Landscaping and gardening give us an opportunity to give free reign to our creativity -- to varying degrees, depending on the circumstances.

At the higher end of the spectrum, we find the ideal situation: the freedom of working with a blank slate. We look at an area in the yard, remove whatever's currently there, and start from scratch. If we've decided on a planting bed for that spot, we conduct our research on plant selection ahead of time. We purchase the plants at the right time, install them at the right time and sit back, admiring our creation.

Then there's the real world. Most plants require some amount of maintenance; and mulching, watering, etc. are pretty low-end on the creativity scale. But many landscaping and gardening tasks fall somewhere in the middle: we can be creative, but we're forced to adapt. For example, a mistake or an obstacle may mess up our plans; but in surmounting it, we can still express ourselves creatively.

Let's say we forget to plant our spring flowering bulbs in fall, for instance. In pondering our alternatives, we realize that growing them in containers, instead, is one option. The containers could be creatively arranged to form a knockout display.

Or maybe hiring a stump grinder isn't in the budget -- and we don't feel up to DIY stump removal -- so we find ourselves "working around" a huge tree stump in the middle of a planting bed. I've witnessed instances where folks in this situation hollowed the stump out enough to use it as a planter!

My picture (above left) shows a great example of creativity used to overcome an obstacle. These people wanted a fence in a particular area of the yard, and they weren't about to let a boulder stop them -- they just built right over the boulder!

_{Photo ©2007 David Beaulieu (licensed to About.com)}