Creating a private garden space is a lot of fun to do, but it also provides you with years of enjoyment after the fact too. Sometimes called garden rooms, or outdoor rooms, a private garden space is made to be private. A sanctuary you can retreat to anytime you'd like, to enjoy nature, smell the beautiful flowers growing, and simply destress from the everyday hustle and bustle of life.

When planning your private garden, the general goal is usually to create a quiet place to retreat from the world. This garden doesn't have to be fully private, but it does have a much more calming effect when it's at least semi-private. So consider the location of your garden before starting to create it. If you must place the garden near busy or noisy areas such as close to the street, there are tactics you can use in your planning and design which will help dampen the noise and distractions. If possible though, you'll get the best results from a private garden space by creating it away from everyday noise and activity.

Private garden spaces usually tend to be on the small side, and many people turn small backyard patios or gazebos into their private garden space. The garden can be as large as you'd like though, depending on your own personal preferences and budget restrictions.

One of the first things you'll need to plan for is what kind of barrier you'll use for your garden. One of the reasons a private garden space is often referred to as a garden room, is because many people like to create living walls for their garden area. And these walls make the space seem more like an outdoor room because the garden space is more enclosed. If you prefer not to have your garden enclosed too much though, you can simply create an entranceway to your private garden space using an arbor or arch.

Living walls can be made by simply putting up inexpensive materials such as a chain link fence or wooden trellis, and using fast growing flower vines. Flower vines can easily be trained to grow up and over fences, trellis materials and arches too, and as these vines mature they create a thick living wall which separates your garden area from the rest of the world. These vines also tend to sheild the area from everyday noise and activity, plus they help to make the garden space cooler than the rest of the yard area may be as well.

An alternative way to create your private garden space quickly, is to simply buy flower pots and containers in a variety of sizes, then buy plants which have already started to grow. Arrange your flower boxes, pots and containers around the perimeter of the garden space, then plant the new flowers into them. If you choose flower pots and containers which have varying sizes and heights, you'll be able to strategically place them in locations which will block out everyday activities from your main line of sight. This type of private garden space won't always block out much noise though, so it's best located in a more secluded area of the yard.

Tags: Private Garden

Annuals are flowers and plants which only grow for one season, then they die off and must be replanted again by seed or starter plants the next year. Some annuals create seeds though, which will drop to the ground and naturally start sprouting on their own the following year, but many must be purchased again if you want to have those flowers blooming in your yard and garden again each year.

Annuals are a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to create beautiful color in your yard and garden in the springtime. Many annuals can be purchased in small four or six inch starter pots, and they'll often already have flowers blooming when you buy them. Buying them this way allows you to take them home, put them into the ground or into pots and containers, and have an instant blooming garden right from the start.

By planting blooming annual flowers along your walkway for instance, or into a new garden bed or container, you'll have instant color and beauty in your yard as early in the season as you'd like.

Most annuals are fairly easy to plant, take care of, and grow. Most of them also come in a wide variety of flower color selections too. Some annuals are particularly hardy through drought and strong sunlight, and some actually continuously bloom from spring through summer and into late fall too. These types of annuals tend to be the most pleasing to gardeners, because there is little work needed to keep their garden look fresh and colorful almost all year round.

Vinca flowers for instance, look a little like Pansies and they come in a huge variety of flower colors. You can buy vincas which have solid colored flower petals and blooms, or ones which have variagated colors on the flowers instead. The leaves of this plant are green and glossy, but it does extremely well in high heat and direct, strong sunlight areas.

Vinca's often grow to about ten or twelve inches high, and when you pluck the expended buds off of them regularly, they bloom in some areas for months on end. In Zone 7B for instance, it's not uncommon to see Vinca's in bloom from March through September or October.

Another easy growing annual that's a favorite of most gardeners is the Pansy. This plant also has glossy green leaves and many different flower colors to choose from. The flowers themselves almost look like little faces with the way they're colored too.

Morning Glories are another annual plant in most areas, and these also produce profusive flower blooms for months on end. As long as the roots of the Morning Glory vines are kept moist and out of direct, hot sunlight, these plants will climb all over a trellis, fence, and even bushes too.

Morning Glory vines create a tight spiral pattern when they're climbing, so you need to give them small things to grab onto. A trellis with wide wooden slats is too large for the tight spirals to get around easily, but a chainlink fence is ideal. You can even use string or thin twine for the vines to wrap around and climb.

Tags: Annuals, Morning Glory, Blue Picotee

Tropical gardens have become quite popular in more recent years, because the plants that you can grow in this type of garden are full of gorgeous color. Tropical plants often have a more unique look about them too, which makes them all the more appealing for areas of the country where everyone seems to plant the same things in their gardens.

Tropical gardens often attract butterflies, bees and hummingbirds too, and this makes the garden all the more enjoyable throughout the year. Tropical gardens can contain a wide variety of plants, but some require lots of heat while others require lots of water. Tropical gardens also don't often survive freezing temperatures either, so many people in cooler climates choose to create tropical container gardens which can be taken inside when bitter cold winter temperatures come around.

Most tropical plants require a lot of sunlight though, so if you're planting them into a ground based garden or raised garden bed, be sure to choose the sunniest spot you can find in your yard. You'll want to plant tropical plants and flowers in areas which get a minimum of six hours direct sunlight each day.

Some tropical garden plants such as bougainvillea, thrive on irregular watering patterns. The bougainvillea plant for example, is natural in areas of the world where there could be pouring rain for weeks, then months of dry spells. You can mimic these conditions when growing bougainvillea plants in your tropical garden by watering them really well for a week or two, then not watering them for at least a month. You'll find that these tropical plants seem to bloom best when they've been stressed, or kept dry for extended periods of time.

Bougainvillea plants can be grown in a variety of ways too. Most varieties will climb as a vine in the right conditions and with the right care, but these plants can also be shaped and pruned into small shrubs and bushes too. Bougainvillea plants have hook like thorns on them which can hurt if you're stabbed by them, but these thorns is what allow the plant to climb fences and trellises, and create a gorgeous display of color.

Bougainvillea tend to create tiny flowers which most people miss. The flowers are surrounded by paper thin bracts which bloom in a variety of bold, beautiful colors, and most people think these bracts are the actual flowers of the plant. The flowers themselves though, are tiny and located inside the bracts.

Esperanza and Spanish Broom are two more excellent plants to put into a tropical garden. These plants do quite well in really dry gardens too, because they're both heat and drought tolerant, which makes these beautiful plants quite hardy and tough. Despite their toughness though, both of these plants produce gorgeous, bright showy yellow flowers that bloom continuously from spring through fall.

Tags: Tropical Gardening, Bougainvillea