Brand New Flower Gardener? Tips On Planting A Flower Bed In Your Yard
If you are a brand new flower gardener but want a flower bed in your yard, it is likely not as difficult as you think. Follow the tips below, and you will have a garden full of beautiful flowers.
Choose the Area
Most flowers need a lot of sun, so choose an area of your yard that gets at list six hours of sun each day. The area should also have good drainage. The best way to know this is to look in this area after you have a good rain. If you have standing water, then move on to another area. The water should sink down into the soil instead of standing on top of it.
Get the Area Ready
Decide the shape you want your flower garden to be. You do not have to go with the standard straight square or rectangle lined, but instead add some curves. Once you decide on the shape, stake it out with some stakes and rope, or you could use a garden hose. This is so you will not dig the grass up outside of your flower garden area.
Remove the top layer of grass using a spade or a shovel until you see nothing but soil. Use a tiller to go over the area a few times to loosen up the soil. Purchase a bag of compost at a garden center, and spread it over the soil. Use the tiller over the area again to mix the compost in. Compost will give your flowers nutrients to help them grow.
Choose the Flowers
Perennials work well because you won't have to replant them every year. Listed below are three perennials that are easy to care for.
- Coneflower: The coneflower is the type of flower that requires deadheading. They are rugged and will grow well during periods of drought and hot sun. They are available in blooms of pink, purple, and yellow. They bloom from mid-summer up to the first frost.
- Daylilies: Daylilies start to bloom in the spring up through the first frost. The flowers are on tall stems that are available in dwarf to a height of a few feet. Depending on the variety, they can start blooming in the spring to mid-summer. The only maintenance with this flower is to remove brown stems. This is easy to do, as you simply pull the stem out with your hands.
- Foam Flower: This flower is unique in that it will grow around other flowers instead of invading them. The foam flowers provides you with blooms from early spring up through the first frost. The flowers are fuzzy spikes, and come in an assortment of colors, such as blue, white, and red. The only maintenance needed is deadheading the spent flowers.
Plant the Flowers
Remove the flower from the container so you can see the size of the root ball. Dig a hole in the soil large and wide enough for the root ball to sit in. The base of the plant should rest on the top of the soil. Push the soil back into the hole and pat it down. Do this for each flower, and then water them well. You will need to make sure they stay moist for the first couple of weeks to help them get established. After this, you can let Mother Nature take care of this for you.
Read the plant tags on how to properly care for the flowers you purchase. These tags are usually pushed down into the soil in the container and tells you things like the amount of sun that is required, water requirements, height of the flower, and more.
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