Summer Flowers By: Peter Mann

When you are thinking of growing some easy summer flowers, plant the seeds during late spring. The soil is warm for promoting germination while the spring rains promote growth. Of the many annual summer flowers, the following are popular: Zinnias, sunflowers, cosmos, petunias, bachelor buttons, balsam, alyssum, marigolds, vinca, poertuluca and lobelia.

Sunlight for at least six hours each day is needed for the summer flowers to grow profusely. Afternoon shade is adequate for hot areas like the Southwest and desert climate zones. After you have dug the soil for about six inches deep, turn it over with a shovel. This is when you are preparing the soil. According to directions mentioned in the package, mix some compost, rotten manure and fertilizer. Then turn this mixture over with the soil. It depends on whether your flower bed is against a wall or fence. Then you have to plant the tallest flowers at the back followed by middle heights in the middle and shortest plants in front. The tall flowers then lean against the wall behind and would not put any shade over the small plants.

What is to be done when the flower bed is in the center? Plant the tallest plants in the center. Then plant the mid height plants followed by smallest and spreading flower plants in the outer ring. While pastels look wonderful, you could use as many colors as you like in your plants to make it look like a meadow. You could even use coordinated colors. Colors like orange and purple with lots of cream and white interspersing or red and blue with some white thrown in the middle. Alternatively you could even various shades of blue and throw in a bit of yellow here and there.

Birds and bugs take away a lot of your seeds. So planting has to be done much closer (3 times in fact) to each other as the instruction booklet says. Water your seeds carefully. But before that cover the seeds as directed and put a later of mulch on to. Never water your plants because you have to. Wait till they are dry. Using too much water is bad as using too little. After the seeds have sprouted, wait till at least four leaves have shown up. Then do your thinning for spacing. The ideal distance between the plants should be 6, 12 and 18 inches for shorter, medium and taller flowers.

The more they are picked up the more they come into flower. This is the best part about summer flowers. From the perspective of the plant, the primary and only purpose of a flower is to spread seeds for future. Once that purpose is served, the plant stops blooming but when you remove the flowers the plant continues to bloom. Once the first bloom is over, reduce the flowers in half. The plant would bloom a second time, except it would not be as flashy as the first bloom, though beautiful. Late spring is the right time to plant seeds for summer flowers, if you want a magnificent display throughout the summer months.



Summer Flowers

Total Views : 5    Word Count: 515   See All Articles By Peter Mann