Planning Your Flower Garden

Planting a flower garden should be more than just throwing a few flowers into the ground and hoping they will grow. A beautiful flower garden takes a little preparation and planning in advance. There are several things to take into consideration when you are planning your flower garden.

Location, Location, Location
Where will you plant your flower garden? Will you place it in the middle of the lawn or against a fence? Will you plant it in the sun or the shade? Will your flower garden have a little of both? Determining these things will help you to pick out the best plants for your flower garden.

Do You Have a Theme?
Do you know what purpose you want your flower garden to have? Are you going for a Cottage Garden theme with wispy flowers? Or perhaps you want a practical cut flower garden that provides continual blooms? Maybe you want a flower garden that is dedicated to wildflowers. Whichever you choose, it is sure to be a theme that will reflect your tastes and desires. You will be creating a place of enjoyment and pride.

How Often Do You Want to Plant?
Do you want to plant your flowers each year or would you rather that your flowers come back each year? Maybe you will decide that you would like a mix of annual and perennial flowers in your garden. You may even decide to mix your flowers in with other shrubbery.

Choosing Your Plants
You will need to decide if you plan on using flower seeds or flower starts. Both will provide remarkable results within your garden. Visit your garden center to get some good ideas. Seed will usually be cheaper than plant starts, but plant starts give you an instant gratification of seeing something growing in your flower beds.

Decide on your color choices. Do you want to attract birds or butterflies to your flower garden? If so, then choose plants that they will like.

Watch the heights of the flowers you plant. You will want to be sure that all of the low growing plants are in the front of your flower bed, with the taller plants in the back. There is nothing worse than getting those reversed and not being able to see the lower growing plants. Find a combination that appeals to your eye. Also be careful to allow enough spacing between each plant. Flowers need room to grow and breathe.

Growing a well planned flower garden will bring you lots of enjoyment throughout the year. What are your plans for your flower garden this year?

Photo by: kakisky