Practical Flower Gardening: Space, Care, & Expense

Of course, the first year for any flower garden takes a lot of care as you nurture young plants to maturity, but if you like looking at gardens more than you do working in them, perennial plants are the way to go. Generally, once planted, established, and properly mulched perennials need minimal care as they return to delight you year after year.

If you love being outdoors and digging in the soil, plant annuals. In most cases, you can purchase annual flowers in flats of multiple plants at far less expense than perennial flowering plants. A lush planting of annuals can transform a drab spot of your yard into a beautiful focal point in your landscape. Sunflower

Although any good garden begins with the soil, unless you are building on solid granite, soils can generally be amended to suit the needs of your flowering plants and need little consideration in choosing the plants for your flower garden.

Today's nurseries offer hundreds of choices of cultivars, hybrids, and flower variants. Choose the right plants for your garden according to plant size and space availability. Both of these elements are built around the most important practical factor in choosing the right plants.

If you want your flowers to "bloom where they are planted", then you must plant your flower garden where flowers will bloom!

Locating Your Flower Garden

The most critical element of the location of your flower garden is the amount of light it receives daily. Most flowering plants are sold according to light requirements.

Full sun: 6+ hours of direct sunlight a day.
Part sun: 4 to 6 hours of daily sunlight with more direct light than indirect light.
Part shade: 4 to 6 hours of sunlight, with less direct light than indirect light.
Shade: up to 6 hours of indirect sunlight a day
Deep shade: 2 to 4 hours of indirect sunlight.

Heat tolerances and moisture requirements also figure into the type of light exposure your flowering plants receive.

Eastern exposures, which provide relief from the hottest rays of the sun, are good for flowers that require direct sunlight but tolerate a dryer environment.
Southern exposures provide full sun but also subject your flowers to the sun's hottest rays. Flowering plants that are heat tolerant, like sunflowers and others in the aster family, are good choices for southern exposures.
Western exposures provide morning shade, which gives your flowers more time to absorb moisture from overnight rainfalls and morning dew, but again, western exposures also put your flowering plants in direct sun during the warmest part of the day.
Northern exposures are good for deep shade and part-shade plants, like ferns and mossy groundcovers, that won't tolerate heat or direct sunlight.

In addition to exposure, consider the placement of buildings, trees, and shrubs that provide localized shade (shade that moves through the day or the seasons) and the general "lay of the land". Moreover, these factors also affect the amount of moisture your flowers receive as well as protection from wind.

Structures can either protect your flowering plants or act as a conduit for gusty winds.
Although buildings and fences can block rainfall, elements like downspouts from guttered roofs can also flood your flower garden with concentrated precipitation.
Trees and shrubs provide shade for your flowering plants but also compete for nutrients and moisture.
Flat areas drain slower than sloping areas but provide more uniform moisture retention than slopes do. South facing slopes are warmer than flat areas, while north facing slopes are cooler and soil warms more slowly in the spring.

Container Flower Gardens

Most flowers do as well in containers as they do in a tilled flowerbed.

A flower garden can occupy a window box or containers, strategically positioned in your landscape. Container gardens need more attention to moisture and fertilization requirements than in-ground plantings, but (except for attached containers like window boxes) they are portable.

Container gardens are great choices for growing flowers for those who are short on space! In addition to being virtually weed, pest, and disease free, they also offer the benefit of gardening while either sitting or standing.

Flower Tips

Remember your zone. Choose perennials that are hardy for your zone or you will need to spend extra time in the fall, lifting your plants and storing them for the winter. In addition, timing is everything for setting out tender young plants whether they are annuals or perennials. Knowing your zone helps you decide the best time to plant them.
Choose disease-resistant flower hybrids and cultivars whenever possible.
Before tilling a new area for any garden, remember to call the appropriate companies and/or government officials to be sure you don't till into water or gas lines and underground power cables.

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