing or updating a bed, and you want it to feel more predictable.
• You’d love to trust your decisions without needing a million opinions.

How people use it (in real life)

Some people go through it in one hour or a weekend and map out their whole garden.
Others keep it as a reference and pull it out when they’re planning a new bed, choosing shrubs, or trying to figure out that one stubborn area that keeps failing.

Either way, it’s there to help you make decisions with more clarity (and a lot less second-guessing.)

Explore it here:
 Confident Plant Choices.