Flower Gardening

Flower gardening, whether in the ground or flower pots, can add beauty and texture to your home. Most everyone can have fun and gain satisfaction thru flower gardening.

Flower gardening is a great way for kids to learn patience and how to care for a living thing. I remember my daughters first flower gardening experience, I put bird seed on a wet sponge so they could watch them grow. They checked & watered the seeds every day and in just a few days the plants had grown to about three inches tall. The girls were so tickled and excited they couldn’t wait to get outside and start flower gardening.

Many people find flower gardening relieves stress and tension. I know it helps me when I spend a little time just watering a flower bed after a long day at work, or sitting on the deck watching the birds, butterflies & bees buzz around all the blossoms in the flower garden. Of course you don’t have to have a big garden to enjoy flower gardening. Even taking care of a few pot plants in the house can be enjoyable and relaxing. If you choose to keep your flower gardening in the house or on the patio in pots, the planting and care is very similar to the container gardening and grow vegetables sections of this site. Be sure to follow the instructions on the seed packages or the little plastic information sticks that come in potted plants from the garden store.

Even outside, in the ground flower gardening can be enjoyable, relaxing and rewarding. It can obviously be more work, depending on the size of your flower beds, but with a little planning you can reduce the workload considerably. First you need to prepare the ground for your flower garden. Remove any weeds or grass from the garden area and mix in a layer of good compost & bone meal to improve the dirt. If you start in early spring it’s a good idea to use a pre-emergent weed killer like "Preen" to keep weeds from getting a start. Decorative edging around the flower bed will also help keep grass from creeping into a flower garden. Cover the soil with pine bark mulch to help retain moisture and prevent weeds. Plant your flowers keeping in mind how big they are going to get so you don’t have to go back and do any thinning. You can even buy inexpensive drip irrigation kits that will water your flowers automatically to keep your flower gardening experience easier.