Do You Suffer From 'Scope Creep' in Your Garden?

Scope creep is something that can sneak up on you when you are working on a project in the garden. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it is often used in project management to describe when the scope of a project alters over time and is not properly defined or controlled.

In other words, if you don't have a very clear idea of what you want to achieve, and if what you intend to achieve turns into something much bigger than you originally desired, this could be described as scope creep. This is related to the concept of mission creep, which also describes the expansion of a project beyond its original scope.

In a garden, just as in an office environment, it can be important to set out with a clear vision of your goals. If you do not have a clear idea of where you want to end up, then it will become much more challenging for you to get there. And it will be much easier for a small and slow-scale solution to balloon into something much larger and perhaps overwhelming.

Whether we are talking about garden design, creating a new garden, or just setting out on a particular day to complete a specific garden task, not setting clear goals and specific scope or project parameters can lead to a wide range of problems.

Making sure that you have a defined scope in mind is important because, otherwise, jobs can get out of hand. And, without parameters, you may feel that you are not getting anywhere, given that there are always more things to do in a garden.

If you are designing and planning—do so for a specific area. While you do need to look at the big picture, don't be tempted to increase the size of the project area after you begin. Define its parameters from the outset.

If you are creating a new garden, decide on the growing