With spring approaching, your thoughts turn to yard work, gardening and flowers. You are eager to plant, but since you have never done your own landscape design before, there is a lot to learn. One of the most important things to learn as it relates to what you plant and how it grows is your grow zone. This does not refer to the areas where you grow things in your yard, but rather to the area in the country where you live.
Seed Packets and Flower Bulb Packages Show Grow Zone Instructions
If you walk into a seed store or look through an online seed catalog, you will notice that the packages all list the grow zone in which the seeds and bulbs will grow their best. Also listed on the packages are the times of the year for each grow zone when you need to put the seedlings or bulbs in the ground in order to get them to bloom or fruit at the right time of the year. Ignoring these grow zone instructions or confusing the grow zone in which you live means that the plants will flower or produce fruit too late and may even freeze or die.
Grow Zones in the U.S.
There are about eight to ten grow zones in the United States. They range from the northern-most points of the country to the southern-most points and are divided by climate, soil type and typical annual precipitation factors. This information is available to everyone who wants to plant something in their yards and watch it grow. You can use this information to maximize the lifespan of your flowers and plants, as well as to stagger and overlap the growing periods of all of your flowers so that as one flower stops blooming, another takes its place, and you have something in bloom almost continuously.
One Other Way Grow Zone Information Is Vitally Important
Because certain soil types in the U.S. lack nutrients necessary to support some types of flowers and plants, the Grow Zone information also tells you how often you will need to fertilize and water the different types of flowers you want to plant. For example, there is a lot of thick clay in the soil in the Great Lakes Region, so you will need to plant flowers with a a healthy mix of fertilizer and rich, black topsoil in order to balance out the clay content in that Grow Zone. Keeping with the Grow Zone instructions ensures healthy, beautiful flowers in your landscape designs all through the growing seasons.
For more information and tips, contact a local landscaping company, like Cumberland Valley Tree Service & Landscaping.
Share13 January 2015
Most of us take great pride in our homes and do everything we can to ensure its beauty and comfort. While attending to our home's interior, we sometimes tend to neglect the lawn, especially during winter. Since moving into my "dream home" I feel compelled to maintain the lawn and garden as impeccably as I do the interior. That's why I've hired a lawn care team to see that my landscape is in tip-top shape all year round. I've learned the importance of fertilization during the late fall and early winter. Keeping the lawn trimmed during those cold winter months will help, too. The experts even help prepare my lawn for the upcoming spring. During this time, family celebrations and parties are plentiful, and I plan to have the best looking lawn on the block. I can't wait for spring to come!
