At face value, flower garden design appears to be a simple matter of choosing flowering plant species that appeal to the eye and enhance the appearance of house and yard.  While it can be this simple if all you are looking to do is to spice up the yard with a bit of seasonal color, professional flower garden design can offer you so much more when developed as a part of a professional landscaping plan. 

An expert in landscaping will make certain that your flower garden design honors the architecture of your home.  Different architectural styles must be complimented in different ways.  For more modern and contemporary homes, color plays the most significant role.  Most modern homes require a solid color flower garden to emphasize the stark absolutes of their geometry and highly subjective forms.  On the other hand, more traditional architecture is better complimented by contrasts and textures.  Layered flower garden design provides alternating contrasts, textures, and a diversity of colors that help accentuate the symmetry and elegance of formal and conservative architectural forms.

One of the biggest challenges in flower garden design is the limited longevity of flowers themselves.  While it is true that some flowering plants can live for decades, the blooms themselves produced by these plants do not last for more than one season.  In order to design a flower garden that will truly magnify the landscape throughout the year, it is necessary for landscaping architects to plant different types of flowers at different times of the year.  Color selections will follow a certain pattern according to the cycle of life and death represented by the seasons themselves.  Bright red, pink, and blue flowers are favorite colors for spring gardens.  In the summer, when the sun is at its hottest and brightest, yellow flowers are often very appropriate choices.  In late fall and winter, white flowers stand out even the most rainy and cloudy days when very little light ever reaches the ground. 

Professional landscapers can help you choose from best of these colors to match your home and yard, and they can further extend the benefits of those selections by selecting the hardiest plant species that will endure the often extreme weather conditions characteristic of the Houston climate.  At different times of the year, we experience heavy rains, high humidity, and long periods of searing heat with no rain.  It is very important to anticipate all of these widely varying conditions in order to plant a flower garden that will maintain its vitality and aesthetic throughout the entirety of its intended lifespan.

This does not mean, however, that climate limits plant selection, per se.  An otherwise delicate species of flower can be strengthened against certain environmental extremes by professional landscapers with knowledge of both botany and garden design.  If a species is chosen that needs more water than the season allows for, special irrigation can be designed that will make up for the lack of rainwater.  Drainage systems can be embedded and concealed in virtually any flower bed to keep too much water from flooding the plants and damaging roots and stems.  Water and heat, therefore, do not present the ultimate challenge to professionals who know what they are doing. 

Workarounds such as this become more complicated when we then face the challenge of lighting.  Some species of plants simply cannot grow without a certain amount of light.  In such cases where a highly desirable species is discovered to be incompatible with its environment, it falls to the expertise of the landscaper to develop a workaround to what appears to be an insurmountable barrier.  Such workarounds may involve creating new pathways for light by altering nearby structures, or they could involve using advanced botanical knowledge to locate very similar species that thrive under very different lighting conditions. 

In either case, the best way to guarantee lasting satisfaction and return on your investment is to have your flower garden designed by a professional.  Yard service companies and gardening magazines will give you great ideas for creativity and expression, but at the end of the day, the practicalities of seasonal change, rain, temperature, and water require terrain management skills that only an experienced landscaping company can provide.

Exterior Worlds, in business since 1987, provides landscape design and garden services for residences, commercial buildings and retail centers in the Houston area. Call them at 713-827-2255 to request a consultation or estimate.