Backyard Gardening for Beginners

A backyard garden isn't just an extension of your home, it's a place to relax, unwind and soak up the beauty of nature. A beautifully contoured landscape and blooming flowers are what every homeowner longs for. Even though there are landscaping firms that can turn your backyard into a paradise, once you get started doing it yourself, it can quickly become a passionate undertaking.

There's a lot to think about for the beginner gardener when taking on the challenge. It's important to choose the right types of plants, figure out where you're going to plant them, how to maintain them, and much more. The secret is to plan everything out in advance before you get started.

The first thing you need to do is to determine the amount of space that can be allocated to your backyard garden. Be practical when planning your garden. If you won't have a lot of time to tend to it, look for low maintenance plants and landscaping ideas. Take into consideration the current condition of your backyard. If you already have some plants growing, you'll have to decide which ones you'll incorporate into your new garden and which you'll eliminate. A good approach is to draw a rough sketch of the garden layout you'd like to implement and plan for every detail.

Make the plans for your garden simple and uncluttered. Your focus should be on having a natural looking landscape, not an overgrown collection of plants. If you have too many plants, they will crowd each other out and many of them will be sickly or die. In addition, having an overabundance of plants attracts insects and mosquitoes.

How do you know where to locate your backyard garden? The direction of the sun in your backyard is the deciding factor. Shady, north corners are perfect for ferns. The areas with southern exposure will receive direct sun for most of the day, and the east and west each receive partial sunlight throughout the day. Align your garden beds from north to south so your plants benefit from the sunlight during the morning and afternoon. If your garden faces southeast, lay out your garden northwest and southeast for even sunlight distribution. Northern exposure is only good for shade loving plants. The overall idea is to lay out your garden so that the plants receive the most sunlight possible for the longest period of time.

Your next consideration is the soil in your garden. Your new garden location is most likely covered either with grass or trash. You'll have to pull up the sod and plow up the earth. Then you'll need to have topsoil delivered and spread it out throughout the garden beds. These steps will ensure that the earth where the plants are growing is fine enough so that the roots can penetrate the soil easily.

There's so much more to learn, but hopefully this will get you thinking in the right direction. Do a lot of research before you get started and gather as much information as you can.