Planting a Garden of Flowering Bushes
A garden consisting solely of flowering bushes can provide your yard with a new look, especially for curb appeal. There are many beautiful bushes to choose from, with some that come in a variety of different colors, such as the rhododendron and the azalea. Allowing the grass to form paths in the garden makes it look more natural.
Decide which bushes and how many you want to plant. You can select flowering bushes with colors that complement each other, such as a purple rhododendron and a deep pink azalea. Of course, you can have more than two types of flowering bushes in your garden. These bushes can form a row or even a half-circle in your front yard. You can also create a secluded spot for a bench and table surrounded by the bushes. Walk around your front yard and place a removable marker like a brick or stone in the spot where the bush will be planted. Allow enough space for the bush to spread as it grows.
Make a list of which bushes you do want to purchase at the nursery. A partial list of flowering bushes you can select from include: rhododendron, azalea, lilacs, mountain laurel, blue hydrangea, pink hydrangea, butterfly bush, gardenia, snowball bush, hibiscus, and forsythia. Allow bushes that spread quickly enough room until they can be pruned the following year. Bushes like this include the mountain laurel, hydrangea, and forsythia. A note on the forsythia bush: if you have one located elsewhere in your yard, such as the backyard, simply cut off a branch and stick it in the ground in your front yard garden, and water it well. It will quickly take root and grow during the spring and summer season. This is a convenient flowering bush for such a garden because you can create new bushes from the original one each year if you wish to expand the number of bushes in your garden. Hydrangeas are beautiful, too, if your soil tends to be acidic, the color will be blue, and if your soil is alkaline, the color will be pink. It is possible to have hydrangeas of both colors in the same garden. Simply add a fertilizer with sulfur to the blue hydrangea at the end of the last frost. Add lime to the soil for the pink hydrangea.
After purchasing the desired flowering bushes from the local nursery, set them in the desired spots by the stone markers in your front yard. This is where you will dig a hole for each bush. Most nurseries provide planting information with each bush when you purchase them. If necessary, add some mulch to the soil before packing the soil around the bush’s roots. Water your bushes well after they are planted. Place your garden furniture in the desired spot. You can even add a birdbath and statuary nearby. Fertilize your flowering bush garden at least once per growing season.
Image Credit: Anne Burgess, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
