Most people garden, or start to garden, as a way to relax, or as a hobby. Having a great garden is a source of pride, and can act as an oasis from daily stress. However, once your garden is planned, planted, and established, some work is involved in maintaining it. In order to best manage the work required to keep your garden looking as great as it did the day you planted it, regular maintenance should be performed on it to ensure that it does not get out of hand and too unmanageable. Gardens that have been left for too long, or “mature” gardens, can become overwhelming and are harder to bring back into shape because the plants have become too established and overgrown to manage back into the gardens proper design.
To avoid having your own flower garden becoming too unruly, make sure that you are setting out enough time on a regular basis to manage some of the maintenance required, or are having someone else come in to see that the garden is being cared for. To care for an established garden, you will first need to ensure that weeds and other invasive and unwelcome plants are kept in check. This is easiest to do in sections, where you are able to break up the work by assigning yourself portions of the garden to address at a single time. If your plants are spaced out enough, weeding should be easy because you will be able to get into the section and remove any weeds. If your garden is more established, or you have little space between your plants, consider dividing them or pruning them back into shape to allow for greater space between them. Not only will this allow you more space to work, but it will also allow your plants more room to grow.
Aside from weeding and ensuring that such things like lawns and border plants do not encroach on your flower garden, removal of dead blooms and stems in the garden is crucial to the continued success of your garden. Plants and shrubs that have completed one bloom cycle should be promptly cleaned up, ensuring that the spent blooms are removed as soon as possible. This allows the plant to refocus its energy on producing new blooms, and encourages further growth. Any plants that have dead branches or leaves that are wilted or yellowing should also be removed because they can decompose on the plant and cause rot or disease in the garden.
It is also important to prune any plants, tree, or shrubs at the correct time of year in order to maximise their potential for the next growing season. Each plant will have different pruning needs, with some plants even preferring to be left alone. In either case, especially after a winter season, or any dormant period in your garden, any debris such as sticks or branches should be removed, and all plants requiring attention should be looked after. The more you work in your garden, and the more time you spend in it, the easier it will be to keep it looking fresh and maintained.
