I did a lot more vegetable gardening before doing any flower gardening. My wife is the flower gardener, so I needed to first learn a few things about flowers in general. I had to learn what the difference was between flowers that are annuals and perennials for starters.
That was easy to learn as the annuals require planting over again each year, perennials on the other hand usually continue to return and bloom year after year. I was liking flower gardening already as I could plant perennials in a lot places around our yard and even had a few growing already, just didn’t know it.
Your Growing Zone or Hardiness Zone
The same as the vegetables I grow I needed to know what would grow in our plant hardiness zones. It’s important to plan your flower gardening so that you get the best bang for your buck, as they say.
How Much Sunlight Is Needed
Not only do you need to know which flowers you can grow successfully but you need to be aware of where you plant them as some plants will like shade while others won’t survive in too much shade and then there are those flowers that thrive on all the sunlight they can get.
Watering is always an issue as it’s easy to over water if the ground doesn’t drain well like our dense clay yard is like but you can aslo under water your plants and they will die of thirst. You have to learn how to monitor the water level in your soil.
Sandy Soil – If the soil in your yard or flower garden is too sandy you’ll need to add some compost to help hold it together so it will retain more water for longer, otherwise it will likely drain too fast and run up your water bill.
Clay Soil – On the other side of things you could have soil that is mostly clay, like our yard and then it’s almost impossible to get it to drain so flowers and roots can sit in water for too long. We added a lot of peatmoss and compost to our flower beds. We also built a few raised beds to avoid the tough digging in the clay. Our flower beds drain so much better now.
Don’t Bury Your Flowers
If you are planting your flower garden from seed be sure to read the instructions on the package so you have them at the right depth. If you get them to shallow the birds may eat them before they germinate but if you bury them too deep you may not get germination either. Follow the instructions, guys.
If you are purchasing or starting your flower garden with starter plants be sure you plant them at the same depth as in the pots. The top of the soil in the pot should match the top of the soil in your flower garden.
Planting Both Annuals As Well As Perennials
We plant both annuals and perennials in our flower beds so each year we only need to replace the annuals. It’s fun watching the perennials coming up early spring while there is still snow around. Our yard is covered with Crocus as soon as the sun hits the dirt in our yard. So we see patches of them where the snow has melted.
Each year we pick a few different annuals to add more colour and to see how they look as we may plant them again the following year, in different areas of the yard.
So annuals only bloom for a single season while perennials year after year.
We have perennials that come up at different times so our flower gardens have something blossoming most of the growing season.
Keep Them Blooming All Summer Long
During the summer, as our annuals are blooming we watch them and clip the dead or dying blossoms to allow more to grow. This can go on all summer and keep your annuals blooming much longer. If you don’t clip the dead blossoms the plant can look aweful but also may not blossom nearly as long.
We always take the dead blossoms away from the flower gardens and straight to the compost bin. This way they don’t have a chance to spread any disease through our gardens.
These home gardening tips for beginner flower gardeners should help you get started. Happy flower gardening.
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