A flower garden or floral garden is any
garden or part of a garden where plants that
flower are grown and displayed. This normally refers mostly to
herbaceous
Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials.
Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous"
The fourth edition of t ...
plants, rather than flowering woody plants, which dominate in the
shrubbery and
woodland garden, although both these types may be part of the planting in any area of the garden.
Most herbaceous flowering plants, especially
annuals, grow best in a flowerbed, with soil that is regularly dug over and supplemented with organic matter and fertilizer.
Because flowers bloom at varying times of the year, and some plants are annuals, dying each winter, the design of flower gardens usually needs to take into consideration maintaining a sequence of bloom and consistent color combinations through varying seasons. Besides organizing the flowers in
bedding-out In horticulture, bedding is temporary planting of fast-growing plants into flower beds to create colourful displays, during spring, summer or winter. Plants used for bedding are generally annuals, biennials or tender perennials; succulents are ga ...
schemes limited to annual and
perennial flower beds, careful design also takes the labour time, and the color pattern of the flowers into account.
Flower color is another important feature of both the
herbaceous border and the mixed border that includes
shrub
A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...
s as well as
herbaceous plants. Flower gardens are sometimes tied in function to other kinds of gardens, like
knot gardens or
herb gardens, many herbs also having decorative function, and some decorative flowers being edible.
History
Many, if not most, plants considered decorative flowers originated as
weeds, which if attractive enough would sometimes be tolerated by farmers because of their appeal. This led to an artificial selection process, producing ever-prettier (to humans) flowers. This is thought to have occurred for the entire history of agriculture, perhaps even slightly earlier, when people tended to favor naturally occurring food-gathering spots. This may also explain why many flowers function as
companion plants to more useful agricultural plants; they had evolved that symbiotic relationship with the food plants before either was domesticated, and therefore was found in the same area, convenient to be selected as an attractive plant.
Once domesticated, though, most flowers were grown either separately or as part of gardens having some other primary function. In the West, the idea of parts of gardens dedicated to flowers perhaps did not become common until the 16th century.
Flower gardens are,
d, a key factor in modern landscape design and even architecture, especially for large businesses, some of which pay to have large flower gardens torn out and replaced entirely each season, in order to keep the color patterns consistent.
The labour time can be decreased by using techniques such as
mulching. In flower meadows, grass growth can be moderated by planting
parasitic plants such as ''
Rhinanthus''.
Cutting garden
A functional garden used to grow flowers for indoor use rather than outdoor display is known as a cutting garden. It is usually only a feature of
large residences.
The cutting garden is typically placed in a fertile and sunlight position out of public view and is not artistically arranged, as it contains flowers for ''cutting''. Very often flowers for cutting are grown in
greenhouse
A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...
s, to protect them from severe weather, and control their time of flowering. The cutting garden may also include a
herb garden and ornamental vegetables as well.
Modern alternatives
A simpler alternative to the designed flower garden is the "wildflower" seed mix, with assortments of seeds which will create a bed that contains flowers of various blooming seasons, so that some portion of them should always be in bloom. The best mixtures even include combinations of perennial and
biennials
A biennial plant is a flowering plant that, generally in a temperate climate, takes two years to complete its biological life cycle.
Life cycle
In its first year, the biennal plant undergoes primary growth, during which its vegetative structures ...
, which may not bloom until the following year, and also annuals that are "self-seeding", so they will return, creating a permanent flowerbed.
Another, even more recent trend is the "flower garden in a box", where the entire design of a flower garden is pre-packaged, with separate packets of each kind of flower, and a careful layout to be followed to create the proposed pattern of color in the garden-to-be.
See also
*
List of garden types
*
Raised-bed gardening
*
Bedding (horticulture)
*
Herbaceous border
References
External links
National Garden BureauNational Gardening AssociationWinnipeg In BloomDocumentary produced by
Prairie Public Television
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Types of garden