Flower beds are a wonderful way to add color and life to a home. You can focus on beautiful blossoms, your favorite vegetables, or anything else that you think is worth growing. Taking care of flower beds can be relaxing and therapeutic, and successfully growing plants always feels great. If you want to maximize your chances of success, or if you’re worried that you might not have a green thumb, there are some tips that can help you along the way. Each of these seven tips is important, but the most important of all comes first. You need to plan ahead before you plant the flower bed. These tips can help you with that planning, and they’ll show you how to maintain your plants once they’re growing.
1. Water the Flower Beds Correctly
Yes, everyone knows that they need to water the plants. It’s still an important topic because a lot of people don’t quite know how to water plants. The first lesson is that each plant needs a different amount of water. That means you want to pick plants that need similar watering schedules to go in the same bed. If you don’t, none of your plants will be able to thrive.
The second lesson is that the water needs to go on the soil, not the foliage. It’s easy to just hose down the flower bed, but if you do, you increase the risk of disease in your garden. Fungal and bacterial diseases need water to thrive, and regularly applying water to the foliage helps them do that. Consider putting a drip system in your garden to manage watering.
2. Perform Diligent Deadheading
Deadheading, not to be confused with pruning, is extremely important for flowers. When a flower is spent, it has to be removed or it will inhibit the growth of the next round of blossoms. Deadheading is pretty easy, but it has to be done consistently. It should be done once a week for best results.
Similarly, mature fruits and vegetables need to be harvested on time. Any time they age past the ripe stage, they become breeding grounds for dangerous diseases. Besides, if you’re growing things that can be harvested, it seems a waste to let them spoil in your flower bed.
3. Rotate the Plants
Farmers figured out a long time ago that rotating crops is important to preserve the soil. This principle applies to flower beds too. You can avoid rotation by adding fertile topsoil, or you can simply rotate your blower beds. The latter is easier and ultimately more sustainable.
4. Do Routine Autumn Cleanings
Even annual flowers experience winter. The fall is when you’ll see the big change in your plants. It’s the ideal time to thoroughly clean up your flower beds. Despite the mild winters, this is still true in the Dallas area. In general, your autumn cleaning will remove fuel for disease and help the plant stay healthy through the winter and into the spring.
5. Prune the Bushes
Pruning is mostly an annual event. You know that dead limbs have to be managed, or else they can shock and drain the whole plant of valuable nutrients. What you might not know is that the optimal time for pruning is in late winter. By being a few weeks ahead of most people in your pruning, your plants will be primed for explosive growth in the spring, and you’ll get the healthiest yields possible.
6. Space Them Out
Plants need room to grow. You might be tempted to fill a flower bed to the brim, but the plants will choke each other if they’re too close. Give them the space recommended for each species of plant. In fact, researching that beforehand can help you plan a healthy flower bed.
7. Add the Right Amount of Fertilizer
Too much and too little fertilizer can both be bad for the plants. You need to know fertilizer recommendations for all of your plants. This again goes back to planning your garden before you plant it. It also means that you should schedule your fertilizing to remove any guesswork from the process. In that same vein, you can do annual soil tests to keep good track of your soil health.
These tips can help you maintain a lush, beautiful and healthy flower bed. Still, you might sometimes want a little more specific and expert advice. That’s always available with Main Street Mowing. You can call us anytime, and we’ll help answer your questions and help you make a good plan to fill out your flower beds. And when you’re ready for some professional services, we’ll be there.