Growing a Flower Garden

Hi I'm Stan DeFreitas, Mr. Green Thumb. We're at Willow Tree Nursery in St. Petersburg, Florida. How do you grow a real pretty flower garden? Well first off you need to make sure you pick out good plants. So if you go to the nursery or you raise them from seed, make sure you raise as healthy a plant as you can. Quite honestly if you just want a small area, you're probably better to go to your local nursery and buy some little four packs or little individual pots like we have here, you've got a nice little healthy begonia and determine how many you're going to need. So kind of space them out, maybe draw a little drawing up of where your plants are going to be. Find out if it's full sun or partial shade. Some flowers like impatiens and begonias will take shade pretty well. Others need a pretty good amount of sunlight or they're not going to flower. Now you take a little petunia here that we have in front and you can plant it in nice hot, full sun and it does well. But if it's in real dark shade, let's say on the north side of your home, they're never going to build up enough energy to really do much flowering. Also pay attention to the cool restrictions. How cold does it get? Do you get below freezing? That's a big factor. Make sure you get to an area where you've got good sunlight and a good water source as well. Also fertilize it almost every week or so with a good water soluble because they're all going to live one season. So remember, make sure you get enough water, enough light and make sure you tend to your annuals on a constant basis because they're going to live and die all in one season. For ask mrgreenthumb.com, I'm Stan DeFreitas.