Landscaping Tips: Flowers

Attractive landscaping can improve the look and value of any home. A good landscape design must include the appropriate types of plants for the area, set in ways that enhance the natural features of the existing setting. Southern California’s sunny, dry climate is the perfect environment for a number of flowering plants that can be used to create a unique design for your property. A Malibu landscape consultant can help you choose the best plants for your outdoor living areas.

Creating Visual Interest

One of the best ways to create visual interest in your garden areas is to use flowers at different heights to draw the eye from level to level. Low-growing flowering plants should be balanced with taller varieties, with intermediate-sized plants set among them to allow a smooth visual flow.

Eye-Catching Entranceways

Flowers at the entrance of your home can provide a dramatic effect for the front of your home, or they can add a homey, welcoming note. Blooming vines, such as Mandevillea or Stephanotis, can be trained to grow along walls or on trellises for a beautiful floral display. Flowering shrubs, such as Indian hawthorn that grows 2 to 3 feet tall and blooms from winter through spring with white or pink flowers is a good choice for this purpose. Wheeler’s Dwarf pittosporum’s leathery leaves grow to 3 feet tall with spring-blooming white flowers that smell like orange blossoms. Star jasmine can be grown as a shrub, vine or groundcover and blooms fragrant, white flowers in the spring.

Using Flower Beds

Flowerbeds provide large expanses of visual appeal that can feature mixed colors or similar tones. Taller plants should be at the back of the bed, with gradually decreasing sizes toward the front of the bed. Both perennials and annuals can be used to provide continuous color. Rose gardens are a popular choice in Southern California. Crinums are a type of lily that can provide splashy blooms for a big impact in specific areas. These flowers add spectacular color and form to gardens and come back year after year. Your Malibu landscape consultant can give you information on the best Crinum varieties for your needs.

Southern California Favorites

Homeowners in Southern California can choose from many varieties of flowering plants that grow well in the area. Miniature hollyhocks are a native plant that can withstand dry periods. The California lilac will provide fragrant, blue blooms in late spring and early summer. The California poppy is available in a variety of colors to match your garden design. Godetia provides brilliant blooms in a variety of colors and grows to 3 feet tall.

Malibu Coast Nursery and Landscape is a registered nurseryman operator, supplying their clients consulting, plant supplies and landscaping services in Malibu and Thousand Oaks, CA.