While hobbyist gardening can take many forms, planting a lavish flower bed is one of the most fun and rewarding pastimes. Seeing your hard work culminate in a dreamy array of flora is exciting indeed. However, while your flower garden ideas should be centered around your creativity and personal tastes, there are several tips and tricks that can improve the quality of any flower bed design.
Whether you’re looking for inspiration or need a refresher on the basics, any green thumb can plan a gorgeous flower bed with a few simple concepts in mind. Follow these easy tips on how to plan your flower garden and don’t forget to have fun with it! First, let’s talk about the canvas on which you’ll create floral art.
Study your Gardening Location
Before you get too giddy with excitement over the rainbow of impressive summer bulbs you intend to plant, you must study your intended growing space. Not everything will survive in every soil type or climate, so it’s important to do some digging before choosing the location that gives your new flowers their best shot at success. Here are three attributes to evaluate for any potential flower bed site.
Lighting Conditions. Whether you choose full sun or an area that is kissed by shade in the afternoon is up to you, but consider the impact it has on the flowers you’ll be able to maintain in that area. If you’re limited in the lighting offered by your outdoor space, don’t worry. Start researching which flowers do well in your area and more specifically, the lighting conditions available to you.
Soil Quality. The pH of your soil is a major determining factor in its fertility and the nutrients it provides to your plants, with slightly acidic levels of 6 to 7 preferable for most flowers. Soil makeup is also important—large amounts of clay, sand, silt, or loam in your soil can determine which types of blooms will do well and which will struggle to survive. If your soil is of poor quality, you can always amend it with fertilizer, compost, manure, or fallen leaves.
Visual Appeal. Of course, you have to choose a location where flowers will actually grow, but once you’ve narrowed it down to a few spots you can start thinking about the statement you want the garden to make. Are you making a grand entrance to your yard? Lining a driveway or walkway with explosions of color? Layering against the wall of a structure? If you’re blessed with great light and soil, let your artistic ambitions play into the location you choose.
Select Just the Right Flowers
With the attributes of your garden site in mind, it’s time for the fun part—choosing the blooms that you’ll eventually plant. Of course, you want to stick to flowers that grow well in your geographical area as well as the light and soil conditions of your specific plot. But there’s more to it than that.
Decide on a Color Scheme. With so many gorgeous hues to choose from, it can be hard to say no to any of them. However, you’ll be able to create a more put-together look if you stick to recurring colors throughout the space. Complimentary shades create a playful juxtaposition that draws attention. Similar hues create a pleasing blend of color—imagine a flower bed that transitions from deep scarlet to pastel pink. Use both philosophies throughout the space to create distinct areas of vibrance and tranquility. Don’t worry if you need a refresher on color theory; take a look at the color wheel before getting started.
Review Plant Height. Different plants grow to be different heights—that’s not news. But how are you using this to your advantage? Consciously layering plants will not only provide a more three-dimensional feel to the space, but it will also prevent your blooms from having to compete for visibility. Generally, you want to organize your plants like you would a class photo or set of bleachers, with the taller ones behind the shorter ones. Or, if you’re working on an island garden in the middle of your yard, the tallest plants should be in the center.
Consider Bloom Times. To extend your flower garden’s beauty for as long as possible, think about how you can incorporate plants that bloom at different times throughout the season. That way, when some flowers wilt and fade away, new blasts of color are already budding and ready to take their place. In addition, you can sprinkle various types of foliage throughout your landscape to add interesting textures and shapes when flowers aren’t enhancing the view.
Think about Texture and Size: In addition to color and height, tinkering with texture and shape is another way to lend variety to your flower garden ideas. Play with combinations of texture, placing fine foliage (marigolds) and coarse foliage (like canna lilies) together to create a unique style of contrast and intrigue. Experiment with size as well to create differences in visual weight—for example, place a few bushier plants next to groupings of daintier ones. The shape of the leaves counts, too, whether they’re more like blunt saucers or long and narrow.
How to Plan a Flower Garden Layout
You have your location and blooms all picked out, and you probably have some idea of how you want it to look. Now, it’s time to put it all together in a visually inspiring way. When you’re looking for the best flower garden layout ideas, it’s important to remember that the best layout for every garden will be different. Variances in soil, water, light, and even your personal objectives and tastes all play into the unique way you style your flower bed. However, there are still a few design guidelines to keep in mind as you drum up flower garden ideas.
Repetition, Repetition, Repetition. As location is to real estate agents, repetition is to flower garden designers. A few core colors, shapes, and plant species repeated throughout the space will ground and anchor the space with a flowering cohesion. This doesn’t mean you can’t make use of variety, but simply planting whatever you want wherever it falls will yield a disorganized and haphazard garden that overwhelms the senses.
To be strategic with your repetition, choose flowers that have a long blooming season and are easy to maintain in your garden’s growing conditions. Additionally, groupings of odd numbers are more pleasing to the eye than even numbers.
Use a Focal Point. Think about the composition of your garden. Where do you want to draw onlookers’ attention? Make that your focal point and design outward from there. This can be anything you want, from a particularly showstopping group of plants, an explosion of color that isn’t used anywhere else in the garden, or something more permanent like a birdbath or piece of garden decor.
Consider the Background and Foreground. When coming up with flower garden layout ideas, it can be easy to zero in on the garden itself and forget about what exists around it. However, you want the foreground and background to enhance the viewing experience of your garden, not compete with it for attention.
If you already have a backdrop in mind, like the wall of your house or the fence in your yard, great! If not, you can always add some hardscaping to make one. Whether it’s a trellis for your favorite flowering vine or a birdbath that draws the eye, the right background can make all the difference for your carefully planned flower bed.
In front, think about how the edge of your garden transitions into the surrounding landscaping. Maybe it buttresses up with your driveway, sidewalk, or even a small pond—or perhaps you have some artsy pavers in mind. Also, consider surrounding objects that might detract from the view. If your planting site is right behind the garbage and recycling pickup area, it might be time to reconsider.
Final Thoughts
Thinking of flower garden ideas can take time and patience, but it’s well worth the effort. With the above tips, you should be well on your way to planning a floral oasis that will be the talk of your block. If you’re ready to start planting, check out our vibrant summer bulb collection or shop for essential garden supplies. If you need a bit more inspiration or actionable gardening advice, we have more educational gardening resources, too!
