Any tips/pointers for starting a flower bed?

I am cleaning out my flower beds, taking out all of the nasty weeds, roots and old soil. I am then going to replenish the flower beds with new soil.





How do I maintain a flower bed to keep it from getting weeds in it?





Any good flowers for a mostly sunny area? (I was thinking impatients)

Any tips/pointers for starting a flower bed?
Impatients will grow in full sun but prefer shade, they are also an annual that you'd have to replant yearly. You didn't say where you are, which also impacts what you can grow.





Since you've already said you're lifting the roots and replenishing the soil you're well on your way. What flowers depends entirely upon what you like. Some plants that love sunny spots are daisies, iris, phlox, black eye susan, roses, ornamental grasses, hardy hibiscus, peonies, lilies, gladiolus, lupine, columbine, geraniums, dianthus, moonflower, butterfly bush, butterfly weed; the sky is the limit with both perennials and annuals.





To keep weeds down you can pull them, use mulches, or some weed or agriculture cloth that you pin down and cut holes for the plants to come up through. I mulch and weed a lot, and you also plant low growing annuals to crowd the weeds out. You'll almost always have a few but all the methods help control well without use of chemicals.
Reply:Hello, For starters Impatiens are typically shade plants unless grown by the ocean or in shady conditions. They can take morning sun though eastern exposure is good. I would amend the soil with top soil for volume and compost for nutritional value. I would then choose some plants that are perennials, only because you will get your moneys worth they might only bloom once or twice in the season but you can guarentee that it will always comback.If you have a large area you can put tall plants in the back then stagger them from big to small, smallest being in the front.I would plant first then work on preventing your weeds.





You can use a pre emergence which prevents ANY----seeds from germinating, so that means if you wanted your garden started from seed they would not germinate and grow with this proudct. Usually it takes about 6 mos for it to work because what you are doing is creating a barrier in the soil that eliminates any seed germination. You have to be consistant because with watering and etc if you dont keep the product in the soil the barrier will not be a barrier.


Anyways I would do the big plants then 1 time a week go out there and see what weeds are there and pull em. Here are some ideas for cool sun perennials


Coreopsis, salvia,leonotis,societygarlic,dahlias,gi...


centranthus, nemesia ,diascia. Good luck
Reply:try dwarf marigolds. also try mix seed packet they usually have a mixture of seedlings small enough so when the seeds grow it fits in flower beds.