The flower garden truly is a thing of beauty. Like many people I always wanted my very own. I didn't know where to start, what to grow, or even how. But once I got the basics down I realized that it doesn't have to be very hard. It can actually be very easy to grow your very first flower garden with the right knowledge.

Were going to take a quick tour of the basics of flower gardening. If you can master these things then you too can grow a stunning flower garden.

What Type Of Flower?

There are three different types of flowers. Annuals, Perennials, and Biennials. The main two were going to look at is Annuals and Perennials.

Annuals: These flowers are grown from seed each year and then they bloom. Once their season is over then it is over. You have to replant these each year from seed again.

Perennials: This type usually has some root or a dormant period where they can continue to survive until there next season. So these types of flowers don't really die.

Both of these are suitable for the beginner gardener. Some do find perennials to be a little more work, but usually their not that much more work. Actually, Perennials do very well in environments where the weather is cold in the winter.

You should try to mix up your flower garden with both of these types. There are flowers of both types that are easy to grow for someone new to flower gardening.

You Need Some Fertilizer

Weather you like it or not your going to need some fertilizer or compost. Even a garden with good soil should still have fertilizer added to it.

There are allot of different types, but the best type of fertilizer is always manure. Yes it does smell, but... it is the most natural form of soil enhancement there is. You just can't beet it.

Not any manure will do. Picking the right manure for the right plants can help the growth of your flowers a great deal. For example, cow manure doesn't heat the same way other types do. This makes cow manure good for flowers that don't like the hot manures. It helps to find out what your plants like better.

You are not just limited to manure. You can get more commercial types of fertilizer if you wish. These fertilizers can be used in conjunction with manure. Just realize that these fertilizers are not really a good substitute for manure.

Watering Your Flower Garden

All of your plants will require different amounts of water. You need to be aware of the plants that need to be watered regularly. For example, most types of roses will need to have plenty of water. At the same time some flowers will not require that much water. In fact you may even harm some flowers by over watering them.

Your location will matter too. If you have a well made flower bed out in the open your flowers may get enough water from the rain. If you live in a dry climate they wont get enough, and if they are in a sheltered area they wont get very much rain water either.

The soil can make a difference in how often you must water. Sandy soil will need to be water frequently because it dries out fast.

A final tip you should know watering your plants deeply is ideal. Simply sprinkling water over them will not always be good enough to get to the roots.

Grow It The Right Way

Each flower you choose to grow will have it's own ideal growing conditions. The idea is to put it into those ideal conditions the best you can.

Some flowers will grow better in certain soil, under certain weather conditions, require different amounts of water, need more space apart, and so forth. Learn about the flowers that you would like to grow so that you can give them their best chance of survival.

Have you ever stumbled on a garden of wildflowers? Purples, whites, yellows, blues and a rainbow of color against a verdant background. There's no visible flower garden design to Mother Nature's fields and meadows. Colors that we normally consider "clashing" seem to meld together, painting a living work of art.

This is chaos theory in action, we can't see any visible logic behind it all, still it's perfect and repeating itself in unique but non-chaotic ways.

As seasons change and nature finishes with one color, she frequently picks up another. Even greens are abundantly different, from pale pastels of new spring foliage to the dark steadfastness that evergreens display in winter.

We don't posses all of mother nature's resources, but we can make our own creations unique as well, and garden design software can be a great help to do it.

Contrary to what's practical in your own garden you can draw up multiple settings. See if they look good and decide from a much more educated point. Software is tool we use to get the best result. No more, no less although its fun to experiment.

Like nature, you can paint with flowers, but you don't need a vast field to grow them. You can have an abundance of flowers in very little space.

This type of software is a great tool to help you create a mental picture of your garden, a good design saves you from the dilemma of wondering where to put that "just one more" plant!

If space is a consideration, you may want to enclose your house with flowers, planting vines to hide bare walls, bordering terraces, and designing beds around porches and decks.

However, before you begin deciding on plants, consider the shape of your lot, the condition of your soil, exposures, slopes, your existing plants and trees. Even your neighbors trees are significant in planning what plants will thrive in your flower garden.

Start your design basic and slowly extend to it

Begin planning your garden around a focal point. Will it be your house, a favorite cultivars, color, or will you add a garden feature like a bench, arbor, gate, or statue?

Even a picturesque fence or garden wall can be the focal point of your flower garden. Plant taller annuals and perennials towards the back of your garden when your focal point is a stationary backdrop.

When it's in the center, use it to add vertical interest to your plantings as well as a place to capture the eye of your visitors. When planting a large area or several small ones, do use repetition.

Repeating plants, colors, and textures adds unity to your flower garden.

Spacing plants according to the spread they'll occupy at maturity prevents crowding of larger plants and add impact to small blossomers. Whatever the shape of your garden, do plant your cultivars in groups.

Remember that field of wild flowers? Although a variety of colors may be displayed in the same field, what typically first catches our eye is a sudden burst of a single color. Now that is what I call flower garden design.

Most of us regard the orchid as a beautiful, exotic and romantic flower. Most are also unaware of their spectacular history and the passionate efforts which have gone into finding, cataloguing and creating the orchids which we enjoy today.

A register of orchids is held at the Royal Horticultural Society in London. The Vanilla orchid was the first to enter Europe back in 1510. This was the source for the second most expensive flavouring extract (the most expensive being the saffron crocus). Over a hundred years passed, until in 1635 when the Cypripedium reginae was imported from North America, this is when orchids were first appreciated for their decorative features. The interest in the orchid blossomed from this point onwards. However, even as late as the 1800 it was very rare to fine a collector with more than a few samples. In 1804 both the Berlin and the Paris Botanical Gardens both only held seven species of exotic orchid!!! The Viennese had the most with a whole eleven special which in England there were merely three exotic orchids. These low numbers were not for want of trying, countries were importing orchids all the time, however, they were dying in transit, or not being kept in conditions which allowed for the plants to survive their new climates.

Jean Linden was instrumental in increasing our knowledge of orchids, when in 1845 he travelled to South and Central America to study the orchids natural environment. The reports which Linden wrote were crucial in the recreation of the moist environments which we now associate with most orchids.

Many of the early entrepreneurs who thought that this would be the way to make their millions were cut short in their ventures as they experienced huge losses as a result of the number of orchids not surviving the initial journeys. There were only four successful companies in Britain, one of them being Sanders, who continued to grow in the orchid market for many years afterwards.

In the early nineteenth century Dr Salisbury studied the germination of the orchid and from this much was learnt which enabled the industry to progress and many of the orchids which were imported suddenly became a more viable investment. With this new knowledge a gardener working for Veitch first tried to cross different orchid species in 1853. It was not until 1856 that the first orchid hybrid was created. From this time on many more hybrids were to be created. Mr Dominy who managed this probably had no idea how important this was and how it would change the future of orchid cultivation. To this day the perfect black orchid is still being sort after and is still illusive.

Today the special and rare qualities of the orchid are appreciated. In many areas there are species of orchid which are considered endangered and you can be prosecuted for picking or damaging these in any way. Some orchids are definitely for viewing only. The orchid family is the largest flower family known and will continue to grow with hybrids being created each year.