Knowing how to design a flower garden doesn’t have to be intimidating or complex. A flower bed can be as simple as two or three favorite perennials clustered together to provide a splash of summer color, or it can be a work of art that blooms from early spring to first frost. Most flower gardens evolve over several seasons and rarely stick to the initial ‘plan’, so try to stay relaxed about the design and stay open to tweaking the look over time. It really is impossible to get it wrong! Anything you plant can always be moved or changed around.

Start imagining your flower garden by making a list of favorite plants and shrubs. A stroll through a local nursery or garden center with a pen and notebook is a pleasurable and worthwhile place to start. Give some thought to the main purpose of your flower garden. Is summer color the main goal? Are you designing the garden to shield or screen a neighboring property or roadway? If so you'll want to include some evergreens and large shrubs. http://okeechobee.ifas.ufl.edu/News%20columns/Shrubs%20as%20Screens.htm

Are birds and butterflies something you'd like to see?http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/components/dg6711e.html Read up on which flowers they like the best. What about fragrance? Many medium sized shrubs, such as Dwarf Korean lilacs and Burkwood viburnums, are strongly fragrant.http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G6830 Do you want cut flowers for use in bouquets or crafts? All of these considerations will impact which plants you add to your list and which ones you leave off.

Once you have a sense of which plants and flowers you want to include and a sense of the general purpose of your flower garden, you can begin to lay out the bed itself. You will need a can of spray paint, sharp spade (not an anvil shaped ‘shovel’, but a garden spade with a straight sharp edge), a wheel barrow, a rake, compost, shredded mulch, a large pail, and a bottle of high-phosphorus liquid root stimulator (available at any garden center).

The task of actually installing the flower garden will take the better part of an entire morning or afternoon, depending on the size of the garden and the amount of help you have for the installation.

Stand outside facing the space you want to turn into a garden and take a notebook and pen along with you. Imagine what you want to see in the space and write it down. Try to include at least one or two shrubs of different heights for the back of the flower bed, some tall flower for the center, and some shorter annuals or creeping perennials for the front. List the plants you will be including and purchase or assemble your plant material.

Flowers can be expensive, but you don't have to purchase everything. You can often obtain starts from neighbors or relatives, or divide existing plants that are already growing in other parts of your own yard and then include the divisions in the new bed. Hostas, daylilies, irises, and coneflowers are just a few of the landscape perennials commonly found in residential plots that can be dug up and divided to provide fresh, free plant material. http://urbanext.illinois.edu/perennials/dividing.cfm Some very showy flowers can be grown from seeds, which are much more economical that potted specimens. A few examples of flowers that start easily from seed and look great are cleome, cosmos, nasturtiums, morning glories, alyssum, and catnip. http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G6570

Try to include a variety of different kinds of plants on your list. Perennial flowers will come back year after year and some perennial varieties spread rapidly, so even though they cost a bit more the first year, over time they are quite a bargain. A flat of annuals can provide a splash of color wherever it is needed and fill in bare spots, but annuals do have to be repurchased and replanted every spring. Shrubs come in flowering or evergreen forms, and both can provide interest at different times of the year. Ornamental grasses, can be left standing throughout the winter to poke through the snow and attract birds to feed on their decorative seed heads.

If you are feeling overwhelmed at this point by all the choices, pick one shrub, two or three perennials, and one kind of annual flower. Start small. You can always enlarge the your flower garden later, once you get the hang of it.

Once you recover from sticker shock at the garden center, assemble your newly purchased plant material near the space where you will be creating the flower bed. Your bed should be at least four feet deep and as wide as you want it to be. (The most common mistake homeowners make when designing a flower bed is to create a very narrow, shallow bed that leaves inadequate space for the plants to grow).

Take your can of spray paint and draw a curved line on the grass (or soil) to represent the edge of your flower garden. Resist the urge to create a perfect rectangle. Rectangles are hard to mow, and curved edges look softer and more professional. Curved edges also make the garden easier to enlarge at a later date if you decide you want to expand it. Once you've drawn your bed line, place the plants inside the bed, paying attention to proper spacing and allowing room for them to reach their mature size. Don't actually plant them yet, just arrange them.

Stand back and look at the flower garden, and adjust the spacing or arrangement as desired. When you have the right plants arranged in just the right way, you are ready to lift the sod and begin planting.

Using the bottom portion of your sharp edged spade, cut the sod around the bed, taking your spray-painted line as a guide. Lift the sod to a depth of about two inches, just deep enough to slide the spade under the root system of the lawn so the grass comes up easily. Lifting sod is hard work, so take frequent breaks if the area is large. One way to make this task go faster is to cut a one food by one foot area in the grass, then lift that patch of sod into the wheelbarrow before cutting another patch.

Once all the sod is lifted, throw it on a mulch pile or move it to a bare patch of lawn. Add compost to the newly exposed bed and turn the soil over to a depth of about five to six inches. Rake the soil smooth and install the plant material, making sure to dig a hole about twice the size of each pot before installing your shrubs, perennial flowers, and annuals. Pay attention to proper spacing and leave enough room for the plant to reach its mature size.

Mix a pail of root stimulator with water per instructions on the bottle, and soak all the shrubs and flowers well at the base of the plants. Applying root stimulator will invigorate the root system and give the plants a strong start.

Finally, mulch your flower garden bed to a depth of two to three inches and water everything in well. The first year, check soil moisture daily by sticking a finger in to the bed about one inch underground. The soil at this level should be moist but not soaking wet. Cover a well-placed soaker hose with a little bit of mulch to make watering easy.

You will find that some plants grow rapidly and others struggle. Most gardeners find themselves tweaking their beds on a regular basis, as some plants take off and try to take over and need to be thinned and moved, and other others struggle and have to be replaced. This is normal.

One word of warning: Once you get the hang of designing and installing flower beds, you'll find that gardening (and trips to the garden center) can become quite addictive. Flower garden addiction is not all bad, though. Caring for flowers is cheaper, easier, and much more rewarding than constantly mowing a vast expanse of green lawn.

Just make sure to save a little bit of lawn to stand on and admire your work!