By planting both annuals and perennials at various times, you can ensure a cascade of changing color in your garden all year.
Annuals come in all colors, sizes, and shapes and they live for one and sometimes two seasons. You can plant seeds, but plants are readily available in most nurseries and garden shops. Some warm weather favorites are marigolds, impatiens, and zinnias. Pansies and snapdragons prefer cooler weather.
Perennials continue to grow every year without replanting. Most of them store their food supply in roots, tubers, or bulbs, and they can usually survive the winter by dying down in the fall and coming back in the spring. Once they are planted, they may flower for three, five, or sometimes ten seasons. Some popular perennials are daylilies, hosta, peonies, garden mums, liatris, black-eyed Susan, and purple cone flowers.
You need to decide what parts of your landscape will require sun-loving plants and where you can place shade-loving plants. Then you can arrange your plants according to their water needs. Keep those that require more water closest to the house.
Next, you need to prepare your soil and get rid of the weeds. It takes about two weeks to accomplish this. Turn up the soil and uproot the weeds. You can remove the large ones, but the small ones will usually die. Let the soil rest for two or three days and then turn the soil again. You may have to do this several times before you have killed all the weeds. Once you are sure the weeds are dead, you will be ready to plant and mulch.
The trend in landscape design is to develop low maintenance areas and reduce lawns. If you are new to gardening, start with annuals. That way, you can design your garden space according to colors and textures. If you don't like something, you can remove it and start over. As the annuals begin to die down, you can put perennials in their places. You can always plug in the bare spots with another annual.
