Flower gardens can add vibrant and breathtaking beauty to your home landscape. When creating or revamping existing gardens, accurate measurements and an organized design are critical components to its success.
Plant taller flowers near the back or center of your flowerbed and fillers like fuchsias and lilyturf in front. Grouping them based on height and structure helps achieve an aesthetic balance that ensures success.
Location
Flowers that need sun exposure require full sun, so select an area with at least six hours of direct sun each day. Remove grass and other weeds before planting, as well as amend the soil using compost or organic material.
Make sure that you understand your USDA growing zone as this will dictate which flowers can grow successfully where you reside. If you choose flowers outside their designated zones, they could not thrive or even experience frost damage during wintertime.
Experienced gardeners understand the value of mixing up their flower beds to add color and interest throughout the year. This practice is especially essential if your goal is to attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds which are drawn to local flowers that produce nectar or pollen in abundance. Strategic repetition also adds visual continuity while making flower beds appear less disorganized.
Soil
Flowers require well-draining soil with plenty of organic matter for proper development. Amending soil before starting your garden is optimal; however, good quality commercial mixes may also work. In an ideal scenario, there should be ample sunlight hitting the chosen site depending on which plants have been chosen to bloom.
Flowers should be chosen to bring color, shape and fragrance to the garden. Foliage adds visual interest even after blooms have faded; consider including bulbs, perennials, annuals and shrubs for four-season interest.
As you select flowers, keep in mind that adding height can be accomplished through various means such as using edging to separate your beds from the lawn or installing a trellis or arbor over it. A low fence or chicken wire may help keep animals and children away from your flower garden. Consider including water features like a fountain or pond into the design for added interest as this may mask annoying traffic noise or neighbors nearby.
Plants
Establishing a beautiful flower garden requires more than simply selecting suitable soil and flowers – it also requires designing an appealing landscape that’s easy to care for while providing year-round color.
Experienced garden designers understand the importance of including shrubs for structure and four-season interest, perennial flowers to provide blooming all three seasons, colorful annuals as seasonal filler flowers, staggered bloom times so your garden does not completely go bare in autumn, as well as staggered bloom times to ensure blooming doesn’t stop abruptly in any given year.
Plant in groups of three plants or more for maximum effect and less disorganized gardening. Also consider mixing heights when planning your plantings to make for more appealing gardens and prevent areas from looking too dominated by tall plants. Finally, adding visual interest by mixing different shades of the same flower is another effective strategy; colors that tend to go together should always be taken into consideration when planning plantings.
Water
A successful flower garden requires sufficient amounts of moisture. Relying on natural rainfall alone may suffice, but experienced gardeners often require supplementing it with some additional irrigation. Without enough moisture reaching their garden beds, flowers will lose petals and their buds will shrivel resulting in decreased flower production and less than desirable blooms.
Most plants require at least an inch of water each week. If this requirement cannot be met, choose drought tolerant flowers instead. Also add organic matter such as compost, shredded leaves or coconut coir to the top 6 inches of soil before planting to improve its ability to retain moisture and retain the necessary water levels for healthy plant growth.
Experienced flower garden designers select plants with year-round appeal and staggered bloom times to ensure flowers are always available in the garden. Additionally, they take into account visual impact such as color, fragrance, movement and how well flowers coordinate with other elements like trees, shrubs and hardscape structures such as pergolas and trellises.