Potted plants at a garden center are ready for planting into your flowerbed.
Gardening and growing is essentially providing the right growing conditions for your plants and then nurturing them to maturity and beyond. The stages of planting are all part of the gardening process. They begin with selecting what you will plant and end with actually putting seeds or plants into the ground. For those who love gardening and growing, each planting stage is part of the enjoyment and satisfaction of growing. Does this Spark an idea?
Plant Selection
Before you can do anything, you have to decide what you're going to grow. Be it grass, trees, shrubs, flowers, vegetables, perennials, bulbs or annuals, you have to have a plan for planting. Selecting your plants first determines how you will prepare for planting them. You might want a raised bed for vegetable gardening or flowers in the front of your house. Trees and shrubs have different needs than vegetables or flowers. Even planting in pots requires some preparation and a place to put them after they are planted.
Site Preparation
You should choose the place you will plant based on the plant's needs and growth habits. Site preparation includes tasks like removing sod and loosening the soil to give the new plants room to grow their roots and reach essential minerals and water. This is the stage you build your raised beds, dig holes for trees and shrubs, fill pots with soil and till up the earth for planting vegetables and flowers. At this stage of planting, you're almost ready to put some plants in the ground, but not quite.
Soil Preparation
Before you put your plants and seeds into the ground, you'll want to make the soil as hospitable as possible for the plants. Often this is as simple as amending the soil with compost and manure and breaking up any large clumps of soil. Some plants might need some special amendments. Mixing a fertilizer in with the soil before planting ensures the plants have what they need right from the start. You may want to have your soil tested using a soil test kit from a home or garden center and choose fertilizers and amendments based on the results.
Sowing and Planting
Everything is ready, its the right time of year and you've got your plants and seeds. You've finally arrived at the "planting" stage of planting. For live plants brought home from a garden center or nursery, you'll place them in the hole or holes you've prepared and fill in around the root ball, tamping the soil in place and watering the plant thoroughly. Seeds get put in or on the soil and the seed packet will tell you the depth. When you're finished planting, the gardening has just begun and its time to start growing.
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