Tips on Flower Gardening

Flower Gardening the Right Way

Having your own garden blooming with all the colors, scents and plants of paradise is a dream that you can easily develop into a reality.

A flower garden can be an oasis for meditation, relaxation and enjoyment through every season of the year. The secret of a successful flower garden is growing plants that are naturally suited to your environment and climate zone. This allows you to choose plants that will thrive in your new garden.
There are three types of flowering plants, and each is equally suited to be part of your new flower garden design. An annual is a plant that completes its entire life cycle in one growing season. A perennial is a plant that normally lives for three or more years. A bulb is a fleshy underground structure that stores nutrients during a plant's annual dormant period, then blooms. Tubers, roots, corms and rhizomes are often referred to as bulbs.

Garden Design

Your flower garden should relate in scale and style to the rest of the landscape and fit comfortably into your setting. The best gardens will complement the architectural style of the house and its surrounding landscape. For example, if your house has a casual feel, then your garden should repeat that feel and tone. There are several good garden design tips to follow:

• Start small, then gradually add more.
• Keep plantings in scale with your site.
• Trust your instincts.
• Plan for a succession of blooms.
• Plant waves of color instead of waves of individual plants.
• Stack your plants by height, with the highest in back and the lowest in front.
• Use a variety of plant shapes for layers of interest.
• Be flexible to change in case you don't like this year's garden.
• Remember to include benches or chairs for a relaxation area.

All About Annuals

There is a greater variety of these versatile plants than ever before. Seed catalogs and nursery centers now offer a dazzling array of colors, forms, sizes and species. Annuals burst into color as perennials come and go throughout the season. And they make excellent companions for spring bulbs as their leaves and flowers eventually turn yellow and die back. Used properly, they can fill the gaps between foundational perennials or offer a burst of color to highlight neighboring foliage. There are a number of reliable annuals. Among them are amaranth, begonias, blackfoot daisies, cosmos, heliotropes, impatiens, marigolds, petunias, rose moss, snapdragons, sunflowers, violas and zonal geraniums.

Perennials & Bulbs

More long-lived than their annual cousins, perennials are the anchor or foundation to your flower garden. Unlike annuals, which bloom all season, perennials bloom just a few weeks a season. So, for good flower garden design, you'll need to choose varieties that bloom at different times throughout the season.

• Spring bloom perennials include bergenia, cranesbills, goxgloves, Iceland poppies, peonies, primroses, salvias and sweet violets.
• Summer bloom perennials include baby's breath, bee balms, delphiniums, lavender, Russian sage, sundrops, tufted pansies and yarrow.
• Late summer and fall bloomers include asters, boltonias, coneflowers, garden chrysanthemums, goldenrods and monkshood.

Commercial bulb growers divide bulbs into two categories: major and minor. The major bulbs include the larger, flashier bulbs, such as daffodils, dahlias, gladiolus, lilies, tuberous begonias and tulips. The smaller or minor bulbs are grape hyacinths, scillas and species crocuses.
Bulbs can be used as an important source of springtime color. Plant them in masses for their colors to make an impact. Garden books, seed catalogs and nursery catalogs are good sources of inspiration for finding perennials and bulbs that you find attractive.

Preparing & Caring for Your New Flower Garden

Using a rototiller, spading fork or shovel, loosen the soil to a depth of 12 inches. Spread 3 inches of compost or well-aged manure over the surface of the bed and dig into the top few inches. Mix well with the soil. Rake the soil smooth before planting.
In most cases, the best results come from fertilizing in the early spring. Choose a fertilizer formulated for your flowers. Fertilizer labels state the percentage by weight that the product contains of the three macronutrients: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), listed in that order. A fertilizer labeled 10-3-1 contains 10 percent nitrogen, 3 percent phosphorus and 1 percent potassium. This example is a complete fertilizer. Balanced fertilizers are composed of equal parts of each macronutrient, such as a 5-5-5 product. An incomplete fertilizer has only one or two of the nutrients. These are useful when you want to give flowers a supplemental feeding of nitrogen after planting.

What's My Climate Zone?

Climate or hardiness zones are used to identify regions in which plants are best suited based on the average minimum winter temperature. Factors such as moisture level, elevation and wind force come into play and may change the zone. If you are uncertain about the climate zone where you live, then there are a number of easy solutions. Your local nursery or botanical garden should be able to identify the local zones. Failing that, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the United States National Arboretum (USNA) both offer an 11-Zone Plant Hardiness Map of the United States for free online. The American Horticultural Society has a slightly different take on climate zones. They have a downloadable Heat Zone Map, which divides the country into 12 climate zones. You can find the map on their official Web site with instructions on how to use it.
Flower gardening is fun and will yield great results if you do your homework and planning. Always pick the best plants for your climate zone. Prepare your bed, feed as needed, watch your new flower garden thrive and enjoy your new little piece of paradise.