Flower Gardening Ideas

The flower gardening ideas featured on this page go further than just producing a gorgeous flower garden - it's also aimed at luring beautiful creatures for you to feast your eyes on.

Take Care of the Basics First

The most important first step in starting your flower garden is to figure out where you want to do your planting.

If you decide to plant in a container, then you can pretty much create the soil conditions you need for the majority of plants, though there will always be some plants that will not be able to grow in your area because of temperature or sun exposure conditions.

If, however, you choose to plant in your yard or garden, you should first do a soil test, which you can pick up at many gardening supply stores. (Whilst you're there, ask them if they have any flower gardening tips for the coming season too.)

A quick way to test what kind of soil you have is to pick up a handful from your garden and rub it back and forth in your hand; if it sticks together, that means that your soil is composed of a large quantity of clay, while if it comes apart, there is a large presence of sand.

Too much of either isn't good because clay doesn't drain well and roots find it hard to penetrate, while sand doesn't retain nutrients well. A good soil has equal parts sand and clay and is called loam.

One of the best flower gardening ideas, and one that many expert gardeners recommend, is to keep a garden journal in which the first entry is a sketch or diagram of your new gardening project:

• where you're going to place your flower garden;
• the shape of your garden;
• and a rough idea of what flowers you're going to plant and in what arrangement.

Then, as time goes by, you can write down how successful (or unsuccessful) you were with certain flowers and include pictures of your garden and any individual flowers.

Flower Gardening Ideas

This is the part where you should look much further than the seedling section of your local nursery, where the annuals or perennials are tempting you with their lovely blooms.

• Look for flowering trees and flowering shrubs to not only form a background for your flower beds, but species that also contribute to the color display in your garden.
• Look for plants that will attract wildlife to your garden too: Flowers that offer nectar for hummingbirds, butterflies and moths. Tip: Cut-open fruit such as bananas are also great to attract butterflies and do put out water for them as well.
• Do your plant selection is such a way that you will have an extended period of colour in your flower beds: Mix early bloomers with late bloomers.
• Play around with color! Especially with annuals, one season you could create a purple and yellow composition for example, and an all-white flower garden the next time.

Make a note of flower gardening ideas you see in magazines or on your travels that you'd like to try. Make drawings to remind yourself what you saw.

Then before the next planting season, get your paper and crayons out and get creative with your own flower beds!

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Flower Gardening Tips