Flowering plants always make your garden look more exciting (and can stop neighbors in their tracks). Perennials can dazzle year after year, while annuals can add blooms almost instantly. You can start planting a flower garden with seeds or pick up transplants at the garden center, but once you’ve chosen your plants, there are a few basic steps to get your flowers off to a good start in your yard. First, before you start digging, read the tag that comes with your plants or the instructions on your packets of seeds so you can match the plants’ needs with the best spots to grow them. Then, if you already have established flower beds, you can easily place new annuals or perennials wherever you need to fill in some holes. Or you can always create a new flower bed to fill with all the beautiful blooms you want to grow.
Do the plants you’ve picked out need sun, shade, or a combination of both? Start by arranging your plants so they’re in a spot where they’ll get the kind of light they prefer (plants that like the sun should be out in the open, plants that need shade should go in a spot where they’ll have some cover). Full sun is six hours or more of direct sun per day, not necessarily continuously. Part shade typically means four to six hours of sun per day. Shade definitions vary depending on how deep the shade really is. Dappled shade gives a lot more light than deep shade, for example.