


When you're ready to start planting a garden of any kind, the first thing you'll
need to do is actually plan where things will be planted in your yard. By planning
your garden first, you'll be able to create a beautiful landscape out of your
yard, while making sure all plants and flowers compliment each other in color,
height, texture and more. You'll also be able to make sure you're not creating problems in your garden, that may make things difficult later in the growing season. If you're planting wildflowers which grow as tall as two feet for instance, you won't want to plant those right in front of a tulip garden which has flowers that will only grow to about ten inches in height. One of the first steps needed in garden planning is to choose which flowers, bushes, shrubs, or plants you'd like to have in your garden. Choices are made for a variety of reasons too. Some people choose their flowers and plants based on color, while others may choose what to put in their garden based on how easy the plant or flower is to grow. Still others will plan gardens based on various needs their yard areas have. If you have an area of your yard which isn't easily accessible for watering for instance, you might want to consider creating a small cactus garden, or planting flowers which require very little supplemental watering throughout the year. Likewise if there is an area of your yard which seems to be the first to flood when rains come, you'll want to plan a garden area for that space which includes plants and flowers who thrive with lots of water. Once you've chosen the kinds of plants and flowers you want to have in your garden, the next step is to make sure you know what the sunlight, soil, and water requirements are for those plants. Plants which have similar needs for sun, soil and water should be planted in similar locations. If you try to plant a shade loving plant right next to a sun loving plant, one or the other of those plants is likely to die soon. And sometimes both with die, if the location you choose for them isn't quite appropriate for either one. Now that you have your plants and their garden locations chosen, the next planning step involves how to arrange multiple plants into one garden area. And this part is fairly simple. If all of the plants you've chosen for one area of the garden will be about the same height once they're fully grown, then you can choose any layout design you'd like for them. You can plant like colored plants together for instance, or stagger the colors for a variagated look. Usually there are some plants which will grow taller than others in your garden though, and when this is the case you'll need to make sure you plant the tallest growing plants towards the back, and the smaller ones in the front. This way the tallest plants and flowers won't hide the smaller ones once they're fully grown. |
Garden Planning |