By Richard Wong

Flower gardening has been gaining popularity every day.  This is not surprising as flowers have the ability to brighten your day with their looks and their smell. Flower gardening is a great hobby enjoyed by many as it is a simple and inexpensive activity that rewards you with loads of fun.  You can use flower gardening for decorating your yard, or simply for fun as a hobby, or even professionally.

Before you start flower gardening, you need to make some decisions. Firstly, you need to decide if you want those annuals that only live for a season and then you’ll need to replant them each year, or the perennials that will survive all through winter and then will return again during the summer.  When deciding on what to plant, always find something that is suitable for the kind of climatic conditions you’re living in.

Before you start to plant, it is wise to decide on the type of look you want.  For example, you may want to mix together different colors, heights, and varieties of flowers in a “wild-plant style”. This will give a meadow look to your garden and make it very charming.  Another style would be the “stepping stone style” where shorter flowers are planted towards the front of your garden while taller ones are planted towards the back ending with the tallest flowers at the very back of your garden.

Seeds for flower gardening can be ordered from catalogues or you can get them from your local nursery.  You may also want to do what most people do and buy the actual flowers from the nursery and then transplant them in your garden.  After getting your flowers and preparing your garden area, you should lay the flowers out on the flower bed to determine the best arrangement and proper spacing before you actually plant them.

Planting is really one of the easiest activities in flower gardening. If you’re planting seeds, all you need to do is to sprinkle them around in the flower bed.  To plant transplants, first dig a hole just bigger than the flower. Then, set the flower in the hole with the right side up after pulling off the container.  When the flower is in place, cover the hole with loose soil and press firmly down. When you’re done, the last step is to water the plants.

What’s easier than planting a flower garden? Maintaining one. Although the plants might make it on their own, it is a good idea to apply a bag of fertilizer in the early spring. Any blooms that start to fade should be pinched back. Keep your garden looking good and watered.  To save yourself some work during the next season of flower gardening, you should get rid of all debris from your garden and fertilize it with some organic nutrients like compost or peat moss.  In order to properly mix in the fertilizer, you should turn over the soil. When you’re done, rake smooth.  If you have planted perennials, you must be careful not to disturb their roots in this process.

Flower gardening is not difficult. Just decide on what to plant, simply plant it, and then keep watering.  Flower gardening is undoubtedly getting more popular and gives anyone good reasons to spend some time outdoors and to test out their green thumb.

Visit Richard's website for more flower gardening tips. Get a free copy of Indoor Gardening Secrets from his site.

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