Create a Flower Garden

Flowers in the backyard!


With a little planning, you can create a refreshing flower garden in your house, says Shilpa Sachdev


In a city like Mumbai, where the size of the apartment is shrinking by the day, having a patch of greenery and colour inside the house in the form of your own flower garden can prove to be a very rejuvenating sight. Flowers look lively, can brighten up the space and they also smell nice. A flower garden is an ideal way to transform a dull looking space. And if planned well, the results can be astonishingly blissful in the form of a blooming garden space.

Choose your plants
There are innumerable varieties of plants available but one needs to choose plants that will thrive well within the prevalent climatic conditions. Also, the requirement of sunlight differs for every plant. This is an important consideration to be made for your flower garden to enhance its longevity. Amit Walawalkar of Green Grower nursery says, “For a flower garden direct sunlight is the most essential factor for it to grow well. The space where you intend to have your flower garden should receive enough sunlight for at least three-four hours in the day. Even the seasonal variety of flowering plants needs sunlight to function well. So if there are two balconies in the house and one of them does not receive good sunlight, the flowering plants won’t grow well out there. You can grow flowers in any container or pot but it requires proper sunlight, watering and manuring to keep it in a healthy shape.”
To give a range of colour to your flower garden, you can pick from roses, bougainvillea, hibiscus to even select seasonal varieties. You need to arrange the seasonal and perennial variety such that the garden continues to retain its dose of colour in every season. Besides, you can also choose from the fragrant variety like parijat, chaffa, raat rani or the seasonal mogra and white lily. Walawalkar adds, “Roses, Periwinkle, Ixora, Jasmine are some common perennial plants that are ideal for home. Premium variety like Orchids, Anthuriums, Adeniums and seasonal variety like Poinsettias, Chrysanthemums, Dahlias and Marigolds are rich in colour. Special butterfly attracting variety like Lantena and Cuphea are also popular. Flowering plants start from Rs 20 to even up to a lakh depending on the growth and age of the plant.”

Select the layout
Before planting, decide the look you desire to give to your flower garden. You can have a mix of different colour flowering plants at different heights to give it a meadow look that makes it look wild. Or if you like a layered look, then you can follow a ‘short to tall’ flower approach.
If you don’t have an outdoor space to cultivate a flower garden, you can do so even in the balcony or a window sill. The planning will vary as per the space available. In this case, potted plants will work best to optimize every square inch of space available.
While most of us visit the nursery for our flower requirements and usually transplant the saplings, you could even sow your own seeds, in the case of seasonal plants, if you are patient enough to have a longer time frame. Walawalkar shares, “While perennials are grown from the twigs, seasonal plants can be grown from the seeds.” Seeing a plant grow from seed to flower is an experience that gives boundless joy.

Maintain the flower garden

-        Make sure the plant gets the right amount of sunlight and water depending on the season.

-        Provide the plant with necessary nutrients by regularly adding manure and compost to it.

-        At the end of every season, open up your plants, dig the soil well and re-plant them to facilitate better movement of nutrients and growth of the plant. Also, this way you can add a dose of manure at regular intervals.

-        Grow flower plants with contrasting colours to add more texture to your garden.

-        It is important to prune your plants regularly to maintain the flower garden.

-        Organic compost that includes leaves, grass cuttings and vegetable matter, is the best to maintain flower gardens.