Keeping a balanced, healthy garden is not as hard as it seems. A little extra care definitely goes a long way, and will bring bountiful results soon after you start. There are a couple of things you can do to ensure that your garden is bright and full of flowers all season long.
The Secret to Healthy Flowers
The first thing you need to do to keep your flowers healthy is to provide the proper soil for your garden. For example, before you plant anything, lay down some compost and let the soil soak it up. This helps extra nutrients make their way into the soil, which will greatly benefit your flowers later on.
Another thing you can do to keep your flowers healthy, is to space them out accordingly. If they’re too close together, your flowers are going to suffocate and fight each other for nutrients. Once this happens, if one plant becomes diseased, it can easily spread to the others.
When you plant your annual flowers in your garden, and at the beginning of each growing season, fertilize them with a slow-release fertilizer. Once is enough because over-fertilizing will lead to more foliage and less flowers – not what you want in this case. The exception is annuals that are planted in containers – they should be fertilized using a water soluble fertilizer ever few weeks to maintain a colorful display of flowers.
Annual flowers have a shallow root system so you need to be careful not to over water them – this is one of the biggest mistakes that people make. Once you see their heads start to hang, that’s when you know they need water. For the best results, use a drip irrigation system, a soaker hose or water directly from a watering can.
During the flowering season, pinch back faded blooms that are doing your garden no good. This helps to encourage new, stronger growth because the plants aren’t using energy to turn those dead flowers to seed. At the end of the season, let the flowers die off and go to seed naturally. This will bring you more plants next year.
Keeping Your Annual Flower Garden Alive
By following the tips listed above, you will no doubt have a bright, beautiful, healthy garden in no time. It’s all about prior preparation and what you do during the process of planting and caring for your garden.
Originally posted at: Lafayette Real Estate News
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