As part of your initial approach to designing a flower garden, take time to consider what statement you want your flowers to make. Select blooms that complement both your site conditions and artistic aspirations.
Be sure to include plants of various heights and use foliage plants as fillers in your design. Experienced flower garden designers often include an assortment of blooming flowers at different points throughout the season; when one type fades away, another blooming will soon take its place.
Choose a Location
Make sure your garden site fulfills the light and moisture needs of its flowers; for instance, lush hydrangeas thrive best when kept out of direct sunlight while blooming daisies and sunflowers prefer full sunlight. If you wish to attract butterflies or pollinators such as butterflies, choose an area around trees where their needs will also be supported.
An accurate soil test is also essential as water-logged soil invites fungus while compacted clay soil prevents roots from taking in moisture and nutrients effectively. Furthermore, knowing your USDA growing zone allows you to choose plants which will flourish in your yard.
To achieve visual unity in a garden bed, consider repeating some similar plant shapes or colors throughout it. This provides a cohesive look, helping avoid an assortment of different plants in one space. Odd number plant sizes also work better – three or five plants together creates an intriguing and dynamic look.
Think About the Focal Point
Focal points draw the eye and spark interest in any garden, whether they are individual plants, groupings of plants, objects or even complete features such as ponds and fountains.
Focal points should draw the eye with color, shape or movement and provide contrast to surrounding flower beds. Focal points also help tie different themes together within your garden – shades with similar hues are most pleasing on the eye while colors opposite on the color wheel are complementary; therefore choosing plants that feature blooms or foliage which complement one another would help bring harmony and coherence.
Consider yourself standing at the entrance to your garden and gazing out. Where does your gaze fall first? Could it be drawn toward an urn that leads you down stairs into your garden, or could something far off catch your interest? A great way to locate your focal point is by visualizing yourself there with eyes wide open – where do your thoughts take you first?
Consider the Background and Foreground
As real estate agents recognize, repetition is an effective tool used by flower garden designers to add cohesion and balance to their spaces. By repeating certain colors, shapes, or plant species throughout a bed’s design, visual continuity will be created, helping avoid that disjointed look so common among mixed gardens.
Experienced gardeners know when selecting plants to replant, they should take into account factors like year-round interest and staggered bloom times as well as extra qualities such as fragrance or pollinator attraction. It’s also an opportunity to evaluate your flower garden and weed out any plants that don’t meet expectations or just don’t appeal to you ruthlessly.
As you plan the foreground of your flower garden, keep height in mind when creating its foreground. Tall plants should be placed at the back and mid-height ones in the middle for an aesthetically pleasing result. As for ground cover options, try placing low varieties up front as this creates an aesthetically balanced appearance.
Think About Plant Height
As with real estate, repetition is an effective design technique for flower garden design. Grouping several of each kind of plant in each bed creates cohesion visually. Odd numbers of similar plants tend to look better.
Consider the light and wind conditions where your flower beds are situated when placing them. Certain species do better in full sun while others require either partial shade or afternoon shadow for optimal growth. Steep slopes present special challenges when trying to prevent erosion, so you might prefer planting tough groundcovers instead.
Consider your overall flower garden design goals, then select show-stopping plants, color combinations, bloom time and year-round interest as part of your sketch. Plan out planting using this plan, making adjustments as necessary until all planting is complete – then adjust until you achieve a result you like and then enjoy your flower garden design!