Planning Your Spring Flower Garden

Add Beauty to Your Garden with Flowers Year Round

Planning your spring flower garden is a great winter activity. Adding flowering plants and cut flowers to your garden can be easy and fun. Flowering plants and cut flowers add beauty and color to your garden and can provide you with a bounty of cut flowers to brighten your home.

We give you some tips below to help make your spring flower garden planning practical and fun. Planning a flower garden is half the fun and can make winter a little less dreary on those cold and wintery days and evenings. I don’t know a gardener that doesn’t look forward to spring and the opportunity to grown beautiful plants or vegetables in their garden.

Know Your Growing Zone

Knowing your growing zone makes all the difference in the world between gardening success and gardening failures. Growing zones are also known as plant hardiness zones and these zones help you know which plants will grow well in your garden and which plants will usually fail.

Growing zones take into account many things including rainfall, humidity, your area’s shifts in temperatures, sunlight intensity, and other important factors that determine what will grow well in your area. The USDA or U.S. Department of Agriculture keeps maps on their website with all the latest input of weather information for your area.

Once you know your hardiness zone it becomes easy to search for plants that will grow well in your area. Many of the online gardening catalogs have search capabilities by hardiness zone to make selecting your plants or seeds easy. My hardiness zone changed from a 9B in 2012 to a 10A in 2023 with changing weather conditions. So, it’s best to check yearly before ordering seeds or plants, because weather changes along with what will thrive in your area.

Know How Much Sun Your Garden Gets

Knowing how much sun exposure your garden gets and at what time of day is important for choosing the best flowering plants for your garden. Mapping your useable garden area and then highlighting which areas get full sun throughout the day, partial sun and what hours, partial shade and what hours, and which areas are in full shade most of the day will help you plan a successful garden.

Plants grow with different light requirements; full sun makes some plants thrive and others wither. Many bright-colored flowering plants do best in full sun, while ferns and leafy shrubs usually do better in partial shade or full shade conditions.

Even if most of your garden is shaded there are still many beautiful plant choices available to create a gorgeous flower garden for your home. If you are fortunate to have a garden that is a mix of full sun, partial shade, and full shade, you can grow practically anything you want in your garden.

Your Choice-Annuals or Perennials

Many people like to have a mix of annuals and perennials in their gardens. Annuals only last one season and perennials will grow year after year. I usually reserve my annuals to cut flowers and then perennials for the rest of my flowering plants because I don’t have the time to do that much planting each year.

It’s nice to add annuals to your flowering garden because this way you can try out new plants each year and have an ongoing variety of plants in your garden.

Choose Your Flowering Plants

Next, comes the fun part. Make a list of the plants you love that grow in your area. Now it’s time to do a search for flowering plants that grow well in your area. It’s nice to have a variety of colors and also stagger your blooming season by choosing flowering plants that bloom at different times of year.

Checking out the variety of online sources for ordering flowering plants and seeds can inspire your garden design. Once you have your list you can either purchase from a local nursery or order online. If you order online read the company’s reviews and go with the company that has the best track record. I ordered bare-root roses from a company that guaranteed their roses to thrive for a year after planting. So, ask friends who they order from, and check the company’s reviews, and also the company’s social media to see what is said about their products and their customer service.

Designing Your Spring Flower Garden

My favorite part is designing the layout of my flower garden. Once you have an idea of the plants that will thrive in your area, soil, and sun conditions, it’s time to do the layout of your garden. This is the fun and creative part. It’s simpler than you think! Here are some ideas to get you started:

Map Your Flower Garden

Get a piece of blank paper or butcher paper to draw out your garden plan. Sketching your garden will allow you to try different ideas before ordering the plants and digging the holes to make sure they work aesthetically. Start with the rough dimensions of your garden as the outline, and note what areas get full sun, partial shade, and full shade.

Map Out Plants by Height and Size

Knowing how wide and tall your plants grow is very important for a good-looking garden layout. A good rule of thumb is tall to the back and short to the front with medium size plants in the middle. Arranging your plants by height adds visual depth to your garden. Planting by height also creates balance in your garden.

Plant Colors that Work Well Together

Knowing the color of your blooms lets you lay out your garden in a way that shows off the color of your flowering plants best. Some people color block their gardens, so one area is predominantly blue, yellow, or red with greenery dividing up the areas. I like planting with complementary colors in my blooming garden.

Vary Textures in Your Spring Flower Garden

Vary textures will give your flower garden extra depth and appeal. Placing feathery plants next to smooth-leaved plants gives your flower garden contrast and added appeal. I also like to vary whether plants move with the wind or are very stationary in their look because it gives your garden more interest. Also, strategically placing garden art whether gnomes, whirly gigs, or metal sculptures can enhance the overall look of your garden.

Have fun planning your spring flower garden. For any of your other home or shed building products, take a look at our new 2024 Shed Windows and More catalog. Happy planning and planting this spring!