IN THE Porter household the 2011 plans are all centred around early August when our youngest daughter gets married and yours truly has been designated to give his daughter away (if only it was that cheap) provide the flowers for the church and give the speech.

The giving away is that final break when I will probably shed a tear or two. The speech I can cope with; in fact there are some that might say I speak too much!

The request for me to do the church flowers is based on some strange assumption that, because my working life and some of my home life is spent dealing with all things horticultural, I have a natural ability to arrange flowers, both without roots as well as with them.

I did contribute to the floral displays at our eldest daughter’s wedding 10 year ago but I had some very good professional help! Watch this space.

The request suggests that a cottage garden effect would be nice, with soft, muted colours to match the delicate colour of the bride’s flowers and the bridesmaids’ dresses.

I have chosen, as one of my 2011 gardening challenges to grow some of the flowers myself, using an unusual selection of hardy annuals, chosen from Thompson & Morgan’s catalogue, with a few extras selected from the shelves of a French garden centre last summer.

The selection includes Scabious ‘Oxford Blue’, Ammi majus ‘Graceland’ Cosmidium burridgeanum ‘Philippine’, Nigella bucharica ‘Blue Stars’, Orlaya grandiflora, Amberboa muricata and Calendula ‘Sherbet Fizz’. Let’s hope for a good growing season from March to August.

Having promised myself at this time last year that I would make a concerted effort to sort out my lawns, other than cutting them, I have done little else and I feel sure that my 2011 gardening is not going to leave me with enough time to put in the extra work, particularly as I wrote a piece earlier in the year about the questionable value of our typical green stripped outdoor carpet.

In fact, I may well be digging up a little more to allow space to grow all those cut flowers and then I can turn the land into a vegetable garden afterwards, having been on a waiting list for an allotment for three years, without so much a squeak from the secretary.

My 2010 plans to develop a small fruit garden have made some progress and the two long beds are dug a ready to receive the canes when they arrive from Rogers of Pickering. It only remains for me to put in some good upright end posts and some strong tight wires to tie the canes to. I can taste the raspberries now.

One of the other plans for 2011 is to help raise money for the West Yorkshire Forget me not Trust (WYFMNT) with an open gardens event across the whole of Kirklees, Calderdale and Wakefield – it will be launched on January 15 and we will be looking for gardens to open for the WYFMNT during May and June – get your thinking hats on over Christmas and look out for the full details in January.

I hope that you all have a peaceful, happy and enjoyable Christmas celebration and that your new year brings you gardening success, family happiness and – pick whichever words suit your circumstances – prosperity, sustainability and / or stability.

If you have exciting plans for your garden, window box, balcony or allotment, why not let me know and I will let other readers know in January. Write to me at Graham’s 2011 Garden Plans, Features Office, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Queen Street South, Huddersfield, HD1 3DU