What Type of Garden Should You Grow?

If you're thinking about starting a garden, the first thing you need to consider is what type of garden you will have. There are many different choices and often it can be hard to pick just one, but hopefully you can narrow it down. But by narrowing it down, you'll make the gardening experience easier on yourself and the plants. If most of your plants are similar, then it shouldn't be very hard to care for them all. So here are some of the main garden ideas for you to choose from.

Image via WikipediaIf you're just looking for something to look nice in your yard, you'll want a flower garden. These are usually filled with perennial flowers. Perennial flowers are flowers which live year-round, or which come back every year on their own. You could almost say they're basically weeds because of their hardiness, only nice looking! Different areas and climates have different flowers which are considered perennials. If you do a quick internet search for your area, you can probably find a list of flowers that will bring your flower garden to life. These usually only require much work in the planting stage - after that, the flowers mostly take care of themselves, and just require a little maintenance like watering and occasional fertilizer or mulching. The only downside to this is that you don't have any product to show for it.

Image via WikipediaAnother choice is a vegetable garden. These usually require a little more work and research than a flower garden, but can be much more rewarding. No matter what time of the year it is, you can usually find one vegetable that is still prospering. That way you can have your garden be giving you produce almost every day of the year! When starting a vegetable garden, you should build it with the thought in mind that you will be adding more types of veggies in later. This will help your expandability. Once all your current crops are out of season, you won't be stuck with almost nowhere to put the new crops. A vegetable garden is ideal for someone who wants some produce, but doesn't want to devote every waking hour to perfecting their garden (see below.)

One of the more difficult types of gardens to manage is a fruit garden. It's definitely the most high-maintenance. When growing fruits, many more pests will be attracted due to the sweetness. You not only have to deal with having just the right dirt and fertilizer, you have to deal with choosing a pesticide that won't kill whoever eats the fruits. There are a few organic pesticides, so you should do some research to find the ones that are safest for you and your family. Your fruit garden will probably not produce year-round. The soil needs to be just right for the plants to grow, and putting in another crop during its off-season could be disastrous to its growth process. If you're willing to put lots of work into maintaining a garden, then a fruit garden could be a good choice for you.

Image via WikipediaBasically, the garden type you will choose comes down to what kind of product you want, and how much work you want to put into it. If you're looking for no product with no work, go with a flower garden. If you want lots of delicious product, but you are willing to spend hours in your garden each day, then go for a fruit garden. Or for something in the middle, try a vegetable garden. And remember, you can always start small - don't let your ambition carry you away if you've never gardened before - start with something you can handle, and scale up from there as desired.

Happy gardening!

Helpful Gardening Resources for Flowers, Veggies, & Fruits: