One way to enhance your yard is with a nice sunny flower garden. Typically, the flowers that grow well in a sunny location are colorful and vibrant. This makes it a perfect focal point to add curbside appeal and a welcoming ambiance to visitors. Flower gardens are one of the easiest and rewarding additions to beautify your property. Does this Spark an idea?
Location Basics
Planning and location are important in creating and maintaining a sunny flower garden. Plants that enjoy full sun typically like a minimum of five to six hours of full sun daily. For this reason, you shouldn't plant your sunny flower garden at the base of a tree. The flowers compete for sunlight, water and nutrients with the tree. Walk around your yard and select a sunny location that is highly visible and easily accessible.
Plant Height Basics
Consider plant height when you create a sunny flower garden. Tall plants should go in the center or at the back of the garden if it has a background piece, such as a patio wall or fencing. Some good background flowers that grow 3 to 6 feet tall include: Hummingbird Mint, Tutti Frutti, Twlight Prairieblues, Sea Shells, Bluebird, Semaphore, Purple Coneflower, Stargazer and variations of the Sunflower.
Shorter plants should be placed outside the background or center flowers to be visible from a distance and to avoid competition for full sunlight. Some good border plants that grow 6 inches to a foot tall include: Blue Danube, Yellow Splash, Blue Pimpernel, Callie Rose Star, Million Bells, Cosmic Red and Cheddar Pink. For even shorter border flowers, less than 6 inches, consider: Iceplant, Meadow Saffron, Saffron Crocus, Alpine Pink, Yellow Whitlow Grass, Pasque Flower, Stonecrop and Prairie Zinnia.
Deck or Patio Sunny Flower Garden
You can grow a sunny flower garden on your deck or patio if there is full sun in the area. This is a great way to spruce up this area of your home. Select plants that grow 6 inches to a foot in height for containers. Select a few more that will grow less than 6 inches. Select containers that are bright and colorful. Pots that will show the most should have vibrant designs. Place taller plants next to the patio wall or deck railing. Place the shorter plants in front. This is ideal for a corner section of the patio next to the house or a corner section of your deck.
Some good background plants would include: Yellow Splash, Cosmic Red and Million Bells. Combine these with smaller plants such as: Alpine Pink, Iceplant and Prairie Zinnia. These six flowers combined, displayed in colorful pots, would bring an array of different colors to the patio or deck corner.
Attract Hummingbirds
Hummingbirds are fascinating to watch from an office window or a sunroom. Select a sunny location for your hummingbird flower garden that is visible from a room you often find yourself gazing out the windows from. The key to attracting hummingbirds is to plant flowers that naturally attract them. A garden edging that is a colorful red or brilliant blue will also help to attract hummingbirds to the sunny flower garden.
For the center flowers, which should be tall and naturally attract hummingbirds, consider: Hummingbird Mint, Anise Hyssop, Cosmos, Day Lily and Blue Bird. For the middle-row plants consider: Blue Danube, Sweet Dreams, Cosmic Red and Gold Rush. For border plants consider: Stonecrop, Georgia Blue and Prairie Zinnia.
Rock Garden
You might consider a rock garden for a sunny flower garden idea. These are very attractive in dry areas of your yard that receive full sun. You can use rock edging. Larger rocks and even 2- to 4-feet high garden statues could be placed in the center as a focal point for the sunny flower garden. You will want to use flowers that thrive in drought conditions and are less than the height of your focal point statues and rocks.
The following plants require dry soil and grow 1 to 3 feet for a rock garden: Just Peachy, Sea Lavender and Painted Tongues. You could then plant Snow-in-Summer plants as the outside border for the rock edging because they thrive in dry conditions and full sun.
