Renovating the garden this year is exciting, yet overwhelming.  There are so many decisions; sometimes they seem to be firmly made.  Another day, the doubts are back.  A bit like life itself.

Visiting a garden center today did little to help finalize plant choices. Camellias.  What a lovely choice for a hedge: evergreen and very Southern. With the right selections, there could be blooms throughout the year or all at once in a mass of soft color.  But–is there too much sun; will the deer ruin them; do they require too much water?

Juniperus chinensis ‘Spartan’.  Possibly a good choice, but will it get too tall and overpower the perennial beds?  The winter color seems drab. Can make-do without a lot of watering, once established — a necessity for survival in this garden.

The garden center had some 3-4 foot pots that would make great accents in the garden. Using several of these would add height immediately, so smaller, less expensive specimens could make a big impact right away.

A meditation path still holds intrigue.  Stepping stones interplanted with creeping thyme would awaken the senses and offer a joyous way to experience the garden.  My old garden had such a path, and although it had not been conceived as a meditation path, each step did lead friends laughingly through the phlox, iris, coreopsis, zinnias, gladioli.

May decide to enclose the yard with a four-foot picket fence, the only style and height allowed in the neighborhood, having already installed the maximum amount of six-foot privacy on one side several years ago.  An expensive option, the deer could breech it, but might it deter them some?

It is not hard to select numerous things that would make a garden wonderful.  The difficulty is pruning my garden options.