Heather Rhoades

Why a flower bed should look bare when you first plant it

It is probably one of the most common new gardener mistakes.  It is even a mistake that, in their excitement to have a beautiful yard, seasoned gardeners make.  That mistake is planting a new flower bed with too many plants that are too close together.

A new flower bed should have lots of bare ground.  In fact, there should be enough bare ground between the plants that you can walk easily between them.  Unfortunately this creates a flower bed that looks nothing like the flower beds you see in gardening books and magazines.

Gardening is twenty-five percent work, twenty-five percent love and fifty percent patience.  We lovingly plant the garden with our own bare hands, often times with little or no mechanical help.  When we finish with our new masterpiece of a flower bed, we want it to look like the masterpiece we envision.  But Mother Nature has never been a speedy sort of spirit, and if you try to hurry her up, she will punish you.

It is best to think of your flower bed like a child.  When you plant it, you need to give your flower bed room to grow and develop.  Just like children, if you try too hard to give it a personality too fast, your flower bed will rebel rather quickly.  Instead of the masterpiece you thought you were planting, you will end up with an overwhelming jungle that will either be more work than it should be or the entire flower bed will need to be dug up and replanted.

Fortunately, flower beds do not need 18 years to "grow-up".  It takes about three to five years to develop a good, healthy and, more importantly, nice looking flower bed.  By the fifth year, you can expect that your flower bed will have filled in nicely without crowding each other.

So how do you make sure your flower bed gets planted correctly? 

First, when planting your flower bed, make sure that the plants have been planted at least one and a half to two times the plant's recommended spacing.  Yes, the tags are helpful, but remember, the nursery that sold them to you is in the business of making money if you buy more plants.  By putting only the barest minimum spacing required for a plant  on the tag, they will be able to convince you to buy more plants.  Extra spacing will allow the plants good breathing room without tripping over each other in only a year or two.

Second, plan out your flower bed before you put the plants in the ground.  Lay all your plants out on top of the ground before you even think about digging a single hole.  Once you have the plants all laid out, step back and look at the bed.  Does everything look right?  Is everything spaced right? If not move your plants accordingly, then step back and look again.  A few minutes of quiet contemplation at this stage will save your hours of back breaking work in a few years.

Third and most important, use your imagination.  Imagination is a gardener's best tool.  Imagine your plants as they will look five years from now.  Imagine your plants will have spread to be 10 times bigger than they are now.  Picture them at their full height.  At these sizes, will they still have breathing room or would they be on top of each other?  Space again if you imagine they will be too close.

At this point, you are ready to dig the holes for your new plants.  And the best indicator of whether or not a new flower bed is planted correctly is if you look at the bed and say "It just looks too empty."  If that's how your flower bed looks, than your new flower bed is probably planted just right.

So kick back and relax and just keep on relaxing.  For just a few years' worth of patience, you will have years and years of beauty to enjoy with very little work.

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