Planting Gardens
Planting gardens in your Houston landscape is a critical and fun part of your total landscape design. Critical because gardens, whether a bed of bushes, flowers, trees or combination thereof, add texture, interest, variety and dimensionality to your yards. And fun because planting gardens allow you to show your creativity and preferences.
Exterior Worlds recommends that the starting point of planting gardens is the base, your planting soil. The most fertile and productive soil is a mixture of fibrous soil, rock particles and minerals, organic matter, oxygen, water and micro-organisms. This combo includes some portion of the native soil to encourage your plants’ hardiness.
In planting gardens, most people then consider what trees they want to keep or add. This step is most often followed by bush planting, which is sometimes referred to as foundation planting since bushes, being among the taller plants in your gardens, are usually arranged close to the house’s foundation.
One tip on choosing your shrubs: pay attention to a plant’s mature size so that you don’t have to spend your time and money pruning and trimming them away from walkways and the house. In other words, you don’t want your bushes to overwhelm the space.
Planting annuals adds vibrancy to your gardens. Because you can use them to, in effect, draw lines, annuals bring definition to the rest of the gardens. With flowers, more is better, so don’t be afraid to use drifts of three, five, seven, or more of the same plant. Remember: tilling the soil prior to planting your annuals is very important, due to the clay content in our soil.
An oft-asked question we get is when to plant annuals. We tell our clients that, with seasonal color, you want to pay close attention to the timing of the seasons. If you let your annuals get to the point where they’re dying, then you’re usually too late for the next season’s plantings.
Planting roses is considered by many people to be the holy grail of gardening. For your Houston rose garden, pick a location where there will be sun for at least six hours of the day and not too near large trees or hedges. Finding an area with morning sun and afternoon shade is preferable. Houston roses do well in full sun with good air circulation. They also thrive on regular, light feedings. However, do not overfeed.
Keep in mind that one of your best long-term investments in the health of your gardens is a good relationship with a well-qualified garden services provider, such as Exterior Worlds. We can help you choose the best plants for this region, in general, and for your yard, specifically. We can do the initial installation and labor, as well. Then, on an ongoing basis, we can provide meticulous care and attention so that your plants survive and thrive on these Texas coastal plains.
Your gardens are a way to personalize your home landscape design. They enhance your property by making it more welcoming and by anchoring it to the surrounding landscape. Your time and effort in their planning, execution and maintenance is rewarded by the pleasure they provide.
For more the 20 years Exterior Worlds has specialized in servicing many of Houston’s fine neighborhoods.