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Where to Start and What to Grow in Your Flower Gardens

Flower gardening can become a passion; it can also be overwhelming. There are millions of plants to choose from and even more ways to combine them. This flower gardening path will walk you through the stages of building your flowering borders from the soil up.

Getting Started
Annuals
Perennials
Rose Gardening
Bulbs & Tubers

Ornamental Grasses
Trees, Shrubs, Vines & Ground Covers
Container Gardening
Garden Design - Putting it All Together
Garden Photos for Ideas and Inspiration

Getting Started

Gardens should start with the soil, but most of us don't have the patience for that. So here's some help to get you moving in the right direction, whether you're looking for info on a particular plant, design direction or you are actually starting from the ground up.

Annuals

Annual plants may live for only one season, but oh the difference they make in a garden. There's no better way to get non-stop color and performance.

Perennials

Perennial plants and flowers are what make a garden look better and better with age. Choosing the right plants for your garden and keeping them growing well is what makes perennial gardening such an enjoyable journey for the gardener. There are always new perennials to try and new techniques to learn.

Rose Gardening

Somehow roses got a back rap for being difficult to grow. You may never grow an award-winning tea rose, but most roses will thrive in a garden. Choose varieties that will be happy in your area and give them plenty of sunshine, then sit back and smell the roses.

Bulbs & Tubers

What would spring be without flowering bulbs? Bulbs take a little pre-planning, but they pay you back with years of blooms. Don't stop with spring bloomers. There are bulbs for every season and every garden.

Ornamental Grasses

It's hard to remember when ornamental grasses weren't a fixture in every garden. Even if you can't tell them apart, you can still appreciate the texture and contrast they bring to a garden. And no plant could be easier to grow.

Trees, Shrubs, Vines & Ground Covers

Few flower gardens are made up of flowers alone. Trees, shrubs and vines give a garden architecture and bones. Many also flower or add colorful and textured foliage. And groundcovers can carpet or edge a garden, as well as tease you along a garden path. Combine all these elements to create a mixed border that holds its interest all year long.

Container Gardening

Container gardening is so much more than growing plants in a pot. You can create whole gardens in pots. And they're portable! It's also easier to control the growing environment of a container plant. Anything you can grow in the ground can be grown in a pot

Garden Design - Putting it All Together

Great garden design is one of those things you can't define, but you know it when you see it. Sure, there are rules and guidelines to get you started. But take the principles given here and make them your own. The best garden designs are the ones that reflect the gardener's joy in gardening.

Garden Photos for Ideas and Inspiration

Photos of Other Gardens, to Give You Ideas

A picture really is worth a thousand words. Take a peek here to see how other gardeners have created their personal gardens.

Gardening