Flower Gardening

Flower gardening is very popular nowadays. Flowers can brighten everyone’s day, they smell nice, and are a great hobby. Flower gardening is easy, cheap, and loads of fun. Flower gardening can be done for yard decoration, simply as a hobby, or even professionally.

Decide what you would like your garden to look like before purchasing the flowers. For instance, mixing different heights, colors, and varieties of flowers together in a “wild-plant style” will give your garden a meadow look and can be very charming. If short flowers are planted in the front of your garden and work up to the tallest flowers in the back you will have a “stepping stone style”.

Most people will go to the nursery and buy actual flowers and then transplant them, but you can also order seeds for flower gardening from catalogs or buy them from a nursery… After you have prepared your garden area and bought flowers, it is a good idea to lay the flowers out in the bed to make sure you like the arrangement and that they will be spaced properly.

One of the easiest processes in flower gardening is planting the seeds, because you can just sprinkle them around in the flower bed. For transplanting, dig a hole a bit bigger than the flower, pull the container off, and set the flower in the hole right side up. Cover it with the loose soil and press down firmly, then water.

Flower Gardening Tips

Knowing how to properly care for your flower garden can make a huge difference in the look and health of the plants. Here are some super easy hints to help your garden look its best:

1. Take care of the essentials first.

Your flower garden must have an adequate supply of water, fertile soil, and sunlight. If your plants’ basic needs aren’t being met, the garden will fail. Keep on mind that during dry spells, your flowers will need to be watered more often.

Make sure to plant your bulbs at the correct depth. When planting out shrubs and perennials, make sure that you don’t pile soil or mulch up around the stem. You want to make sure that water has a chance to sink in instead of rolling off and the stem could develop rot through overheating.

2. Mix perennials with annuals.

Before you plant flowers, you need to make some important choices. You must decide if you want annuals that live for one season and must be replanted every year, or perennials that survive the winter and return again in the summer. You will also want to pay attention to plant flowers that can live happily in your particular area and climate.

Perennial flower bulbs don’t have to be replanted since they grow and bloom for several years while annuals grow and bloom for only one season. Put some Perennials in your garden to keep blooms year round.

3. Deadhead to encourage more blossoms.

Deadheading is snipping off the flower head after it wilts. This will make the plant produce more flowers. Discard your deadhead away from the garden or you will end up with mildew or diseases that will harm your plants.

4. Know your bugs.

Most garden insects do more good than harm. Sow bugs and dung beetles together with fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms are necessary to help in the decomposition of dead plant material, thus enriching the soil and making more nutrients available to growing plants.

Butterflies, beetles and bees are known pollinators. They fertilize plants through unintentional transfer of pollen from one plant to another. 80% of flowering plants rely on insects for survival. Other insects like lacewings and dragonflies are natural predators of those insects that do the real damage, like Aphis.

5. Add organic nutrients.

Maintaining a flower garden is even easier than planting one. It is a good idea to fertilize your flower bed early in the season. To save yourself work during the next season of flower gardening, rid your garden of all debris and spread out organic nutrients like peat moss or compost. Don’t forget to turn over the soil to properly mix in the fertilizer and rake smooth when finished. If you have perennials planted be careful not to disturb their roots in this process.

Extra notes:

An occasional application of liquid fertilizer when plants are flowering will keep them blooming for longer.
Always prune any dead or damaged branches. Fuchsias are particularly prone to snapping when you brush against them. The broken branch can be potted up to give you a new plant, so it won’t be wasted.

Need a jump start with your flower gardening? Contact Evergreen Landscaping for a free consultation. Or just reach for your phone and dial 805-773-5395.