GARDENING TIPS
How To Use Flower Beds In Landscaping
Your Garden
by Paul Curran
The loveliness of flowering plants needs little embellishment
by description. Certainly every gardener seeks the beauty
and color that can be brought to his grounds by a variety
of flowers. The proper arrangement of flower beds in your
garden and attentive care to them can insure you a continuing
bloom of lovely flowers year after year.
For with planning, it is possible to maintain flowers
in your garden during the entire length of the growing
season. Borders and beds are planted with flowering annuals
and perennials which bloom at different periods during
the year. By choosing carefully initially, and by caring
for the flowers thereafter, the blooms will overlap each
other, so that there will never be a period when an old
bloom disappears but that a new one will start to show
its color.
Preparing the soil for flower beds or borders requires
greater care than planting a lawn. For one thing, digging
must be deeper. It is not too much to dig the bed 2 feet
deep, although 1 1/2
feet is suitable. It is, of course, possible to grow flowers
in a shallower bed than this, but the deeper you dig,
the better your production will be.
All heavy lumps should be broken up. It is a good idea
to spread some sand, cinders or ashes in the bottom soil
to break it up. Also, you might work manure, well-rotted
compost, grass clippings or peat moss into the bottom.
Do not firm the bottom soil down, but let it settle naturally.
Good loam should be used for the topsoil — e.g.,
well-rotted manure, humus, peat moss, well-sifted leaf
mold or heavy sand. Wood ashes are fine for spring, and
lime may be used for loosening the soil. You might think
about the character of your soil and consider the particular
fertilizer which contains the elements your soil needs
most. Should you use manure, be careful not to let it
touch the roots of plants.
Should you use manure, be careful not to let it touch
the roots of plants. The problems of color should be kept
in mind when planning flower borders and beds, so that
while there is sufficient contrast in texture and color
of the flowers, there is at the same time an attractive
blending.
A plan for a bed of annuals, for example, might be designed
to stress zinnias, with contrast provided by such softer
flowers as chrysanthemum, scabiosa, nasturtium, cosmos
and candytuft. Siting
of the flower bed is important. Ideally, it should be
close to the house, facing south or south west.
Any location that gets good sun, however, will produce
well. The border should be located away from trees or
shrubs. These plants absorb more than their share of moisture
and nutrients from the
soil and, because of their strength, can overpower the
more delicate flowering plants.
A good background such as a stone wall or a fence adds
to the beauty of a flower bed or border, and evergreen
shrubs make a pleasing backdrop. Edgings need not be restricted,
as they so often are, to one color (e.g., the white of
alyssum).
Coral bells, whose lovely foliage makes a handsome edge,
are an all-season flowering plant, and they provide unusual
cut flowers. Baby pansies, violas, portulaca, ageratum,
dwarf double nasturtium and dwarf marigolds are multi-colored
flowers.
About the Author
Paul Curran is CEO of Cuzcom Internet Publishing Group
and webmaster at Trees-and-Bushes.com, providing access
to their nursery supplier of a range of quality plants,
trees, bushes, shrubs, seeds and garden products. href="http://www.trees-and-bushes.com">Visit
their site now to find a great selection of flowers for
your garden |
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How to Start and Run a Landscape
& Garden Maintenance Business
Article by Jack Stone
Copyright © 2003 by ProGardenBiz
Own your business, own your job, own your life.
Statistics show that nine out of every ten new businesses
fail.
Most of these businesses fail within the first year. The
rest
don't make it past their third anniversary. Given such
dismal
odds why would you want to start a landscaping or
interiorscaping business?
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