An exquisite garden is a visual feast, and skilled garden designers know this. When selecting plants, they keep in mind size, year-round appeal, staggered bloom times and foliage color that lasts even after flowers fade away.
Goal: to achieve an attractively layered arrangement featuring taller plants at the back and shorter plants at the front. They take steps to remove weeds as necessary and layer compost on top for enriching soil health.
Design
Begin any new flower garden project or renovate an established one by eliminating all plants that don’t fit with its theme – be they seasonal bloomers, high maintenance demands or those you simply don’t enjoy looking at! Be ruthless about taking this step.
Start sketching using your preferred graph paper and set of sketching tools, such as a compass or plastic template for drawing circles, as well as colored pencils – you can find such supplies at most stationery stores.
Wiley recommends planning how you intend to use the garden and what sort of path will suit it, before starting planting. He advises laying out your path before so that there is space for your flowers and comfortable walking space – repetition adds cohesion in design of flower gardens; placing core colors and shapes repetitively adds unity while groups of three or more blooms look more natural than even numbers of blooms arranged together.
Soil
Flower gardens require soil that drains freely. To achieve the optimal conditions for successful gardening, add organic matter such as compost, manure or leaf mold into the top inch of soil to enrich it and encourage healthy plant growth. This practice promotes vibrant flower displays.
Choose plants that offer both color and fragrance. World-renowned garden designer Piet Oudolf advises planting masses of similar-shaped perennial flowers for a striking visual effect, according to mass planting of similar-shaped perennial flowers in mass quantities – planting masses with similar-shaped perennial flowers can create an appealing visual impact, according to Oudolf – while mixing tall and short spires, umbels, buttons and daisies together creates visual harmony and aesthetic balance.
Select flowers that bloom throughout summer and fall for season-long interest, colorful foliage plants for texture and year-round appeal, shrubs for winter interest and fruiting shrubs for bird and other wildlife attraction. Berries or fruiting shrubs also serve to draw birds in, while native perennials make your garden bee, butterfly and hummingbird friendly by producing higher pollen and nectar production than their exotic cultivar counterparts, while needing less maintenance and watering requirements than many exotic flowers.
Plants
Flower garden designs usually consist of an arrangement of blooms designed to attract pollinators animals like butterflies, bees and honeybees. A combination of low-growing annual flowers such as sweet alyssum and lobelia creates vibrant foundation plantings in flower beds; sunflowers or hollyhocks add height and drama along a fence or front porch.
Expert flower garden designers understand the importance of including an assortment of bloom-timed plants in order to ensure a vibrant display from spring through fall. Furthermore, these professionals rely heavily on low-growing ground cover plants such as clovers and phacelia as groundcover that help aerate soil conditions while simultaneously suppressing weed growth.
When selecting the flowers for your flower garden, select varieties that thrive in your climate and complement your home’s architectural style. When purchasing plants, remember they require plenty of water until established; planting while still in their nursery pots allows you to evaluate how much space is necessary.
Water
No matter whether you are creating or revamping an existing garden, knowing the water requirements for each flower species is critical in creating the design you envision. Knowing this amount could make or break your overall vision for your outdoor oasis.
Watering a flower garden should take place early morning when the sun has warmed the soil and moisture will dissipate less quickly from it. Furthermore, frequent irrigations during hot weather should be done instead of all at once as moisture can quickly escape into the atmosphere and evaporate off into space.
Before planting, incorporate organic matter such as compost, leaf mold, shredded leaves or well-rotted manure into your soil by mixing in layers of compost, leaf mold, shredded leaves or well-rotted manure into the upper 6-8 inches where most flower and shrub roots reside. Avoid working too dry soil; digging may become difficult and it could clump when turned over.