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Flower Gardening Tips

Bidisha Mukherjee
Do you have an affinity for gardening? Are you a closet green thumb, so to speak? Let's take a look at how you can start your very own garden, with these helpful flower gardening tips.
There is nothing more beautiful than a colorful flower garden surrounding your front porch. The view will make you feel closer to nature and can uplift your mood at any given moment.
Today, more and more people are taking up gardening as a hobby, given its therapeutic nature. Whatever be the reason, you can start your very own garden at any point in time. It is not a very difficult task, provided that you follow some tips on how to do this.

Tips on How to Start Your Own Garden
The following will reveal some simple flower gardening tips that will help make the process easier. The ideal time to start a garden is at the end of spring or just before summer kicks in.
If you're starting a garden without prior experience, you must begin with a small area before turning it into a large one. These are the points you'll need to bear in mind while planning a garden:

Select a Location

The scorching heat during the peak hours of the afternoon sun, is not good for many flowering plants. At least six hours of light is a must, with a little shade for particular flower species. Therefore, the area chosen should be such that the right amount of sun and shade is available, by doing a little research on the type of flower you want to grow.
Many people prefer a place close to a wall or fence, since it enhances the visual appearance of a garden. For adequate shade, you can plant the flowers around fenced spots, around trees, or in a similarly shady spot.

Prepare the Soil

The next thing to do, is to remove weeds that may be growing in your garden, by digging it up with a shovel. Then identify the type of soil that you have in your garden and prepare it accordingly.
The best way to improve a soil's condition for the purpose of gardening, is with the help of compost. This is because it consists of organic matter which is good for all types of plants.
On sandy soil, compost and peat moss that allows adequate moisture to seep in, for proper growth of the plant. For clay soil gardens, add compost and sand in order to improve its drainage.

Selection of Plants

When you venture to a flower shop to buy flowering plants, read the tags attached to each of them. These tags contain all the relevant information related to climatic requirements and soil condition needs of the plants. 
You could buy only those flowering plants that are suitable for any kind of climate change, sunlight, and soil condition, to give yourself less of a hard time. There are two kinds of flowering plants: annuals and perennials. Annuals blossom only in a particular season whereas perennials bloom throughout the year.
Select a good combination of annuals and perennials for your flower garden. This will ensure that your garden will have flowers all year round. You can buy seeds too to watch a flower take form, provided that you have the time and patience to care for them.

Planting the Flowers

Proper planting of the flowering plants is a must. Take it out from plastic container along with the entire soil plug attached to it. If there are too many roots around the soil, loosen them a bit so that they can get comfortably branch out in a flower bed.
Then plant it in the ground, making sure the roots of the plant are not placed too deep in the soil. Otherwise, most of the water given to the plant will drain before it reaches the roots.

Watering the Plants

After planting, adequate watering is important as it will help the plant to develop a strong root system. Water should be given to the plants as per their requirements. The tags of the new plants contain valuable instructions on a plant's needs.
It is better to plant the same kinds of plants together, so you know a certain amount of water is required in that one spot. In the first week, watering should be done daily. In the second week, it should be done after every two days. After that, once a week. If the plants are native to your area, then at a later stage you can water them just once in month.

Flower Plant Care

Mulching (using various elements directly to the soil, like wood chips, bark chips, leaves, straw mulch, woodchip mulch, peat moss, cardboard, plastic sheeting, and the like) helps stunt the rampant nature of weeds, preserves soil moisture, and improves the state of the soil.
Remove dead blossoms and throw them away from the garden, since they can spread diseases to healthy neighboring plants.
Initially, you may find the task of gardening a bit strenuous, but as you watch them blossom, you will get a sense of fulfillment. With time, you'll be experimenting with other adventurous projects like planning a vegetable or fruit garden.