If you want a flower garden full of color from spring through fall, choose flowers suitable for your climate and soil conditions. Get acquainted with your USDA growing zone before selecting perennials as year-round color fillers, along with annuals to fill gaps between perennials and shrubs.
Plan your planting map so as to incorporate tall plants at the back and shorter ones at the front while taking their growth habits into account.
Location
An ideal location for a flower garden should be within easy access to water hose, so you can keep the flowers hydrated easily. Furthermore, full sunlight exposure throughout the day should allow many types of blooming flowers to thrive in this setting.
When planning a flower garden around your home, think carefully about how you would like for it to make a statement. Rectangular beds beneath windows, long beds lining walkways or driveways or loose, flowing oval or circular gardens that add an organic element can all work well.
Experienced garden designers always select an array of colors, sizes and bloom times that create year-round visual interest in their gardens. When selecting plants to plant, take into consideration bonus attributes like fragrance or whether they attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Also keep frost conditions in mind and learn when certain flowers can safely be grown, otherwise your time and money could be wasted by trying out plants that won’t survive the season.
Soil
Soil quality will have an enormous impact on what types of flowers will thrive in your flower garden. A mix of clay, sand, silt and loam is best, although you can improve it further with compost, manure or fertilizers.
Think about including plants that bloom at different times throughout the season so when one plant fades, another one will step in to take its place. Additionally, include some foliage-only plants for interest once your flowers have gone.
if your garden’s aim is to become a pollinator habitat, native plants should be the mainstay. Although exotic varieties might look nicer, their pollen and nectar production won’t provide enough to support native bees, butterflies, or hummingbirds. Furthermore, native varieties tend to be hardier and require less care compared to their exotic counterparts; remember to choose those according to size and shape for best results!
Plants
Some flowers require regular care to stay looking their best, including weeding, watering, fertilizing and pruning of faded blooms. To minimize maintenance needs and costs, select perennial plants (zinnias, nasturtiums and sweet peas are popular options), while annual bloomers such as petunias geraniums or pansies require only seasonal attention (like petunias geraniums and pansies).
Color plays an essential part in designing a flower garden, so use the color wheel to select colors that complement one another. Bold hues tend to stand out and draw attention; soft hues like pinks, lavenders and subdued yellows blend in better with their surroundings and blend more subtly into their surroundings.
Mixing annuals and perennials provides four-season color in any flower garden. Fall planted bulbs (tulips, daffodils and alliums) begin blooming early the following spring; summer planted perennials like peonies and mums reach their peak blooming period around midsummer before continuing into fall. Dahlias and cannas work well when combined with annuals to provide consistent summer blooming.
Water
Flowers bring color and life to the landscape. When designing your flower garden, experiment with height, texture and shape to add visual intrigue. Mixing fine foliage with coarse foliage or mixing short and tall plants provides a distinct style; shifting sizes of plants also provides visual weight: groupings of small daisies may offer more visual weight than larger groups of the same plant type.
Make sure your bed is close enough to your water hose to make watering simple, and avoid working the soil when it is too wet; doing so could damage its structure and lessen plant roots’ ability to grow into it.
Focus on selecting plants with staggered bloom times to keep the garden vibrant year-round, adding year-long interest as one species fades and another takes its place. Shrubs provide four-season appeal; consider dwarf conifers, hedges and berry-producing holly shrubs among your options.