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Beginners Gardening Guide #10: Blossoms for Every Season


More than 2,000 years ago an author put into the mouth of Morpheus, Greek god of dreams, this saying, “When bright flowers bloom, parchment crumbles, my words fade. The pen has dropped…” Each of us has known the breathtaking beauty, and attention grabbing splendor, of our floral friends that words simply cannot describe. It stops us in our tracks with a divine disruption. Like Morpheus, our time among the blossoms is time spent touching eternal realities. And so we plant and tend our flowers with the utmost care, the sweetest anticipation of transcendent moments. Thriving in the garden, and gracing our table or desk when plucked, our flowers provide beauty and fragrance but also perspective and hope.

With this in mind, our goal should be to maintain a healthy flower garden, populated by a mixture of perennials, flowering bushes, and bulbs that have become old, valued friends, and some annual blooms that provide variety and a chance to make some new acquaintances. These tips will get your garden blooming with a beauty and fragrance that will invite resplendent moments throughout the growing season.

First, pay attention to the condition of the soil in which your flowers grow. Invest in a soil Ph monitor that tests the acidity level of your soil. Based on its readings, mix into your soil the right additives to create perfectly balanced acidity and alkalinity. Your local nursery or online garden center will have the products you need to produce the balanced soil your blooms will thrive in. Remember that a healthy application of compost is always appreciated, too.

Secondly, keep an updated diagram of where you plant each type of flower, so that your garden will exhibit a balance of color from spring through autumn. Sketch out your garden, and use these basic symbols to identify the time of year each flower comes into bloom: SP (spring), SU (summer), AU (autumn), and AN (annual). Most experienced gardeners plant in rows that follow the seasonal pattern of flowers, such as row 1, SP, row 2, SU, row 3 AU, and row 4 AN, then repeat the sequence. This maintains a fuller look to your garden for 8 or 9 months in most climates, which is wonderful. When you want to make substitutions in your perennials, you will know how to replace flowers with those that will bloom during the same season. You’ll replace one spring bloomer with another spring bloomer, to maintain the garden’s consistency, for example. Annuals may be added anywhere you foresee a gap occurring.

Thirdly, know what flowers bloom seasonally. Here is a list to get you started.

Spring options include:

• Crocus

• Iris

• Snow Drop

• Snow Flake

• Lesser Celandine

• Dewberry

Summer options include:

• Balsam

• Celosia

• Cone Flower

• Daisies

• Ageratum

• Dahlia

• Marigolds

• Morning Glory

• Begonia

• Salvia

• Sunflower

Autumn options include:

• Chrysanthemum

• Aster

• Perennial sunflower

• Golden Rod

• Dusty Miller

• Artemisia

Finally, remember that no gardener ever achieved the “perfect” garden in the first year. Gardeners enjoy immediate satisfaction from some parts of their garden, while needing patience with other aspects that do not turn out as desired. Continuing to seek the right mix of flowers for your garden will set you on a path in which the journey is a meaningful as the destination.

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