Winter Flower Arrangements

Most weddings are held in spring and summer. However, there are couples who still find it romantic to get married during the winter season. The flowers of winter make for great arrangements for the bride's bouquet, for the church, and for the reception. For winter weddings, Christmas brides usually pick red or burgundy as a motif. Red roses, calla lilies, carnations, and other red flowers should be used in the bouquets.

White is another popular winter color. Flower choices for this color include white roses, tulips, hellebores, freesias, and mums, among others. However, it is important to choose the perfect white varieties that will go with the bride's gown, as white comes in different shades. White flowers vary from pure white to ivory to a faint pinkish white.

Blues and purples, combined with shinny white, glittery gold, and metallic silver accessories, can also create a winter illusion and are best for brides looking for a more contemporary appearance for their winter wedding. The flowers with a motif like this are iris, statice, freesia, and heather. Blue and purple can be used as an accent colors for other wedding accessories like ribbons on a bouquet, church pew, candles, and more.

Conventional wedding flowers such as roses, lilies, daisies, orchids, and other exotic flowers are available all year round and they can be used in winter weddings well. However, out-of-season or rare flowers are expensive so it is better to use the flowers that are commonly found within the season.

These are just a few of the winter flowers that can be used for arrangement and decoration for a winter wedding. For other creative ideas, do not forget to browse through decorating and bridal magazines. You may also ask your local florist for flower and arrangement recommendations.

Flower Arrangements provides detailed information on Birthday Flower Arrangements, Christmas Flower Arrangements, Dried Flower Arrangements, Flower Arrangements and more. Flower Arrangements is affiliated with Send Easter Flowers.

Beautiful Flower Garden Layouts

To have a beautiful garden doesn't only depend on having beautiful plants and blooming flowers. These plants and flowers must be placed in proper order to have a view that is pleasing to the eyes. To have this you must use good flower garden layouts that enhance the beauty of the plants and of the entire garden. These layouts take into consideration the texture, color, and the moods that your garden can give especially during the seasons that all the flowers bloom together. If you want to have these elements on your flower garden maybe you can ask some of the experienced gardeners or designers for an advice of what layout is best for your garden.

When designing a flower garden for your garden or backyard, you have to consider the size of your garden or the flowerbed that you want. It is advised for beginners to start with a wider bed where you can plant different types of flowering plants. If you want a more elegant or artistic design you can have it without even hiring a professional designer. The advancement of technology has also invaded gardening. Aside from the modern tools and fertilizers for your plants, technologies such as software for gardening are also available. You can have free software on designing flower garden layouts. This type of software has several pre-designed layouts that you can choose from. These layouts also have the right plants that you can use to achieve the right color and texture of your garden. The software also enables you to see what your garden might look like after all your plants matured and starts to bloom.

Good flower garden layouts are always done with a purpose. Aside from enhancing the aesthetics of the garden, having a beautiful and inviting garden is usually done to highlight a home that is for sale. The artistically designed garden makes the house look more inviting and comfortable to live in thus attracting more possible buyers. Even if you are not going to sell your house it always makes sense to have a beautiful garden. Aside from decorating your house and the lawn, your flower garden can also give you a cozy place to relax and to enjoy breathing fresh air.

To start designing your flower garden you can check the available plants of your existing garden. Using these plants, you can think of the design that can fit the size and location of your garden. You can research online for the flower garden layouts that use your available plants. This can make your work easier especially if you found one that has all the plants that you currently have. If there's none you can do your own layout. Having personal touches and designs on your flower garden will surely make you feel fulfilled every time you see your garden and especially if the flowers bloom and you can see the true beauty of your work or masterpiece.

Candis Reade is an accomplished niche website developer and author. To learn more about Flower Garden Layouts, please visit Flower Island Garden for current articles and discussions.

HOME::Home-and-Family/Gardening X An All-Yellow Flower Garden Wows Your Neighbors By Sharon Sweeny Platinum Quality Author Article Word Count:

Do you want your flower garden to be noticed by passers-by? Do you want the neighbors to ooh and aah over the beauty and impact of your flowers?

Plant an all yellow flower garden.

Start with annuals as small transplants from the garden center and you'll see results in a few weeks. There are many varieties of yellow or gold annuals to choose from.

Put a few tall sunflowers in the back of the flower bed. Sunflowers come in many heights; aim for a variety that is four to five feet high. This will form the backdrop of your garden. Add tall yellow marigolds in front of the sunflowers; choose a variety that grows 3 to 4 feet high. Mix in a few yellow or gold zinnias. Some varieties of yellow zinnias are Yellow Flame, Golden Yellow or Old Mexico.

In front of the zinnias, put another, shorter variety of sunflowers and also another shorter type of yellow marigold. Sprinkle in some calendulas--they come in a mix of yellow shades--and maybe yellow petunias.

For the front of the bed, choose either Milkmaid or Moonlight nasturtiums, both yellow varieties. Helenium is a daisy-like flower that grows 12 to 15 inches tall. There is a variety called Dakota Gold whose feathery foliage will contrast nicely with the bold leaves of the nasturtiums. Put some helenium near the front of the bed.

There's even a yellow variety of snapdragons, but they're usually part of a multi-colored mixture. You could sort them out if you found enough already blooming at a garden center. Yellow rudbeckia daisies are heat tolerant and will bloom all summer and into fall. Varieties are available in heights from 18 to 40 inches high.

Keep in mind that all the flowers don't have to be the same shade of yellow, as long as they are in the yellow family. Flowers in colors from the palest yellow to the deepest gold will combine to create a stunning display in your yard. The warm yellow tones really "pop" in the landscape.

Since you've used annuals, you can plant the same garden next year or change it around. Or if you're really in love with an all yellow garden, plant one of all perennials.

But that's another article.

Copyright Sharon Sweeny, 2009. All rights reserved.

Sharon Sweeny is a creative copywriter, specializing in gardening and self-sufficient do-it-yourself lifestyles. She divides her free time among her garden in Minneapolis, alternately juggling half a dozen creative projects and blogging on gardening while pondering the exact location of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota.

Want to get the best writing for today's Internet? Whatever niche or market you are in Sharon Sweeny will help get you noticed. Work with a professional who gets the job done right and on time with no excuses.

Having a garden in your backyard adds a refreshing dimension to your home's outdoor space. Flower beds especially can serve to accent a yard and to give it color and vibrancy. In order to keep flower bed soil in place and to prevent lawn grass from growing on the flower bed soil, garden borders are needed. The idea behind using these borders, or garden bed edging, is to keep the flower beds and garden beds separate from the rest of the lawn, thus allowing the flowers and garden plants to grow on their own. Not only that, but garden borders and edging also serve to define a space. Borders work to accent a flower bed or garden. They give spaces their own specific look and place, thus adding to its aesthetic appeal.

But there is another practical reason for installing garden bed edging. If you're planting a garden adjacent to your lawn, a sturdy garden edging will make it much easier to avoid damaging your garden when it comes time for mowing the lawn. These borders keep mower trimmers away from your flowers and garden plants. And, in addition to this, garden borders can serve for decorative purposes as well. A well built garden border made of sturdy material can be both practical and visually appealing.

There are a lot of styles of garden and flowerbed borders available. If your backyard landscaping is formal or modern, a more rigid, stone or wooden border might be best. If your backyard décor aims for informal or exotic, try more flowing, curved garden borders. One of the popular materials being used for garden borders is bamboo. Made with short bamboo poles, bamboo borders can be easy to arrange and move around and they can work very well to lend an outdoors space a tropical or exotic feel. You can even use borders within the flower bed or garden to separate different sections within the garden.

Using bamboo as building material for backyard décor projects is popular among homeowners looking to go green. Bamboo is one of the most renewable natural resources on the planet, and a healthy alternative to hardwood.

Want to beautify your garden bed, then follow this link for great garden borders.

Designing Your Flower Garden For Year-Round Beauty

Season of bloom: A big mistake that many gardeners make is to buy only what they see blooming in the garden center in the spring. Their gardens end up looking lovely in spring and early summer, but lack color during the rest of the summer and fall. A balanced flower garden has about one-third of its plants in bloom at any given time. Divide your flowering season into thirds (or fourths, if you live in a long-growth season climate) and choose plants that bloom in each part of the season. Visit garden centers in mid to late summer to fine attractive plants that bloom in those seasons

Flower color and form: Gardeners usually make flower color their top priority when deciding which plants to purchase. Popular garden themes that revolve around color include single-color plantings, such as white gardens, soft pastels, bright crayon-box colors, or motifs to match the color of your house. Although you really can't go wrong in mixing flower colors, some hues naturally go well together.

Color wheels, which you can find at your local art supply store, show the rainbow as a circle of colored slices. Color wheel opposites, such as red and green, orange and blue, purple and yellow complement each other. Colors that form triangles on the color wheel, such as blue, green-yellow and red-purple, also make good combinations. A single hue (such as red) has many lighter and darker colors (such as pink and scarlet) within its family and combining these make single-color theme gardens more interesting.

Red, yellow and orange - called hot colors - jump out in the landscape and can appear closer than they are. Blue, green and purple - called cool colors - blend into the garden and look farther away. Use these colors to achieve certain effects. Cool colors in a small garden can make it appear larger, for example, while hot colors draw more attention to street-side plantings. White also stands out in the landscape, especially in dim light and is useful for planting with more colorful flowers to brighten or moderate the mix.

Flower size and shape contribute to the plant's overall appearance, too. Add variety and interest to your garden by blending plants that produce masses of small flowers with those that bear larger or single blooms.

Plant height and spread: Most gardens have a front, back and middle. To arrange plants by height, put the shortest ones in the front and tallest in the back, just like the lineup for a family photograph. Pay attention to the mature width of your plants and give them the space they need. But watch out for aggressive plants that travel unbidden throughout your garden. These usually creep rapidly above- or underground or spread by numerous seeds.

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Gardening

Flower Garden Plants - Natural Beauty For Everyone

If you want to observe some natural beauty and some colorful gifts from the nature then there is no other thing except flowers which you can observe. They bring colors to your dull life. Attractive colors of flowers give you a calm and relaxed feeling.

So now you know that flowers bring joyful colors to your life then why should not have some colorful flowers blossoming inside or outside your own house. All you have to do is to carefully plan out and design your garden once, and then all you have to do during the rest of the year is to take proper care of your indoor or outdoor garden. Proper care will assure you a healthy and beautiful garden for many years.

Flower garden plants will add natural beauty to your garden as they will blossom from early spring till late fall. You must keep in mind that every flower is distinct from the other. Different types of flowers have different seasons for their proper and healthy growth. By the end of April, you will see pansies, daisies, crocuses blossoming. In early May, you can easily sight narcissuses adding its beauty, and in June the beautiful poppies, carnations and peonies spreading their colors. Next comes July and this is the month for iris, hand bell, lily and delphinium. In august you can witness dahlia, aster and gladiolus adding their beautiful colors to the garden. Apart from this, if you want to distinguish flower garden plants on a large scale then you can divide them into to types, annuals and perennials.

Annual flowers don't compromise at all when it comes to beauty. They totally blow the perennial ones out when it comes to beauty. Flowers falling in this category keep blossoming from spring till autumn. Flowers like aster, poppy, calendula and etc can be included in this category. Some perennials are also included in this category as they cannot grow in northern areas in winter time such as pharynx, begonia and etc.

Another major type of flower garden plants is perennials. Most of the people are familiar with perennials with the name of biannual flowers. Very often during the season of crops, you will find them nothing else but socket of leaves. Seeds and flowers will appear in second year and that would be the last time you will see them blossoming. Perennials have the tendency to bear winter cold and this is the reason you will find them blossoming in the winter season.

Discover What Are Flower Garden Plants and Why People Are Crazy For Them.

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