Plan your flower bed or border carefully before sowing the seeds or transplanting young seedlings outdoors. An unplanned flower border usually fails to display flowers properly and to their best advantage. Tall growing plants may hide shorter varieties, or one end of the bed may have all red colored flowers while the white ones are grouped at the other end.

Several things which should be kept in mind when planning a flower bed or border are:

Place your lower growing plants near the front of the border and the taller ones near the back.

Set plants in an informal pattern and not in absolute rows.

Use colors that complement each other. A red colored flower, for example, probably won't look its best when planted next to an orange one. Some of the colors, which go together are red, white and blue; red and yellow; red and white; and yellow and blue.

In a flower bed of mixed color, you should avoid having similar colors in one area of your flower bed. Distribute colors throughout the border.

Allow a width of not more than four feet for your bed unless you can work on it from both sides.

If you have perennial flowers in the border, you should choose perennials that have a sequence of flowers blooming at all times throughout the entire spring, summer and fall seasons. If your borders or beds consists of mostly annual flowers, this is usually less of a problem, since most annuals will generally bloom throughout the entire growing season with proper care.

This page was last updated May 2003

Go to Information Page

Go to Horticulture Page