Designing a flower garden requires many considerations. Some factors, like type and size of garden are readily evident; others, such as selecting focal flowers and filler flowers may not be so obvious.
Before beginning to plan your garden, create a list of what’s most important to you in terms of colors and fragrance, along with its ability to attract pollinators such as butterflies.
Size
Size matters when it comes to flower gardens – in an ideal world, your bed should be big enough to support all the plants that interest you while taking into account their mature heights and widths.
Many gardeners employ layering, which involves layering different heights of perennial flower beds to achieve visual balance and add depth. This method adds visual interest as it layers taller plants at the back and shorter ones at the front to add visual interest and depth to a garden.
Consider how much sunlight your garden receives when creating it. Perennial flowers thrive best under full sunlight (6 or more hours a day of direct exposure), while others can tolerate partial shade better. Furthermore, remember that not all perennials bloom simultaneously; leaving gaps allows you to plant later-blooming or evergreen plants when necessary.
Shape
Flower gardens come in all sizes and shapes – from sprawling foundation beds to petite corner borders. Whatever size garden you begin, it is crucial that you start small and plan carefully in order to avoid mistakes that could cost both time and money in the future.
Use a garden hose to outline your proposed bed, walk around it to gather different perspectives, and clear away grass, weeds, or debris before beginning digging.
Consider their full height once mature to help create an effective gradient of heights in your garden. Group plants of similar height together for visual interest and less confusion; most flowering plants prefer full sun (6+ hours of direct sunlight per day), though many tolerate part shade conditions as well.
Color
Flower gardens add beauty, fragrance, and pollinators to landscapes while providing environmental benefits as they reduce carbon dioxide emissions, provide oxygen through photosynthesis, reduce soil erosion, and provide valuable pollinator habitat.
Color plays an essential part in designing a flower garden. Select a palette that best reflects your preferences and garden design, then plant flowers with either contrasting or complementary hues. A color theme can especially come in handy when planning perennial gardens that bloom for only weeks or months at a time.
Experienced gardeners know the value of including flowers with staggered bloom times into their designs for a continuous display of color throughout the seasons. To achieve this effect, experienced gardeners frequently turn to shrubs and perennials with spring, summer and fall blooming capabilities in their designs.
Foliage
When designing a flower garden, it’s essential to pay close attention to foliage attributes. Select perennials, shrubs and annual flowers with beautiful hues and variegated leaves as well as those which change hues over the course of a season or two.
When planting your flower garden, arrange taller plants toward the back, medium-height flowers in the center and shorter plants near its front or edges for maximum depth and maximum light exposure for all of your plants. This helps create depth while guaranteeing adequate sunlight coverage across all of your blooms.
Donna Hackman, a retired garden designer, suggests installing edging around flower beds to prevent grass from invading blooming plants and making yard mowing simpler. She suggests also keeping paths between flower beds wide to reduce the risk of accidentally stepping on blooming flowers in full bloom.
Sun/Shade
Garden success depends not only on soil quality and moisture levels; the sun also plays an integral part. When growing sun-loving flowers or greens in full sun, having accurate solar guidance before diving in is critical.
Sketch your property onto graph paper or use an online tool to create a sun map of its property. Note where the sun sits during midday, noting how its shadow lines change with seasonal shifts or deciduous trees losing leaves.
Many flowers and vegetables thrive in partial shade conditions with 3-6 hours of direct sunlight per day. Check out this garden plan for ideas on creating a garden in this mix with blooming perennials like Phlox, Daylilies and Astilbe as well as foliage plants such as Sweet Alyssum, Coleus and Sanvitalia to create the ideal partial-shade landscape.