Ever since our days as a Navy family, when we moved 13 times in a 21-year career, we've looked for ways to make our new home unique, particularly when we were assigned to plain-vanilla government housing. One of the easiest things to do to make your new home yours is to add plants of various types, especially flowering plants.
Having a garden is a great way to enjoy the outdoors while also getting some beautiful scenery to make your house stand out. The thing is, if you’ve never maintained a garden before then you might not realize just how much work goes into it as well. You need to consider the type of soil you have, the amount of sunlight your plants receive, and how often different plants need water, among other things. But first, you should think about what sort of plants you want and when to plant them to optimize the performance of your garden.
That way, you'll be gardening smarter, not harder. A lot of work goes into a successful garden, and a decent portion of that work involves figuring out how to maintain your garden and what you should avoid planting. While we can’t cover every possibility here, the following tips should put you on the path to garden success.
Planning Your Garden
A lot of planning goes into a successful garden. You need to take the time to choose a spot for your garden, plan out a plot with enough room for all your plants to thrive, and ensure that you have easy access to water (or some other plan in place to get water to the garden) so that your growing plants don’t have to rely on unpredictable rain to get the water that they need. To avoid flooding, you’ll need a mostly flat area, with soil that drains well, that isn’t located in a low-lying area. An area that gets sun at least 8 hours per day is also important for a plants that need "full sun" to grow well. The reverse is also true: you'll need to use plants that thrive in "part sun" in areas that get less than 5-6 hours of sun per day, and plants such as Impatiens that are averse to even part sun you'll need to put in the shade - under trees, for example.
That last point is important. If you have some trees and you're wondering what to grow there, shade plants such as Impatiens are perfect for those locations when most other plants won't thrive there.
Once you have their spaces picked out, try your flowers in those locations and see how well they do. Fertilize them every couple of months during the growing season to encourage growth, but if they still fail to thrive try testing the soil’s pH with a soil testing kit. Most plants grow best in soil with a pH around 7, so if your soil falls outside of this, you’ll need to amend it to adjust the pH. This can be done by adding things such as lime, wood ash, or commercial soil adjustment mixes, and tilling them into the top 6 inches of soil. Follow instructions on the packaging and test your soil again, making additional amendments as needed until it falls within the desired pH range.
Knowing What to Grow
An additional factor in your garden's success is picking the right plants for your climate. Consult a planting zone chart to see which zone you live in, then make your selections based on plants that thrive in your zone. If you live in a cold climate, you might also want to consider raising your flower beds. Raised beds warm up quicker in the spring and let your plants get a head start on the season. Of course, where we live in Florida, warm soil isn't a problem. In fact, Florida, especially south Florida, is a sub-tropical climate with flora all its own. Planting indigenous flowers can greatly increase your garden's yield and give you color year-round. After all, they don't call the state "Florida" for nothing.
One last thing to keep in mind is that the planting and growing requirements for different plants can be significantly different. Some need to be planted shallow, while others do best when planted deep. Some can be crowded and thinned later, while other plants need a lot of room from the start. To get the best possible performance from your garden, follow the planting instructions for your different plants as closely as possible. If there are notes about the plants needing supports or climbing structures, you should accommodate that from the beginning as well.
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