1) Plants should be beautiful, strange, interesting, and exciting. This gets me into too much trouble at the garden store (and everywhere else) because I find almost all plants meet one of those requirements and so many of them are also new! to! me!
2) Plants should be safe to have around kids. I have kids. My kids are pretty good about checking with me before eating stuff found in the wild (we like to nibble on edible plants when we take hikes), but I still think that most of the plants I plant should be safe for kids to taste. Of course, some things are yucky to taste, and that's fine. But we don't need hemlock or other super poisonous plants in our own backyards!
3) Some plants should be yummy. I like to use food plants whenever possible because why not! Need a tree? How about a fruit tree! A bush? blueberries are nice! Kale and chard have beautiful leaves... Get the idea?
4) Kids need their own space. My daughters need their own plots of land to grow things. Sometimes those things are fairies, sometimes they want to make a special home for the slugs (groan), and sometimes they want to plant seeds and seedlings and grow plants! I believe strongly that they should get their own spaces so that they don't get in trouble for disturbing mine. [n.b. my husband has his own space too although he filled his with strawberries and thus has little to worry about because the kids keep it well picked]
5) When in doubt, buy some seeds. Sometimes I wonder about whether we need a new XYZ. But really, for under $5 a package of seeds seems to almost always be a good solution. Try it and see! The worst that happens is that it doesn't grow.
I think that's it for now!
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