Plant your flower gardens in prepared soil to encourage healthy growth

DENVER, CO - Prepare your flower garden soil properly before you plant and it will make all the difference if your plants thrive or fail, according to Marjorie Nickerson, co-owner of A Better Landscape and Sprinkler Company. Nickerson’s crews design and install flowers and landscaping for residences, multi-unit developments and commercial properties as well as providing landscaping and lawn maintenance and sprinkler system installation and repair.

Perennials and annuals can be planted as seed or as plants. “The important thing is to have clean top soil prepared with a good emulsion,” says Nickerson. Equally important, is whether the plants are to be planted in shade or in a sunny spot. Most people don’t know which plants thrive in sun and which ones require shade without reading the instructions on the plastic pick in the plant. That pick will delineate whether a plant or flower thrives best in shade, partial sun, full sun, etc.

To prepare the soil, it must be thoroughly turned with fresh topsoil mixed in. Pull the existing weeds and cut away the roots of last year’s plants to make way for healthy growth of this year’s plantings, says Nickerson.

Plants must be well watered until they are established, a process that takes several weeks. Planting in late May or early June gives the plants time to adjust to live outside of a nursery well before the heat of mid-summer descends.

Planting prior to Memorial Day can be risky given the Mile High City’s unpredictable spring weather, conditions that can turn to a freeze unexpectedly. Cautious gardeners often don’t plant annuals until Memorial Day each year having learned that freezes do happen even in May, although they are rare.

When planting flowers—annuals or perennials—dig a hole in the ground that leaves room for you to position the plant in the dirt and then cover it over with at least one to two inches of fresh topsoil. Then tamp the fresh topsoil down securely around the plant. If you don’t tamp the topsoil down, it will wash away after being watered a few times exposing the root ball which makes the plant more fragile.

A Better Landscape and Sprinkler Company offers full design, preparation and planting of landscape materials including annuals that are hand-selected by Nickerson.

Nickerson can be reached at A Better Landscape and Sprinkler Company at 720-314-5990 or info@abetterlandscapedenver.com