Your flower garden’s success depends on numerous factors. Chief among them: choosing appropriate plants for your growing zone.
Garden experts typically design their gardens with year-round interest and staggered bloom times in mind, including foliage for structure and color when flowers have passed their prime.
Determine Your Space
Consider several key factors when planning and planting your cut flower field. First and foremost is to ensure the site receives enough sunlight – most cut flowers require at least part-sun exposure, with some even needing full exposure.
Most flower garden plants prefer well-drained soil. You should ensure the area is accessible for walking or driving your vehicle through, while steep slopes should be avoided in order to prevent erosion and soil loss. It may require special terracing in order to protect from erosion and loss.
Expert flower garden designers employ a planting pattern that incorporates small flowers at the front, medium-sized plants in the middle and taller flowers at the back to create an eye-catching layered effect and add structure and dimension to their beds. A consistent color or type of flower should be repeated throughout for maximum impact; otherwise it risks creating the illusion of random plants scattered about.
Select Your Plants
No matter whether you’re designing a foundation flower garden, island bed, or something in between, ensure there is ample space to plant the flowers you wish. To protect your beds from grass and weeds overtaking them, create borders using garden edging or stones for better control.
Choose flowers with various bloom times to ensure your garden bursts with vibrant color from spring through fall, from tulips and daffodils to summer perennials like roses and daylilies, then fall showstoppers like chrysanthemums and asters. A great garden design also includes shrubs for year-round color and structure.
Visit local botanical gardens and public gardens to gain ideas for your backyard garden. Take note of how plants are arranged and observed blooming, taking note of names, colors and water/sun requirements of individual plants that you want in your own yard garden. Soil tests may also prove valuable, providing insights as to whether your chosen location has sufficient soil quality conditions needed for growth.
Prep the Bed
Once you know where your flower bed will go, remove grass and weeds from the area before adding a layer of compost to the soil and raking smooth to make way for planting. If your bed will run along a driveway or curb, consider traffic safety and anti-ice spray as these could potentially harm plants.
Group annuals and perennials with similar watering needs together to make managing your garden simpler – you can ensure each plant receives what it requires! This makes taking care of it simpler as each will get what it requires.
Before beginning digging, take a critical look at your flower garden design and remove any plants that don’t thrive in your climate or aren’t to your taste. This will leave room for perennials, shrubs and annual flowering plants with staggered bloom times for year-round beauty.
Planting
A flower garden requires different levels of upkeep depending on its types and number of blooms, but at a minimum will need water, weed removal and deadheading of spent blooms; you should also fertilize the soil regularly. If you’re uncertain how much maintenance will be required of you initially, start small before expanding as your gardening experience expands.
When selecting plants for your climate and zone, keep their needs and requirements in mind when making selections. Sun requirements vary significantly among species – full-sun plants will quickly die in shade gardens while shade-loving blooms may not bloom under full sunshine. Also keep in mind that certain plants require staking or netting in order to remain upright, and repeating the same shape or color throughout your garden creates visual continuity and helps create an aesthetic design. Consider native varieties if you wish to provide bee, butterfly and hummingbird habitats – hardy perennial plants provide pollen and nectar to support important wildlife species!