You Can Build an Amazing Flower Wall for Your Home

The fact that the neighbors praise my garden is 97% of the reasons I grow plants. And when I found Cynthia Stringham and her flower walls on Instagram, I thought, “If you want neighbors to comment on your yard, here’s how you do it.”

Every Friday, Cynthia posted videos of towering mounds of flowers against her fence. The flowers were of all kinds of colors, shapes, sizes and heights, arranged so exquisitely that they looked like a painting. The fence has completely disappeared, and the flowers have become their own construction, enclosing the site.

It made sense that she could do it – she owns a greenhouse and is a professional gardener . However, as an amateur gardener, I chalked it up to ever being able to figure out the formula until Cynthia eventually posted a planning chart on her Instagram stories and I was hooked. I started buying packets of seeds, grabbed my gardening pad, and started planning.

What is a flower wall?

Flower beds are like a crowded concert: if everyone is about the same height, no one will see anything. Usually, when people have a facade – whether it’s a wall, a fence line, or even an open lot boundary – they tend to plant items of the same height, such as rows of trees, shrubs, flowers, or ground covers. Flowers at the same height can still be beautiful, of course, but viewers need to be close by and looking down to fully appreciate them. Alternatively, by planting a variety of flowers and leveling their height so that each leaves room for the plants in front of it, you can turn your garden into a stadium with built-in stands.

How to build a flower wall

Cynthia’s plan was pretty simple. She drew the heights of various annual flowers, then arranged them in order, tightly packed. She had enough there to make it look full at any point in the season as the flowers bloomed and bloomed.

She had some basic recommendations to start with, like starting with sunflowers. No other annuals reach as tall as sunflowers, so they form a light base, rising from seven to fifteen feet in a row of towering yellow heads.

The rest should be divided into rows. There are several colors in this five to seven foot range, including cosmos, ammi, poppies, foxgloves, and artichokes. A wide range of flowers make up a three to five foot wide band, including your giant zinnias. Your front row should include everything under three feet, including stock, snapdragons, and perennial sage. You could, at the forefront, have small ground cover flowers.

With all of this on paper, you can also start thinking about seasons and flowering times, as well as color themes. You can of course paint the wall any color and it will still be beautiful, but I started noticing how many flowers were pink, lavender and white, and purposefully chose more plants with gemstone hues, creating a sea of ​​oranges, reds, yellows. . , purple and magenta. Over the years, you will begin to notice and fine-tune the early (like snapdragons) and late (like cosmos) flowers so that you have the same flowers throughout the season.

Mix perennials and annuals, edible and non-edible plants.

This year I saw Cynthia’s garden in person and was blown away by how compact it is and how the height grading makes her garden so much bigger. Her beds also looked fuller than mine, even though I planted them close together. She explained that the secret is to plant carrots, cabbage and lettuce to fill in the greens and make them more lush.

I thought about my own garden. I already had artichokes in my flower wall and added foxglove over the years. I added asparagus, dahlias and delphiniums in addition to sage and poppy seeds. All of them, like perennials, will come back on their own – I just had to plan a place for them.

Perennials also anchored the space, with giant artichokes and their field of neon flowers creating some repetition. Between these spaces, annual plants peep through. Some of the largest flowers that are best for creating color are annuals. Zinnias in particular come in a variety of heights and sizes, but Benary’s Giants are perfect for this three to five foot range. Gomphrena and celosia provide color blocks of interesting shapes at a lower height. Annuals need to be planted every spring, but this means you can also change them from year to year. Over time, even annuals will self-seed if you leave them alone for the rest of the season.

How to grow flowers for your wall

You can, of course, buy flowers from a local nursery, but if you’re in the mood to grow your own, you’ll find it much more economical and you can choose exactly what you want.

Seed stores such as Johnny’s , Floret , Botanical Interest , and Renee’s Gardens have deep shelves of flower seeds. Browse and find images of colors you like and then you just have to figure out which height bar you want to put them in.

When you plant, you need to start at the back and work your way forward, keeping the seedlings within six to eight inches of each other. A slow-release fertilizer such as Osmacote is helpful to lie down in the garden when you are working to feed the flowers. Mulching with bark chips will help keep the flowers cool, so they need less water and experience less heat stress.

Remember that some plants, such as stock, only bloom once and may need to be replaced during the season. Most flowers respond well to pruning and grow fuller, which also means you have fresh cut flowers for indoor use as well.

Some of the flowers face the sun, which means that my neighbors enjoy this view from their yard, and the sunflowers look away from me.

All in all, building a flower wall is a project you grow into over the course of the seasons. This is a fun project, help diversify your plantings and decorate your home with beautiful flowers.