When creating a flower garden, it’s essential to think ahead about its design and how your design will turn out. This will help determine which types of plants to plant where.
Color should always be your top consideration, but don’t underestimate shape either! Plants come in all sorts of different forms such as mounds, clumps and spires – try combining different ones together for visual interest!
Plan Your Layout
A beautifully-planned flower garden can bring life and value to your yard, adding curb appeal. When designing or expanding an existing garden, accurate measurements and layout plans are key in creating cohesive plant combinations that work harmoniously together.
Beginning your garden design by measuring and sketching out its location. This will enable you to visualize its dimensions as well as gauge sun or shade exposure and identify features such as pathways.
Be sure to include plants with various bloom times in your design to provide color and interest throughout the seasons. Foliage variations like shape and texture also add visual interest when flowers have faded.
Think About the Focal Point
Focus points are integral parts of designing flower beds; they serve to define spaces and set them apart from everything else. A focal point might include outdoor structures like pergolas or trellis arches that serve as gateways into your garden.
Create a circular flower bed featuring unique plant groupings at its center as another option to create an eye-catching focal point visible from all directions.
Hardscape elements like hedges can help create an eye-catching focal point in any garden or flowerbed, offering natural borders between flowerbeds. You could even use hedges to block off unwanted views or keep animals away from your flowerbeds!
Create a Backdrop
A successful flower garden design should feature an abundance of greenery as the backdrop, helping your flowers stand out against it and giving the garden a cohesive appearance.
Consider both your foliage and flower colors when creating combinations for your foliage and flower beds, experimenting with various combinations. Colors near one another on the color wheel such as pink and red pair well; similarly, hues of blue and yellow complement purple and gold beautifully.
Add color and texture with easy-care shrubs that provide structure to your flower garden. Shrubs with interesting bark or twisty shapes add four-season appeal that makes gardening enjoyable!
For a more tailored appearance, plant plants in groups of odd numbers like threes or fives for an eye-catching display. A grid of even plantings would look less pleasing.
Think About the Height of the Plants
As you create your flower garden, be mindful of the heights of each plant. Professionally designed gardens often include groupings of three, five, or seven of each kind to achieve a lush feeling without making too many different varieties look jumbled together.
Think carefully about the form or habit of your plants (also referred to as habit). Some varieties form mounds while others grow upright with spiked stems and colorful foliage that adds character when blooms aren’t in full view.
Consider how much sun the area gets and if your flower garden should be shaded or sunlit to determine which types of plants you can select for this space. Also keep sloped areas in mind in terms of how to protect soil erosion.
Think About the Colors
Color can make all the difference when it comes to making a flower garden come alive. From soothing, calming or energizing effects, selecting flowers and foliage that complement or contrast each other can make all the difference in a garden setting. Use our color wheel tool for help identifying combinations that complement or contrast.
Experienced garden designers know that more is often better when selecting color schemes for flower gardens, particularly when it comes to repetition. Repeating three or five of the same plant is visually pleasing and tends to feel more dynamic than planting in straight rows.