Creating a Beautiful, Color Changing Garden

When it comes choosing what to plant in your lawn and garden, a little planning is in order. There are so many different options that you can really get carried away. This is why several of the garden websites and magazines can be so handy. Not so you can see what all the "cool" or famous people are planting and you can be like them, but so that you can see the many different types of plants that are out there. They are almost like a photo library of all the different flora you can use in your yard. You will want to start with a drawing of your yard on a graph type paper. If you use graph paper, you can get an accurate scale to your drawing for very easy planning when the time to plant comes. Once you have the basic layout and some ideas of what you want the end product to look like, you can start to choose your plants.

One of the most beautiful yards I have seen belongs to an older woman in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The thing that really sold me on this yard was that every month, it was a different color. This is a simple effect that just takes a little planning. The method is easy and once you realize how it is done, the rest is simple. By planting at different times of the year and selecting plants that bloom at different time intervals, her yard was always ringed in a different color. When it comes to trees and bushes, it is harder to find ones that bloom several times a year or at different seasons. For the most part, your colors changes will need to be limited to the surrounding perennials, biennials, or any other type of ennial around the perimeter of the yard and the base of the trees. One thing that you can do is try to match the colors of your tree and shrub blooms with surrounding plants that will bloom at the same time.

There are several ideas when it comes to the color changing theme. Many people choose to plant in sections. This makes it easier to mix the plants and you do not have to worry if they grow in the same conditions with the same fertilizer and watering cycles. For this method, you will plant a square section of one color of flowers, and then another. For this to really work, you will need to be limited to two colors. Otherwise, there will be too much of a gap between colors. The downside of this is that you will have gaps in your blooms. If you can find flowers that are more compatible, you can have a more uniform color explosion that will have limited gaps. The best way to get this is to intermingle the plants with each other. You can easily do this with four or five different blooms or colors. You will want to divide the area into several rows. Each row will can alternate in color. The first row will start with one and you will plant bloom 1, then 2, etc., and then start over again. The second row will start with bloom 2, bloom 3, etc., and row three starts with bloom 3. You can keep this rotation for as many rows and columns as needed.

Once you have the color scheme and design planned, you can start to look into the flowers that you want. If you can get some flowers that bloom three times a year, you can have a different color every month by using this method. If you live in a snowy state, you will only need plants that bloom twice a year. This will give you a different bloom for each snow-less month. You can use the internet to see different blooms and colors, but as I mentioned before, the magazines and garden showcase sites are the best option. This will allow you to view several blooms that you would not have heard of before. When searching for a specific flower on the internet, you may never even stumble upon the perfect flower for your plans.

A little design and thought is all it really takes to get a beautiful lawn and garden, but a little planning can give you some unique features. Year-round blooms and flowers can be achieved. If you plan it right you can have a red yard for Valentines day, yellow and white for Easter, red, white, and blue for the Fourth, or several other options. The possibilities are endless. A little thought and planning can make your yard the talk of the town. You can create a yard or garden that you will love and one that suits you perfectly.