Finally I Get to Plant Some Flowers

Let's review.

This is what my flower garden looked like

Now it looks like this

 Oh yes, that's right, I finally got to one of my gardens. So, lets talk about the process.

First I assembled my tools and materials.

Not shown in this picture is my hoe, shovel, and rake. 

In order to begin preparing the bed for planting I had to remove the "plants" (more like weeds) that were in the garden to begin with. Because I chose to keep one type of them (I'm still not sure what these are but I like them for my front border) I took them out first.

 

I made sure to preserve as much of the root base as I could.

After removing these plants I turned up the bed, pulling out as many weeds as I could.

After pulling all of the weeds and old plants out I then had to prepare the soil. My soil is very clay-like and required an additive. In most of my research peat moss is the #1 thing to use. It helps soil that's too clay-like by breaking up the tight mineral particles, making it more porous and better able to drain water. For the other spectrum of soils (sandy soils) peat moss acts like a sponge, helping the soil hold more water.When I went to the store I found something else that I just had to try. 

 

This product is made from coir, a coconut byproduct. It boasts that it is a more eco-friendly alternative to peat moss. Even the WWF endorses this product.While peat moss harvesting isn't creating an extreme impact on the environment I figured why not go another direction. Coir has many other benefits that peat moss can't claim. It is PH neutral, cheaper, it adds organic material to the soil, and it doesn't decompose as fast as peat moss. 

This product proved to be very interesting. After I opened it up I found that there were four bricks of compressed coir. Each had to be reconstituted with water. So, I grabbed my mop bucket filled it with water and broke up a brick. 

 

The coir ended up absorbing a lot of water. For every brick I used about 1-2 gallons of water and the resulting product soaked up so much it was just damp.

I took the reconstituted coir and spread it over my garden

I then went to work with my hoe, mixing the coir into the soil and breaking up any large clumps. By the time I was done I had a clump free well mixed soil ready for planting.

You may notice that my garden isn't very well weeded. As I planted (you'll see this in the final picture) I took out some of the weeds. But, I will admit I could have done a better job with this part. Later (after my flowers have come up high enough) I plan on mulching. This should help with those weeds I missed. 

After preparing the soil it was time to make my garden actually look like a garden and not just an un-mowed section of yard. Lucky for me, I already had some rocks from this garden that I could use as a frame.

                                                              

The last thing I had to do was plant my flowers. Knowing very little about flowers, and being overwhelmed by the amount of information and choices there are, I decided to just have fun with my flower garden and see what would happen. So, I chose two flowers I thought would be nice to have as I walked up to my front door. I also decided to start from seeds. Not only is this the cheaper option, but now I have the fun of watching as they sprout and grow. 

The Sunflower "Skyscraper" I figure will make for a great background in my garden. If they grow well they should reach up to 5'. They're also natural bird feeders and at the end of the summer I think I'll try to harvest the seeds.

The Alyssum "Carpet of Snow" will, in theory, create a nice carpet of flowers that smell like honey. So, not only are they nice to look at but anyone coming up to my front door will be greeted with a beautiful floral aroma.

Now I wait, patiently, and see how my flowers grow. With proper watering, mulching, weeding, and sunlight I hope to see a beautiful flower garden within the next 2 months.