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The flower garden can make or break the landscape. That is to say, if you have flower gardens within your landscape, they make the yard fantastic. If not, it’s broken. And what do we do when things are broken? We fix them, of course. So, grab yourself a couple of those easy flower garden designs readily available wherever you can find a flowering plant and get to it. Let’s fix up that yard and plant a few flower beds.
To do this right we must pick out a suitable sight hopefully getting 6-8 hours of sun a day. If this is impossible due to trees providing a bit more shade than you’d like, don’t despair. Flower gardening is very forgiving. Less sun does not preclude a beautiful blooming yard. Some annuals and perennials do quite well with only 4-6 hours and some more shade-tolerant plants even less. We’ll just have to be selective about our plant choices. If possible you might consider thinning out some lower branches of the trees, if your yard is particularly shady, to allow in some more light.
Once the sight has been picked for the flower bed, clear it of debris, rocks and vegetation. This is very important and must be done. Starting with a good base makes everything grow better. Adding compost is always a good idea. Compost fixes all the evils of the garden, lightening heavy clay, giving substance to dry, sandy soil and giving any soil type the organic material it needs for attracting micro-organisms and worms..
If you have a rough terrain, poor or a wet, swampy soil you might consider raised flower beds. A raised bed is simply the mounding of soil to raise the level up. This provides ample drainage for the plant roots and you can use good rich soil instead of whatever disaster you have on your land.
The raised flower beds can be free standing, just a hill of soil 1-3 inches higher than the surrounding ground or a structure to hold back the soil. It can be lined with cinder blocks, brick, stone or untreated landscape timbers or those made from recycled tires. These are readily available and made specifically for the raised bed, snapping together just like kid’s legos. Raised beds are very good for those with physical limitations.
We have to choose varied perennials and annuals to keep things interesting. They should be of varying heights that bloom at different times during the growing season. This gives you continuous blooms, ever-changing and exciting.
With a flower bed viewed only from the front the tallest flowers should go in the back with the medium ones in the middle and the smallest ones towards the front. This makes everything easily view and won’t allow the tall plants to cover up the smaller ones. If the flower garden if in the middle of a lawn the tallest plants should be in the center with others radiating outwards by height.
The ultimate spring garden flower is arguably the Peony. Any flower bed designs will include a Peony. To help you choose, visit www.gilberthwild.com. They have the most comprehensive peony collection and also a huge selection of Daylilies and hundreds of Hosta, Other perennials to consider for the flower bed are Foxglove, Columbine, Lupine, Hollyhock, Ornamental Grass, Purple Cone Flower, Scabiosa, Rudbeckia, Bearded Iris, Daisy, Ajuga, Pinks and Coreopsis.
Some annual flowers to look for are Marigold, Cosmos, Cleome, Zinnia and Celosia, all brightly colored, all easy to start from seed and all available as transplants.
If starting your flower bed in the autumn, that is the perfect time to plant bulbs as they are readily available at all garden centers. Planting these among the other plants will allow your flower garden to start blooming even before all the snow melts if you get Crocus and Snow Drops, some of the earliest to bloom. To complete the picture perfect flower garden a thick layer of mulch of your choice will help retain moisture between watering and rain storms and will help suppress weeds.
There you have it. A simple guide to get your landscape all abloom and beautiful. Landscape fixed!
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Author Bio Box: Glory Lennon
 For more fun gardening facts and amusing stories come visit me at http://www.helium.com/user/32782
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