I'm having trouble figuring out what I can do with our front bed. I've attached a picture. Right now the bed only has those four bushes and another small one to the left. The entire bed is just mulch right now. That picture is an old one before we moved in. Any ideas on an easy, not a lot of maintenance. Our grass is super green right now but I need to spend more time on the beds. I want some color, some flowers that come back up in the Spring.
'Flowers' grow with any of several habits, and fall into a few groups with respect to maintenance.
Annuals- plants that only grow for one year or less (especially if it snows or frosts where you live).
Plant them in the spring, dead head (remove old flowers) weekly, and they will probably live through the summer. If you live in a milder zone then there are annuals that you can plant at different times and have color year round- warm season annuals are planted in the spring and cool season annuals are planted in the fall.
Biennials- plants that only grow for 2 years. First year is almost always a mound of leaves, second year is a taller spike with flowers. Then it dies.
Perennials- plants that live for several years. They have a couple of growth habits:
1) If you are in a mild zone there may be something green (leaves) year round, with flowers in season. Trim off the old flowers to encourage more, and to keep the plants nicely shaped. Often, even if they would hold their leaves year round, they benefit from once a year (late winter, usually) more thorough clean up that involves cutting them back much farther. This gets rid of old, tattered leaves.
2) Plants that will go dormant during part of the year, no matter where you are. These plants often lose all their leaves down to the ground, so mark the ground so you know where they are. They will keep coming back, and some minor clean up of old flowers is good while they are growing. Once a year clean up is made easier because the leaves die and just need to be removed.
Bulbs- usually grow like perennials 2).
Ground cover plants usually grow like perennials 1). They creep and spread until the bed is covered. You would keep them trimmed at the border between lawn and planter area.
