Flower Garden Design - Flower Garden Design Tips - Spring Flower Gardens
Flower gardening tips for beautiful blooms need to start from the ground
up – literally! Shape up your soil before you plant. This calls for a good
flower garden design plan and some careful planning and at least some of the
dreaded
“W” word: work. All the flower gardening tips in the world won’t
help without properly preparing your planting medium.
Two flower garden tips for getting your soil in shape include the
traditional method and the “easy” way. This traditional, tried-and-true
technique works faster, but it also involves more labor: Remove grass and
weeds, mix in 2-3 inches of organic matter, then rake smooth. Larger dirt
clumps need to be broken up by hand, of course. Easier, but more
time consuming, the “layering” method saves your back, but does require
patience. Mow or weed-eat grass to ground level. Spread newspaper (black and
white only!) 10-12 layers thick. Follow this with 8-10 inches of
well-decomposed organic matter. Water well, sit back, and wait until spring.
Voila! You’re now the proud owner of a raised flower bed full of beneficial
micro-organisms. Employing further flower gardening tips becomes about as
easy at it gets!
Perennials will save you a lot of work in your flower garden
Keep flower perennials high on your list of flower gardening tips. These
hard-working beauties eliminate yearly re-planting to get the color you
crave. Select varieties that don’t need staking or frequent division.
Favored sun lovers include among many – varieties such as daylilies,
sedum, and speedwell. Hosta, ferns, sweet woodruff, and columbine win easy points in shady areas. And don’t forget bulbs such as crocus,
daffodil, and
tulip. Plant show-stopping bulbs between perennials for a springtime splash
of color. Flower bulbs rate big on every collection of flower gardening
tips.
Flower gardening tips that don’t include mulch miss many important features.
Mulch provides weed control, water retention, and adds all-important organic
matter. Spread 2-4 inches between and around your plants in spring and late fall to ensure best results. Mulching ranks hands down as number one in
smart flower gardening tips.
Another factor figuring largely in flower gardening tips concerns edging.
Edging keeps grass from creeping into your beds and frames them neatly. The
best edging is permanent and well worth the extra money. Brick or stone
placed flush with the ground attractively sets off your plants and makes
mowing easy. These types of edging rank near the top of flower gardening
tips for good-looking, low-maintenance flower beds.
These flower gardening tips offer sure-fire methods to get you well on the
road to a beautiful yard. But remember to always apply your own situation to
any flower gardening tips. The rest is up to you!
Begin planning your garden around a focal point. Will it be your house, a favorite cultivar, color, or will you add a garden feature like a bench, arbor, gate, or statue? Even a picturesque fence or garden wall can be the focal point of your flower garden. Plant taller annuals and perennials towards the back of your garden when your focal point is a stationary backdrop. When it's in the center, use it to add vertical interest to your plantings as well as a place to capture the eye of your visitors. When planting a large area or several small ones, do use repetition. Repeating plants, colors, and textures adds unity to your flower garden.
Spacing plants according to the spread they'll occupy at maturity prevents crowding of larger plants and add impact to small blossomers. Whatever the shape of your garden, do plant your cultivars in groups. Remember that field of wild flowers? Although a variety of colors may be displayed in the same field, what typically first catches our eye is a sudden burst of a single color.