Hello and welcome to my garden. I am Susan Harris. I am a Master Gardener. I am also a gardening coach that means that I teach gardening one-on-one in people's gardens. I am also a gardening writer and you can see links to a lot of my writing on the web.

In this video, I am going to teach you how to create and take care of what I call a sustainable garden, that means that it's environmentally-friendly but it's also low maintenance and easy on the budget. So, it sustains not just the environment but the gardener.

This video is for do-it-yourselfers who want to create some beauty around their homes and also make a positive contribution to their environment. The style of gardening, I am going to be showing you how to create, is called mixed borders. It's very naturalistic. It takes its cues from nature without trying to copy nature.

Mixed borders actually emulates the way a forest will transition into a meadow, where you have the tallest plants at the back, the tress or in this case, large shrubs, medium size and then the smaller plants at the front and then I am going to show you how to choose plants that will have the most impact for the least amount of work and that will also be easy on your budget. These plants will help you create a lush beautiful garden that you will enjoy all year long.

In the next clip, I am going to cover how to create the shape of your mixed border.