Careful measurements and an intelligent flower garden layout will reduce or even eliminate the need to relocate plants once established. Start by measuring your garden site and sketching a rough plan on grid paper.
Consider their heights and mature sizes when arranging plants; place taller blooms toward the back while shorter ones towards the front of your bed.
Choose a Focal Point
Focal points draw the eye toward specific parts of a garden or landscape that otherwise may seem disjointed, giving each element its place and giving an otherwise disjointed scene its identity. Focal points may consist of plants, objects or hardscape elements like statues or benches that draw your eyes towards them.
Focal points that create impactful landscape images possess lines that draw your eye away from themselves towards other attractive parts of the scene, creating a sense of balance, symmetry and proportion in their design.
Before choosing a focal point for your flower garden, keep its size in mind when selecting its focal point. A six-foot statue could easily overpower a small cottage garden; on the other hand, it could prove visually distracting in an expansive formal flower garden. Once you’ve decided where you want your focal point located, test it by walking through your flower garden and noting which parts draw your eyes first.
Consider Plant Sizes
Flowers need regular watering and removal of weeds. To help lessen this work, Donna Hackman suggests planting flower beds with taller plants at the back and shorter ones in front. Also consider your blooms’ mature size; plants come in all sorts of shapes from compact clumps to upright or even spiky forms – use this information when designing your garden design.
Another useful tip for creating visual interest in a flower garden design is using odd numbers of the same type of bloom, creating visual interest and making your bed less jumbled than with even numbers. Furthermore, play around with plant shapes for added visual interest: according to world-renowned Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf’s advice spires, plumes, daisies buttons or globes all work beautifully when designing flower garden layouts.
Think About Year-Round Interest
Planning a flower garden requires taking into account how its flowers will look throughout its growing season. Careful consideration must be given to how the colors blend, as well as grouping plants in odd numbers – three, five, seven etc – which make an impressionful statement about your design style. Furthermore, select perennials and annuals with different blooming times so your garden never lacks color!
Piet Oudolf, an internationally-recognized Dutch garden designer, suggests it is also wise to keep shape in mind when planning your flower garden design. Plants with spire-like growth habits pair nicely with those that have more rounded forms; foliage provides extra interest and texture when flowers start wilting – try pairing plants with similar hues (such as sword-like iris with bleeding heart), or mixing leaf textures across multiple plant heights such as tall iris next to shorter varieties such as daffodils or tulips next to tall iris arranged among shorter varieties or plants arranged among short daffodils and tulips for added effect.
Choose Color Combinations
Soil preparation and carefully selecting plants suitable to the site are two key aspects of flower garden design, but other parts can be left up to you – like choosing a color scheme that can have an impactful influence on its overall aesthetic and feel.
Use the color wheel as a guide when choosing complementary colors (those located opposite each other on the wheel). By creating high contrast between adjacent hues, complementary hues create an eye-catching display and draw attention to individual flowers – for instance orange and red, yellow and purple and blue and green (or purple and gray, for Vikings fans).
Mixing flower colors and heights can add visual interest to a garden, making it appear less like an unorganized collection and more like one cohesive whole. Add plants with various foliage textures for extra visual interest such as gladioli with their sword-shaped blooms or bleeding heart with its lacy leaves.
Consider Foliage Texture
Flower gardens can become more than mere displays of brightly hued plants; they can add structure, texture and movement to any landscape.
To accomplish this goal, it’s crucial that the overall composition of a bed be planned beforehand. Doing so will allow plants to reach maturity without overgrowing their space, creating an elegant arrangement in the end.
Attracting attention in any garden, mixed shrubs and perennials with differing heights of foliage height are crucial in creating an engaging floral arrangement. Mixing colors, textures and scales can keep any season interesting for visitors; consider including variegated leaves for dimension and interest as well as spring-blooming bulbs or annuals to fill any gaps and ensure a well-rounded arrangement that requires minimum maintenance.