The world of gardening has endless possibilities for those who want to examine it. You can choose from outdoor gardening, indoor gardening, cultivating exotic herbs, growing bonsais, landscaping, and thus the list is endless.

Flower gardening is becoming more and more popular every year. It gives anyone a great reason to enjoy outdoors.

You can go to the store and buy some summer flowers that are ready to be displayed in your house. But there is a guaranteed satisfaction of planting and raising your flowers.

Flower gardening is simple, inexpensive, and loads of fun. And it’s colorful! Colors affect our mood and spiritual well-being, and they reveal our personalities.

Here are a handful of tips to keep in mind when planting your summer flowers this season.

1. Prepare the soil

Take the time well ahead of when you plan to plant the seeds to prepare the soil you will use.

Dig about 6 inches deep and give the soil a proper turning over. Be sure to add fertilizer, mulch, or compost to get the nutrients into the land that your flowers will want.

Do this ahead of time. Then when you start to plant, you don’t have to worry about the soil. You can plant your flowers without a need to spend extra hours making the soil. A little preparation can save you a tremendous amount of time later.

2. Plant by Size

If you’re planting your flowers against a wall, plant the taller ones (like sunflowers) back against the wall, with the smaller ones farther away from the wall. If you’re establishing your garden into an open space, plant the taller ones in the center, with the smaller ones circulating out from there.

That arrangement allows for all the plants to get enough sunlight. They need not to fight with each other. And all of your flowers will be visible to both you and anybody else that might enjoy your garden.

3. Plant Plenty

To prepare for the losses caused by insects and birds, plant the seeds closer than recommended on the package, as well as plant more than you expect to grow. Weather, wildlife, and any variety of other causes leave you with fewer plants than you put into the ground.

Plant extra so you don’t have to worry about a scattered garden when everything blossoms.

4. Choose Colorful Flowers

There are many colorful summer flowers out there: petunias, sunflowers, marigolds, and cosmos, to name a few. There’s no reason that your summer garden should be anything less than a bright spot of color.

Don’t limit your garden to one type of flower or one color scheme. Mix and match and brighten up your backyard with bright and colorful summer flowers. They will be a pleasure for you and your family all season long.

5. Enjoy

The most important part of planting your garden this summer season is to make sure you enjoy it and have fun with it. Plant lots of flowers, plant more than one lot, get your family involved, get your neighbors involved, plant in patterns.

Whatever you want to do to make sure that your flowers are something that you enjoy. And enjoy your flowers when you turn the soil, and when you sit back and watch them bloom.

I believe that there are no secrets to becoming successful in life or gardening. Success in life is the result of hard work, as in gardening. But flower gardening is easy: decide what to plant, plant it, and water.

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Flower gardening is a pure pursuit which most people can enjoy. In this article, you will discover the joys and benefits of flower gardening that you can get.

Flower gardening brings joy to you and others. It brings fragrance, light, and color into your garden. As flowers can be chosen to suit specific garden areas, it can be used to enhance any part of your backyard.

The choice of flowers can do wonders. The color of flowers during the growing season plays a significant role to create the desired mood to your garden.  

Flowers enliven any garden with their vibrant colors. When planted in the right sequence, they can keep your yard looking beautiful and bright year-round. 

Flower Gardening Tips

Following are tips to help you become a more effective and creative flower gardener:

1. Colors

• Use tints and shades of one color or complementary colors.
• Bush large groups of varying flowers next to each other for a dramatic effect.
• Consider plants that will also produce tasty fruits like cherry and other fruit trees to serve as a great addition to your garden.

2. Visual Balance

• Select a few varieties, so your flower garden doesn’t look cluttered. Avoid overwhelming a small space with a large number of plant species. 
• Plant in curves, not straight lines or perfect circles, for better visual balance.
• Add romance to your landscape by growing climbing or vine-type flowers near a trellis or garden arbor.
• Plant individual ornamental grasses and shrubs in groups of odd numbers to balance out the visual aspects of your flower garden.

3. Pruning

• Keep it maintained adequately by pruning your shrubs
•  and trees, deadheading flowers, and cutting back frayed old growth.
• Plant in designated areas for ease of mowing your lawn.
• Add mulch to your finished flower garden to help retain moisture. The deteriorating mulch will add organic matter to your soil.

4. Location

• Choose flowers according to the area you choose to begin your garden. For instance, make sure the ones you purchase will do well in the shade or full sun.
• Exercise precaution when planting flowers under a tree, so you don’t dig up any roots. Dig a small, separate hole for each plant.
• Keep in mind how shrubs and trees you plant will grow, otherwise, it will be easy to plant them too close together.
• Avoid placing new structures or plants where they may damage existing landscape features.

5. Watering

• Water late afternoon or in the evening to avoid evaporation.
• Water when it’s not windy.
• Save water by using drip irrigation systems to individually water plants.

6. Insects

• Introduce praying mantis, ladybugs, and Trichogramma wasps for natural pest control.
• Try plants that attract birds and bats. They will eat up insect pests in your garden. Don’t apply chemicals to get rid of insects from your garden.

Use these tips to create new gardens or enliven existing flower gardens.

Flowers are unique in beauty and fragrance. With some arranging skills, their versatility will result in stunning garden design. Flower gardening is not a difficult subject to embark on.

One thing to note is that flower gardening is a creative process, not just a physical one. There are plenty of possibilities for you to create your unique garden designs.

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Too often in our pursuit of a better life, we end up with the experience of the rushed. Our mind is seldom quiet. It’s hard to be still.

Life is too noisy, and we are too busy for reflection in a quiet place. A quiet place is what we need to quiet our mind. 

Cultivating Peace

Inner peace is a rare and precious commodity these days. A quiet mind encourages inner peace. 

And what about when someone you once loved betrays you? Isn’t your peace of mind one of the first things to go? 

So…how do we cultivate peace? Gurus teach us “positive thinking.” Others advise “Think Peace,” as if it’s possible to order peace into presence. 

But what do we do when things happen to us that we can’t figure out? Or fix. Or change.  

Maybe we aren’t supposed to. Inner peace doesn’t suddenly appear after we possess all the right things, when we’re with the right person or live in the right place. 

Cultivating hope

Hoping for the circle of seasons to water and warm what once lay hidden — the miracle of new life. 

Maybe your life right now looks a lot like a pile of rubble. As you comb through the bits and pieces of what is left, as a tornado victim sifts through remnants of nature’s destruction looking for chips of treasured china, never give up hope. Something beautiful waits beneath the barren landscape. Be patient.

Spring of Hope

In the dead of winter, I need hope. I need to believe in what I can’t see in the asleep ground beneath my feet. Flipping through garden catalogs and websites, I dream about the new growth of spring. I envision daffodils and daisies sprouting in my someday-soon flowerbeds.

But gardening is more than daydreaming. There are lots to do between now and then before you stand knee-deep in flowers.

You know if you give weeds an inch, they will take your yard; so, we mulch there and pull here. We sharpen our garden tools and prune old trees. Shoes get muddy, fingernails break, and muscles ache.

It doesn’t take long to discover that life is like gardening: always less than we hope and much more than we expect. The label on the fertilizer box says if we scatter right and water deeply, our tender vegetation will grow. It never mentions hungry rabbits and golf ball size hail and nosy deer.

Our Expectations

Sometimes our unrealistic expectations get in the way of reality. My love for roses doesn’t lessen their thorns any more than pesticides keeps pests away. 

Maybe you were taught that if you are fair in your dealings, they will treat you fairly. If you work hard, eat a balanced diet, and keep your vows, you’ll be healthy, wealthy, and happy. 

Expect the Unexpected

If you believe hard enough, your faith will keep you safe from loss. You never expect diseases might strike; or that the company will downsize and you’ll lose your job. And you certainly don’t expect that divorce could happen to you.

The unexpected can wipe out our dreams like the rabbit wipes out rows of lettuce. It takes strength to believe something beautiful will grow again in a damaged heart or a chewed-up flowerbed. 

Things happen that are not fair. Or safe. We cannot always expect love in return. We all struggle accepting that life is what it is. 

In the dead winter of our soul, we need hope. We need to believe in an infinite future we can’t see. Between now and then, there are lots to do. We need tending of our souls. 

When spring arrives, we begin to notice faith and peace sprouting in our lives again. When we live with the end in mind, we come back to what matters.

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