Picking The Best Flowers For Your Garden

Picking The Best Flowers For Your Garden

Article by Pat Lowe

Growing a garden for your yard can greatly enhance your appreciation of your surroundings. Some people choose to plant butterfly gardens that attract hummingbirds, dragonflies and butterflies to watch. Others prefer water gardens, where frogs and fish play. You may want a cutting garden off to the side, where you can snip the beautiful buds to bring inside or you might decide upon a year-round display in front of the house for all the neighbors to see. The possibilities are limitless, but the first step is assessing how much space you have to work with. Next, you will need to think about the types of flowers you’d like to plant.

Before you start cultivating a garden, you’ll have to learn about the growing zone you live in. A great place to start is the National Gardening Association’s site, which will let you know which hardiness zone you reside in, in addition to which plants are best suited to your specific weather conditions. In the bottom left-hand corner, you’ll see an area for “Local Guides,” where you can indicate your state and your city to discover which veggies and flowers you are able raise, about caring for your garden and cooking from your garden. These pointers can allow you to start thinking about what kinds of flowers you want to plant.

People with not much gardening experience will frequently choose to transplant annuals which have previously been grown at a gardening center. You could also try experimenting with a container garden grown from seeds. There are those who garden quite extensively with pots and put all of them near to one another, so you see a complete garden as opposed to the individual pots. Be sure to find out which annuals will survive in hot or cold conditions, flourish in poor soil, have a short bloom season, can be sown during the fall and are ideal for your type of soil.

Some people enjoy growing a garden that will magically come back each year, without replanting. This is called a perennial garden. Backyard Gardener is a great site where you’ll learn about perennials for backgrounds, for edging, for hardy environments, for long blooming seasons, for old-fashioned gardens and for semi-shade gardens. Some popular perennials include peonies, bleeding hearts, columbine, daffodils, crocuses, irises, asters, chrysanthemums, daisies, violets and black eyed Susan. You’ll need to pay special attention to color, height and bloom period are all equally important when dealing with perennials.

A gardening expert will tell you that soil preparation is the most important part of growing a garden successfully. Without the proper nutrients, aeration and soil composition, your flowers will surely flop. Each flower has different soil requirements, whether it is acidic or alkaline, so it’s best to test your soil before you begin so you know what you’re dealing with. For instance, marigolds, verbenas and calliopsis will tolerate acidic soils, whereas impatiens, zinnias, nasturtiums and candytufts prefer a more neutral, alkaline soil. To ensure that your soil drains well, you will need to assess whether your soil is composed of clay, sand or loam. You’ll need to add a mixture of compost and manure to your soil, working it down about 4 inches to create a healthy ecosystem for your plants and their beneficial microorganism pals.

About the Author

Your house may be beautiful, but if the surrounding property isn’t well maintained, it ruins the whole effect. What you need is some landscaping gardening ideas that will help you create the perfect setting for your home. Visit the Landscaping Ideas site to learn more.

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