75 Flower Bed Ideas
Adding a flower bed to your front yard, backyard, or balcony is the perfect way to add some color and make your home more inviting. Creating a successful flower bed is about more than just throwing some plants in the ground. You need to create the ideal growing environment for your flowering plants while also creating a beautiful display for people to enjoy. And that’s where we can help with these wonderful flower bed ideas.
These flower bed ideas will get you inspired to upgrade your landscaping with a flowerbed or two. Isn’t it time you said goodbye to those boring bushes and gave them an upgrade with some flowering plants?
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1. Inspiring Flower Bed Designs
Designing a flower bed is about creating the right shape and placing the flowers in the bed in a beautiful arrangement. The first step is choosing the shape of your flower garden. Basic shapes are easy to achieve and require simple planning. You’ll make a square, rectangle, or circle. However, you can create a more creative and free-flowing edge to your garden by making a curved edge that bends and flexes to follow the shape of the land or your home.
The next step is to arrange your flower plants. A traditional and formal approach is to create a pattern by using several of the same plants to make a quilt-like pattern. A more casual approach is to randomly scatter your plants with no plan. One rule applies to both; don’t let the taller and bigger plants overpower the smaller ones by blocking the sunlight or sucking up all of the nutrients.
2. Beautiful Fence Flowers
Do you have a fence that surrounds your yard? Why not line your backyard with a border of flowering plants? Start by deciding how wide and high you want your flower bed to be. You can keep it simple by leaving it level with the rest of your yard. But consider building it up and creating a raised flower bed to create some height for your yard. As for width, two or three feet will be plenty, but if you want a more substantial garden, you can make it wider.
Once you have your base, you’ll want to add your plants. Look for plants that will grow to a size that will stay contained within your planned flower bed size. Some plants stay small, while others can grow to be several feet in width and height. Plant the smaller plants in front and taller plants behind them along the fence.
3. Creative Front Yard Ideas
Adding a garden bed to your front yard will increase the curb appeal of your property. If you’re alright with regular maintenance, then choose annual flowers. However, for a low-maintenance garden, stick with perennials. They’ll continue to grow and blossom year after year.
It’s smart to stick with plants that are native to the area you live in. Since it’s your front yard, you’ll want it to always look beautiful. Native and local plants are going to grow better and look nicer throughout the year. Try adding a mix of plants so that some are blooming during the spring and summer, and then when they go dormant, your winter blooms are coming in.
4. Landscaping Transformations
If you have a large property, you’ll want to create a landscaping concept that spreads throughout the entire estate. Caring for large flower beds can get time-consuming. Consider mixing smaller accent flower beds with more natural foliage.
You can have a container or raised bed that features your flowers. Then around it, you’ll grow ornamental grass and other native plants. This highlights the flowers and helps them stand out by surrounding them with more neutral plant life. In tropical areas, this can mean planting several palms and lush greenery. In more arid places, you can use hardy grasses and cacti.
5. Creating Long and Lovely Flower Beds
Do you have a long and narrow backyard? Or is the only available space for a flower garden along the side of your house? Then you need to create a narrow and long garden. The key to making a beautiful long garden is to choose plants that fit the space and embrace the idea of levels.
Choose small plants that create blooms low to the ground. They should easily stay contained in the narrow space you have available. Then choose a few taller plants or decorative elements. Make sure they are one to three feet tall but not very wide. If your narrow space is along a wall, you can have even taller plants that vine upward on lattice or trellis structure.
6. Elevated Beauty
If your property is sloped, then you have the perfect property for creating raised flower beds. Build your garden bed wall so that it starts low and slowly gains in height as the ground level drops. The end result is that the land changes height, but your flower bed is all one height.
Raised beds also work well when you want a planting bed but can’t plant in the ground. You can have a planter box on legs. This raises the flower box several feet off of the ground. Place the planter box anywhere you want. You can build your raised planter box out of wood. Or you could buy one that’s made of metal, plastic, or composite.
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7. Curves and Circles
Creating a round flower bed is a smart idea with its natural shape and elegant curved lines. You can place a round garden somewhere in the middle of your yard. But an easier approach is to look for a natural element that you can build your round flower garden around. Perhaps you have a tree or large plant that’s already growing in your yard. Build a wall out of wood or stones that creates a ring around your central element.
Now create your flowerbed around it so that you create a ring of beautiful flowers. If you don’t have a natural centerpiece, you can make one. Place a bird bath or large sculpture in the middle. Your round flower bed doesn’t have to be raised; it can look beautiful when level with the surrounding yard.
8. Space-Saving Tips
You don’t have to have a huge garden for your flower bed. If you live in an apartment, you won’t have the yard space, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy some flowering plants. You can create a small yet still beautiful flower bed with a balcony railing planter. It hooks on your balcony, and you can grow several plants in it. You can have more than one, with each having a different theme; one with colorful flowers and another with herbs for cooking.
If you don’t have a balcony, or maybe you can’t see your garden from your windows, try a small indoor garden. Place a large planter in your home near a window and have two or three flowering plants in it. Choose plants that need a similar amount of light, water, and soil conditions.
9. UUnconventional and Charming Concepts
Not all flower gardens look the same. Perhaps you have a large tree stump that you don’t know what to do with. Turn it into your stand for your potted flower garden. Place pots of different sizes around and on the stump. You can even have a separate taller stand that you place next to the stump for more height.
Speaking of height, you can grow a vine plant that flowers on a trellis for a vertical flower bed. Or you can mount a hanging planter on your wall and have an extensive flower garden that travels up your wall.
Another unique idea is to create a formal garden. These typically require a significant amount of space and harken back to a time when people lived on large properties with big gardens. They have perfectly trimmed hedges, brick pathways, intricate flowering plant patterns, and fountains.
10. Natural Elegance
If you can’t find the type of planter or container that you want to use for your flower bed, why not build your own out of wood? This strategy works great because you can create a custom design and build your flower bed from the ground up. This lets you choose the exact length, width, and height. You can even build multiple levels for visual interest.
When building your wood flower bed box, you’ll want to use the right type of wood. Some treated woods have tons of chemicals in them. This can negatively affect your flower growth. However, untreated wood can be susceptible to moisture. They won’t last because they will begin to swell, shrink, and warp. The best type of wood to use is redwood or black locust. Cedar is another rot-resistant wood that can easily last ten to 15 years.
11. Stylish Planter Box Ideas
If you want to create a modern-looking flower box, try using pavers, bricks, or concrete. You can build your own planter to the custom size that will fit your yard. Consider the size and shape of your flower bed when choosing your brick or concrete block. They need to fit the scale of the bed and work with the shape you want to create.
One approach is to create a long and low wall around your entire flower bed. Another option is to build multiple levels for different flowers in each area. This lets you grow various flower plants with different sunlight, soil, and watering needs in the same area. Adding height to your flowerbed will also upgrade your yard and add visual interest.
12. Versatile Container Gardens
When looking at flower garden ideas, you’ll quickly realize that you can use almost anything for your container garden. The most common is to use an aluminum water bucket or trough. They are simple, affordable, corrosion-resistant, and easy to work with. Another commonly chosen item is a vintage tub. They’re durable and give you plenty of space for several plants.
You can use almost anything as a container for your garden. It just needs to be durable enough to be left outside and have somewhere that you can plant your flowers. People have used everything including old tires, a log, a vintage chair, a ladder, a pallet, wine bottles, a wagon, a grill, a smoker, a toolbox, and even a chandelier.
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Flower Bed FAQs
The most important element to making your flower bed low maintenance is mulch. After you plant your flowers, water them well. Then spread a layer of mulch over the soil that’s two to three inches thick. Look for a shredded type. This will insulate your flower bed to prevent the loss of moisture.
If you want to enjoy the most blooms throughout the year, then consider planting long-lasting perennials. These plants flower year after year. Try planting Coreopsis Moonbeam, Geranium Rozanne, Russian sage, Nepeta Walker’s Low, Coneflowers, Rudbeckia Goldsturm, or Sedum Autumn Joy.
The first step is understanding your garden location. Choose plants that will thrive in the climate zone that you live in, the type of soil you’re using, and the amount of sunlight that shines on the area. Then consider plants and flowers that complement each other to create a coordinated display of width and height.