Spring Designs: Create Your Perfect Decorative Garden

Spring is all about color, and all about growing, living things. That's why the universal symbol of springtime is the flower (or a bunch of them).

Greet spring with a gorgeous decorative garden that's all your own. With a good plan, your own tastes and a healthy sprinkling of creativity, you can grow your most gorgeous spring garden ever. Here's how to get started.

Break up your garden into smaller sections. Use stones, chips or inserts to create sections so you can plant different growers in different segments. You can use a striped, wavy, rectangular, circular or other effect; break your garden up in a way that's appealing to you. You can even separate sections with lawn, provided you make the strips wide enough to mow and maintain. (Breaking up your garden also means you can transplant small sections as seasons change, while keeping what you want to keep intact for the entire growing year.)

Choose colors that complement your entire décor and which offset one another – and choose an accent color or two. If you love continuity, select bloom colors that offset your home, shed or whatever structures the garden surrounds/fronts. Spring color isn't just about pastels (though those are lovely). You'll find the gamut depending upon what blooms you choose, from pure white to yellows to blues to deepest purple, and even black. If you go with one basic color family, make sure you choose an accent color for interest and “pop.”

Add texture with stones, chips and/or brick. Border sections of your garden with decorative filler in colors that perk up the entire area. For darker blooms and bushes, choose lighter filler, and so on. You can also use chips as mulch in order to keep weeds down.

Add a personalized walkway in a style you love. Really want to make your garden “yours”? Put in a gorgeous walkway. Using forms, you can create any decoration you want – for example, swirls, a tree, small animals or a fun and fascinating geometric pattern. Use cement, stone/slate, brick, smoothed glass pebbles – anything that strikes your fancy and that can be placed firmly so you have a safe, but decorative, walking surface. Get creative!

Stagger bloom times so there's always color in your garden. Plan your garden so that different plants will bloom at varying times, all the way through autumn if possible (unless you plan on changing things up before then...see below). Include a few portable/potted plants. Not only do really cool planters (try different shapes, sizes and colors) add to your décor, they can be moved to other areas and switched out seasonally, or simply when you need a change.

Include a few planters of different types for visual bang plus convenience. Add surprise elements. Glass garden globes, fanciful bird feeders, “broken” planters spilling gorgeous blooms, a wheelbarrow stuffed with bright flowers, and other creative elements will add to the “you” factor and make your garden a paradise that's all your own.

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