Creating a themed garden on the ground, in pots/containers or a mixture of both, can become quite an addictive challenge when you let your imagination run riot.

Once you set your mind to it, ideas for personalised themes will carry you away to a point where making a final decision about which theme to implement becomes the pivot of your life.

Does your heart desire an astrological herb garden planted with the various species reputed to be connected with each sign of the zodiac? Do you want a meditation garden or a romantic garden for moonlight nights or is it something else altogether?

Maybe it’s an Islamic-themed garden containing as many of the plants named in the Quran as is possible, maybe it’s of a Persian or Chinese design, or maybe it’s woven around a favourite children’s nursery rhyme or traditional folkloric tale. Once you’ve made a start on it, stopping will be a problem, as you will keep thinking of more plants, more little pieces of artwork, more tiles or wind chimes to add.

Let your creative juices flow to plan a practical or even a fanciful themed garden

Themed gardens are not created overnight, nor need their design and implementation be a purely solitary occupation. In fact, making them a family affair can be a massive amount of fun with, inevitably, the occasional, well-intentioned squabble along the way.

At times, specific plant species may prove impossible to find in local nurseries so will have to be tracked down by other means. This is all part and parcel of the challenge and, when after hours of trawling the internet, the treasure you seek materialises, what an indescribable joy that is.

A wise, forward-thinking gardener, will carry a picture of their completed, or almost completed, themed garden in their head at all times of day and night, so that when an idea, a particular glazed pot, a vintage horticultural tool or an interesting packet of seeds turns up, they will know exactly where in the jig-saw puzzle it fits.

Come on gardeners, the challenge is on. Decide on a theme and launch its flow.

Seed sowing suggestions for May

The flower garden: Blazing orange cosmos and sulphur yellow ones too, zinnias in all colours, forms and heights, celosia/ cockscomb, French marigolds, tagetes, gomphrena, annual chrysanthemums, gazania, rudbeckia, portulaca, gerbera, osteospermums and tithonia. Lots of sunflowers of all shades and sizes, old-fashioned petunias as these are hardier, if smaller, and more heat-tolerant than many modern hybrids. Surprise yourself by sowing a packet of coleus seeds to relish the various colours that come up. Try your hand at germinating some living stones, and cacti too, remembering to follow the stratification process (this should be detailed on the seed packet) to the letter.

The vegetable patch: Grow salad greens in summer shade such as lettuce, endive, radicchio, mesclun, salad leaf mixes, French radish and mooli (a type of large white radish). More chillies, capsicums, pimentos, cucumbers and aubergines. Heat-tolerant cherry tomatoes, cucamelons, okra, fenugreek, bitter gourd, seasonal varieties of cabbage and cauliflower, and final seeds of courgette/zucchini for a late crop. Climbing beans and bush beans can be sown where they get morning sunshine and chickpeas in full sun.

The herb garden: Nasturtiums, calendulas, various varieties of basil, coriander, dill, arugula/rocket, summer savoury, borage and lemon balm in the shade and aniseed in the sunshine.

The fruit department: Chinese gooseberries, the final sowing of sweet melons and watermelons, and do try growing pineapples from cut off, healthy, pineapple tops.

Fruit tree of the month: No introduction is necessary for the ever-popular apple/malus domestica, a member of the rosaceae family, but a few words about their preferred climatic conditions won’t go amiss. Happiest in fertile, well-draining loam, apple trees need a chill period of 300-1,000 hours, depending on variety — this chill period being when the ambient air temperature is 7°C or less. A chill period is essential for an apple tree to bear fruit the following season. The vast majority of apple species also need to be cross-pollinated, and not necessarily by the same variety, which is why planting at least three different varieties of apple tree is recommended. Native to Northern Europe, Central Asia and the northern regions of China, they thrive in annual temperatures ranging between a winter low of minus 2°C and a summer high of 35°C. They will not succeed anywhere south of central Punjab, will struggle in Lahore, fare slightly better in Rawalpindi/Islamabad and are really only at home in the Murree Hills, the Galiyat as a whole, across the Northern Areas, and in the Kalat and Quetta regions of Balochistan.

Please continue sending your gardening queries to zahrahnasir@hotmail.com. Remember to include your location. The writer does not respond directly by email. Emails with attachments will not be opened

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 1st, 2022