23 Creasey Road, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK
benefitzgardening@gmail.com
07740 311927
Supported Charities

How to Create a Vibrant Garden

HomeNews & BlogsHow to Create a Vibrant Garden
Vibrant Garden Bournemouth
How to Create a Vibrant Garden

Spring is an ideal time to start planting a variety of things in your Dorset Garden, whatever its size. With the weather warming up throughout April and May, and very little chance of frost remaining, these months are the perfect time to plant out any saplings or crops you may have been nurturing. It’s also the ideal time to start sowing seeds as these can become one of the most effective ways to brighten up your garden. Whenever we plan a garden, we like to refer to planting colour charts to give the garden the best possible range and blend of colours once everything is in bloom. We often use season charts to get a greater vision of when certain parts of the garden will be in full bloom. We have shared some free planting advice below which will help you to create a vibrant garden which is full of colour and variety.


Planting early crops
Early crops like courgettes, cucumber, peas, and onions can be planted in spring as they can handle the cooler spring nights. However, these young plants still require good soil and an ample amount of water to establish themselves. We have made allotment beds for various gardening customers in Bournemouth, and we have used a mix of good quality compost, mulch and existing soil to give these crops sufficient nutrients to take hold, grow and thrive.

Multiply your existing plants
Perennials come back and regrow year after year, but they are dormant during the late autumn through to early spring. Rather than heading out to the garden as soon as the weather warms up in spring, it’s worth evaluating the plants that are already in your garden. It’s easy to forget over the winter months but it’s likely that you will have a series of perennials which will come out when the weather warms up. The great thing about perennials is you can multiply your existing plants 4 or 5-fold by gently teasing the plant apart into multiple sections. This creates healthy, vigorous plants that will continue to thrive year after year, while adding more plants to your garden for free! Rather than planting in pairs, we recommend planting in odd numbers to create more variation, something which will make your garden more visually attractive.

Most perennials benefit from division every two to three years, so we recommend repeating this process at that rate wherever possible. Plants that can be divided include Agapanthus, Anemones, Delphiniums, Geraniums, Buttercups, Salvia, and Verbena but there are lots more. They can be divided at any point in the year so long as they are kept well-watered but it may be best to split summer-flowering plants during the spring or autumn when the soil is dry enough. For spring-flowering plants, it’s best to divide these after their peak when they are producing new roots.

Planting seeds in spring
It’s amazing to see something so small as a seed grow and transform into something as glorious as a plant smothered in blooms. It’s quite incredible and it’s a low effort way to grow flowers from seed. Spring is the perfect time to start planting seeds in your garden here in Dorset, and we recommend various species of plant seed including Cosmos, Nasturtiums, Marigolds, Sweet Peas, Cornflowers:

  • Cosmos are bright, colourful and vibrant meaning they are perfect for adding colour to any garden. They are highly productive, producing buckets of flowers from only a small patch and they are very low maintenance too, making them ideal for those with less time on their hands.
  • Nasturtiums produce masses of vividly coloured blooms from the mid-June right through to the first autumn frosts. There is a wide range of colours from deep purples and reds, to white, yellow and orange. Some can have single colours and some can be patterned but they are simply stunning for months.
  • Marigolds are renowned for their resilience and ability to attract beneficial pollinators to your garden, meaning they are a must-have for all gardens here in Bournemouth. Marigolds are strongly aromatic and come in gold, orange, yellow, and maroon colours and form bright, summery colours from late spring to autumn.
  • Sweet peas are pretty, pea-like flowers and the bloom in multiple colours including white, pink, coral, red, violet and blue, and on occasions two colours! Sweet peas have a delectable fragrance and they are ideal for placing near garden furniture for the most beautiful of smells. We have planted lots of sweet peas across Bournemouth gardens and we know how nice they look.
  • Cornflowers grow well in sun and well-drained soil and they bloom with distinctive bright blue colour. They can grow up to 90cm (3-feet) tall and can rise above other, smaller plants to create another layer of colour.

Weed Control
A key part of gardening is weed control, and this will become more important as the warmer conditions become ideal for all kinds of growth. As well as offering a planting service, we offer an expert weed control service, as this is crucial to maintaining the perfect garden. Garden weeds can be controlled without using chemicals fairly easily if you have patience as you can simply remove them by hand. However, you will need to stay on top of this each week throughout the warmer months. The best way to do this is to run a hoe over a bed to kill weed seedlings. If the weeds are more established, then we recommend using a fork or trowel to dig into the soil and scoop out deeper roots. For digging out much larger weeds, you should use insert a space to its full depth, close to the base of the plant, and lift out as much of the root system as possible.

Spring is the ideal time to plant all sorts of garden life, but the key is garden maintenance if you want to avoid the overgrown garden jungle look. Get in touch today if you need any help and we’d be happy to advise.