How to Create Plant and Landscaping Beds
Creating a healthy and vibrant garden takes planning. These steps will explain how to plan a plant bed to enliven your yard with a beautiful and interesting design.
If you're unable to create a garden because of space or rental restrictions, or you're looking for a simpler way to start gardening, consider planting in raised beds — containers that sit above the ground. Many of the steps below will still apply, though you'll need to fill the raised beds with raised bed soil. To learn more, read our article DIY Raised Garden Bed Instructions and Ideas.
Preparation for Your Flower Bed Planting
Changing a portion of your yard to a landscaped area might seem overwhelming at first thought. Following our step-by-step process can help reduce your apprehension and help create a colorful new area for your home.
To begin, decide where you want to plant a garden bed. Consider a location that will accent your home's exterior, such as along the front of the house and near the front door. Sunlight is one of the most important determiners of gardening success, so choose a location that gets adequate sunlight. If your yard is very shady, select plants that thrive in shade. Note the time that your chosen location begins and ends receiving sunlight, as knowing the total hours of daily sunlight will help you select the right plants for your landscape.
If finding an area that gets enough sun is a problem, consider planting in mobile raised beds instead. Lightweight containers or those with wheels can be moved around to soak up the sun.
Assess the health of any existing plants you may want to keep and evaluate how they look in their present spot. Remove any unwanted plants or those that won’t fit your vision.
Decide what type, shape and size of plant bed fits your landscape. Design and draw a plan on graph paper. A garden doesn't have to be a square or rectangle, or even symmetrical. Consider how curves can work in contrast with the straight lines of your home. Call attention to your home's good features. A specimen plant or small tree might accent your front door or landing, and well-placed shade trees can frame your house like a picture. Don't forget to include current plants, working around what's already there that you want to keep.
A common mistake new gardeners make is starting too large. While starting a garden bed is exciting, choose a size that is realistic for your available time and energy. Remember that plant beds can be expanded in the future. Plants need plenty of space between them to thrive, so make sure you have adequate space for the number of plants you'd like.
Before beginning any excavation, call 811 to check for underground utilities. Do this in the planning stages of your garden to avoid having to redo work if there's a conflict with utility lines.
Learn about plant types, get ideas from others' gardens, and consider the following when choosing plants:
- Hardiness zone: Look up your USDA hardiness zone, a categorization originally used for commercial agriculture that many gardeners now use to pick the plants that best suit their climate. There are 13 zones, and each is broken up into A or B. Once you know your hardiness zone, you can find plants that will thrive based on your climate, including moisture, rainfall, temperature and best planting dates.
- Sunlight and water: Select suitable plants for the bed based on available sunlight and water requirements; find this information on plant tags and seed packets.
- Size: Take into consideration the plant's size at maturity. This is also stated on the plant tag. When you map your plant bed, consider how tall each plant will get so that you will be able to see them. Taller plants should be near the back of a planting bed that is beside a wall or fence. Place taller plants in the center of a round or oval planting bed.
- Perennials versus annuals: Perennials are plants that grow back every year, and annuals only last one season. Plan your garden around perennials, and then supplement with annuals.
- Schedule: Plants have different growing schedules. Crocuses, daffodils, bleeding hearts and forsythia all bloom in early spring, while mums, sunflowers, butterfly bushes and black-eyed Susans blossom through the summer and into the fall. Choose plants that will bloom at different times to keep your garden continually colorful throughout the growing season.
- Color: Don't forget to think about your garden as a whole. Have fun trying out different flowers, and choose colors that complement rather than clash.
- Native plants: Many gardeners choose native plant species — those that naturally occur in your area. The benefit of planting native species is that they support native pollinators — hummingbirds, bees, wasps, moths, butterflies and bats — which may struggle due to habitat loss. Native plants are also easier and less expensive to maintain since they have evolved to thrive in your environment. Native grasses can be a beneficial, low-maintenance addition to plant beds.
Check out our guide to reading plant tags to help you choose plants that will thrive in your yard.
Using a garden hose, marking flags, marking paint or wooden stakes, lay out the bed lines according to the planting plan.
Prepare the new planting bed by removing grass. One option is to dig out the sod with a shovel or sod lifter. If you want to reuse the sod elsewhere in your garden, keep it moist and shaded, and replant it within 24-48 hours. If you don't need it, add it to the compost.
Another option is to kill the grass and then mix it in with the soil. To kill grass, smother it with compost and leave it for several weeks. This will kill the grass and enrich the soil for your garden. Covering the area with clear plastic will also kill the grass because of the heat that builds up. Herbicide is a third way to kill grass. Choose a non-selective, short-lived herbicide, which will kill the grass but not contaminate the soil for future growth. After killing the grass, dig it up and mix it into the soil.
Read our article to find out more about how to remove grass.
After removing or mixing in the grass, work up large areas of soil using a tiller. Do a soil test and make the necessary amendments as recommended by the test results. If you have poor soil, mixing in garden soil, compost or fertilizer can help improve it.
Learn How to Use a Soil Test Kit and explore what types of amendments are best for your garden with our Soil and Soil Amendments Guide.
After the last frost and once the ground is warm enough — check your hardiness zone and weather conditions — it is okay to begin planting. Check plant packages or labels, as plants need to go in the ground at different times. (Bulbs, for example, can be planted before the last frost.)
Before planting, lay out all plants using the spacing measurements from the planting plan. Check seed packets or plant tags for guidance on the depth and distance between plants. Make sure the best side is visible. Also keep in mind the sun’s rays and what pants need the most sunshine.
Be sure to thoroughly wet the soil before planting. Plant early in the day to avoid exposing seedlings' roots to strong sunshine, which can burn them. After you have planted, make sure the plant and roots have enough moisture without overwatering.
After planting, add a layer of organic material like pine needles, straw, compost, or mulch on top of the soil. Mulch retains moisture, quashes weeds, protects from extreme temperature dips or spikes and nourishes as it decomposes. It is also adds a natural look in landscaping a flower bed.
Use our Mulch Calculator to determine how much you'll need for your garden.
Keep your garden healthy and happy with frequent watering, following the water requirements stated on the plant labels. Be sure to water deeply but not too often; soil should dry completely between watering. Soaker hoses are especially effective at watering deeply while preventing run-off.
The best time of day to water is in the morning, after which the sun will dry off plants, as dampness overnight can make plants vulnerable to disease. Some sensitive plants can also burn if they are watered midday when the sun is strongest.
Keep your soil strong with fertilizer, side dressing plants every 2-3 weeks according to product instructions. Adding compost and refreshing mulch will also help keep your plants healthy.
Shop Garden Hoses & Accessories
Learn more about choosing the best fertilizer from our Fertilizer Buying Guide. Find additional ideas to help your garden thrive in 9 Smart Gardening Tips for Beginners, Planning Your First Garden and Make the Neighbors Jealous with Colorful Garden Beds.