Creating A Lush and Welcoming Landscape

If you're like many people, the thing you love most about spring is the proliferation of beautiful blooming flowers everywhere. However, if you're among those who simply don't have any luck growing them, your enjoyment of them is limited to those being cultivated in other people's yards and in public places. Some people decide they just don't have the green thumb necessary to produce beautiful flowers and give up trying. However, if you've got your heart set on having a thriving flowerbed on your property, you an achieve this goal with a little knowledge and effort, beginning with building healthy soil so that plants have access to optimal nutrition. Following are three things that you can do to make sure your soil produces thriving plants that flower profusely. 

Use an Organic Mulch

Using a good mulch has many benefits in the garden. It keeps the soil cool on warm days and provides insulation on cold days. It keeps water from evaporating quickly, inhibits weed growth, and gives flower beds a clean, finished look. Although all mulching materials do these things, but organic lunches have the added benefit of providing the soil with necessary nutrients as it decomposes. Examples of organic mulches include wood chips, bark dust, shredded leaves, pine needles, and other mulches made with plant material.

Use an Organic Fertilizer Working a slow-release organic fertilizer into the soil prior to planting is an excellent way to build healthy soil and provide growing plants with the extra nutrition that they need. Use one that's been specifically manufactured for use in flower beds — all-purpose fertilizers contain high amounts of nitrogen, which results in healthy, lush leaves and lawns but doesn't do much for producing flowers. Slow release fertilizers are also much easier on the plants than the kind that's distributed through overhead watering.  Use an Organic Compost

Tilling compost into the soil not only provides optimal soil nutrition, it improves the overall structure of the soil. No many how high a soil is in nutrients, it won't produce beautiful plants if the soil structure is too heavy. Plant roots require oxygen, and heavy, compacted soils don't allow enough in. Heavy soils also retain too much water and are usually too dense for optimal root growth. 

Working compost into your flower beds a few weeks prior to planting helps get the soil ready for them. This should be done on an annual basis. Homemade compost is fine to use, but many busy gardeners prefer to purchase organic compost from home and garden retailers.