Picking the Best Flowers For Your Home
Garden
 Choosing the right flowers is one of
the most critical decisions when planning a new garden and
combining the right colors and textures can make any garden a showplace.
The many different colors and varieties of flowers for the
garden makes finding the colors you like best very
easy.
Plants should, of course, be chosen
for their health and hardiness as well as their
beauty. When choosing seedlings for transplantation,
it's important to choose only the healthiest, best looking
seedlings and to reject those that show any signs of disease
or insect infestation.
Choosing only the healthiest plants will make sure your new
garden gets off to a good start.
Some problems
with seedlings will be apparent even to the gardener just
starting out. For instance, it's easy to see things like spots
on the leaves, holes in the leaves or wounds in the stems.
Other problems, however, are more subtle and they may be easy
to miss for the beginning gardener. If you're planning your
first garden, you may want to take along a more experienced gardener or get
the advice of the nursery staff, to find the best seedlings
for your needs.
As you browse around the garden center,
be sure to carefully examine the flowers, the leaves and the
foliage of the plants you're
considering. Look especially for white and black spots
on the flowers, leaves and foliage, as these spots are often
signs of a bacterial or fungal
infection.
Also, be on the
lookout for wilted leaves and waterlogged roots,
as these can mean the plants will fail to thrive after they're
planted. Plants with cut stems or other types of
wounds should also be avoided.
Of course,
finding the healthiest plants is
only part of the battle. The other part is transplanting those
seedlings properly, and caring for them once they're in the
ground. Make sure you get the transplants into the
garden as quickly as possible. When planting seedlings
or young plants, the hole you dig should be slightly larger
than the root ball of the plant. Making the hole
larger will ensure that the plant can be placed into the
ground without disturbing it's delicate root structure.
After the plant is in place,
the earth should be gently tamped down and the plant should be
given plenty of water and
fertilizer.
When starting a new garden,
it's a good idea to have a good soil analysis done before
buying your first plants. A soil analysis will tell
you if your soil is of sufficient quality and also help you be
sure that it contains the nutrients your plants will need. A
soil analysis will also spot common problems, such as soil
that is too acidic, too alkaline, too sandy, contains to much
clay, etc. There are ways to fix all these problems, but it's
important to have a soil analysis done so you know how to
correct any problems found.
Finally, understanding the
type of soil you have can help you choose the plants that
will do best in that soil. Tailoring the plants you select to
the soil you have is a great way to reduce the use of
pesticides and other chemicals while
still enjoying a healthy and robust garden.
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