Not everyone is born with a green thumb. However, if you are determined to have flower beds in Connecticut, there are a few skills you can learn to keep a healthy garden. From choosing the right flowers to hiring a professional landscaping service, it’s easier than you think to keep your lawn healthy and thriving.
Eight Keys to Maintaining Healthy Flower Beds
1. Pick the Right Flowers for Connecticut
First and foremost, if you want to have healthy flower beds in Connecticut, then you should select flowers that can survive the hardness of the New England climate. Selecting the right flowers will make it much easier to successfully care for your garden, since these flowers are guaranteed to thrive in your specific climate and soil.
Several common flowers are ideal for New England, so whether you want perennial flowers or plants that will survive even through the winter, you will find plants that suit your taste. Some of the best flowers for the area include dahlias, daisies, petunias, tulips, daffodils, marigolds, lilies, coneflowers, and black-eyed susans. You may also consider ornamental grasses or flowers that are native to the area, such as blue-stemmed goldenrods.
2. Give Plants Room to Grow
As important as it is to pick the right plants, it’s also important to be thoughtful about where and how you plant your flowers. Specifically, you want to ensure that you are giving your plants enough room to grow in flower beds. Even if you are repotting mature plants, it’s important to space out your flowers so that roots have enough room to spread out in the soil.
As a general rule of thumb, it’s a good idea to plant flowers in your garden at least six to eight inches apart, which will ensure that the plants are not too crowded. Additionally, you will want to make sure that you are planting flowers in the right area of your garden, such as shaded areas for plants that aren’t resistant to heat.
3. Treat and Compost Your Soil
It’s also a good idea to treat and compost your soil. The soil of your garden is both the home and nutrients for your flowers, so if you want to have a successful garden, your soil needs to be in good condition. If you’re starting your flower bed from scratch, and you’re using soil that already exists in your lawn, you will need to assess the nitrogen balance in your soil, loosen the soil so that it can stay moist, and even add new soil for additional nutrients.
Additionally, keeping your soil fertilized is also essential to growing healthy plants. If you are using natural compost, be sure to wait to add compost until the mixture is completely composted, which means there are no visible bits of food or plant matter mixed into the soil. If you are using store-bought fertilizer, be sure to select the fertilizer that matches the plants you are growing.
4. Be Diligent About Weeding
One of the biggest threats to a healthy garden is weeds that grow out of control, which is why you need to be diligent about weeding. Weeds tend to crop up the most during spring and summer, so as soon as the warm weather hits, you will need to go outside and pluck weeds before they can choke your flowers. It’s best to remove weeds before they bloom, since this will prevent pollen from spreading to other areas of your garden.
5. Protect From Pests and Critters
You also need to protect your plants from pests and other critters. While some plants and flowers are naturally resistant to pests because they give off strong aromas, other plants may be vulnerable to bug life and other animals. You can protect your garden from pests and critters by using pest control measures such as chemicals, special fertilizers, sonic-powered gadgets, and small fencing.
6. Be Attentive About Deadheading Flowers
Another essential part of maintaining your garden is deadheading your flowers. Some people confuse pruning and deadheading, but while the actions are similar, deadheading is more important for flowers. To correctly deadhead your flowers, you will need to remove flowers that have faded so that new flowers can bloom. Failure to deadhead your flowers will ultimately prevent the plant from thriving.
7. Routinely Clean Your Garden
You also need to routinely clean your garden, especially in the weeks leading up to winter. Although autumn leaves may be pretty on the ground, they can be detrimental to the health of your garden when they are left in your flower beds over the winter. Removing leaves and other debris will ensure your garden environment is ideal for plant growth.
8. Water Your Plants Correctly
Finally, you must learn how to correctly water your flowers. While some flowers do okay with overhead misting, other flowers do better when water is delivered directly to the roots. You must understand the best way to water each of the flowers in your garden so that these plants can thrive.
Furthermore, learning correct plant watering will go a long way to preventing plant diseases, particularly mold diseases that plants may develop through the fall and winter.
When Should You Hire a Professional Landscaper?
Whether you are new to gardening or not, there may be times when it’s a good idea to hire a professional landscaper to help you with your garden. Professional landscapers have the tools and knowledge to help you design a garden that can thrive. Professional landscapers can also help with larger tasks, such as creating bigger garden beds or building infrastructure for your lawn.
Guidance on Designing Your Garden
When you are first designing your garden, it can be overwhelming to select flowers and plants that grow well together. However, if you want to have a good-looking garden, it’s important to select plant life that is complementary to each other. Professional landscapers will be able to analyze your soil, so you can choose plants and flowers that look good and grow well together.
Overhauling Your Plant Collection
If it’s time to overhaul the plants in your garden, this may also be a good time to contact professional landscapers. A professional service will be able to remove all dead plant life from your garden and prepare your soil for new flowers. This can be especially important if you intend to rotate the plants in your garden to enhance the quality of your soil.
Increase Property Value
Finally, hiring professional landscapers is a good way to increase your property value. In particular, the curbside appeal for your home may rely heavily on the health and appearance of the plants in your garden. By hiring professional landscapers to design your front lawn and backyard, you can increase your property value so you can sell your home more easily.
Taking care of a garden isn’t as simple as pruning some leaves and watering your flowers. However, by learning about the plants that do best in the Connecticut climate, you can design a garden that will thrive all year long. From weeding and deadheading to learning the best way to fertilize your soil, it’s easier than you think to develop a green thumb. To learn more about lawn care, get in touch with Landscaper Locator today.