Making A Circle Garden

Making A Circle Garden

Making a circle garden offers a great alternative for designing an annuals garden or enhancing your existing garden with annuals. The circle garden design combines formal and informal garden designs and styles to create an orderly relaxed garden setting. The elements of making a circle garden includes strong architectural features, straight lines and a symmetrical layout of plants and flowers. The informality of a circle garden can be seen in its combinations of color and variety for the spring, summer, and fall season. Different heights and shapes can create excitement in any garden but are best illustrated in a circle garden. You don't need professional landscapers to design you garden. It is a relative easy DIY project.

In spring the circle garden comes to life with the vivid greens of emerging leaves, the bright hues of daffodils and tulips, and the new growth of shrubs and bushes.

During summer months the garden is filled with the bright colors of summer flowers. If there is a water garden pond as part of your circle garden it represents the coolness of shimmering water in the sunlight as well as adds moisture to the garden.

The brisk and cooling air of autumn brings the bright cool-season of annuals and decorative trees and shrubs. The bright red of a flaming bush and ornamental grass set off by a backdrop of evergreens and the changing leaves of shrubs and trees warn us of the coming of the winter season when gardens go dormant until spring returns its beauty.

How to make a circle garden:

Cutting the sod from a matured lawn to form the circle for the garden can be a challenge. The easiest way is illustrated in the sketch below.

Determine the diameter desired and cut a piece of string to half the diameter

Place a post exactly in the center of the intended circle and attach one end of the string to the post. Attach the other end to the handle of a hatchet.

Keep the string tight as you cut the sod, moving around the diameter of the intended circle. This will provide a symmetrical circle. Cut the sod and soil beneath it approximately two inches in depth.

After completing the cut remove the sod from the circle. You will be left with a near perfect circle of brown earth in the center of the grass. Shake out the soil in the sod as you remove it.

Install edging around the perimeter of the garden. The top edge of the edging should be positioned level with the top of the surrounding lawn to facilitate mowing.

Add a mixture of top soil (loam) and potting mixture for a rich base to plan flowers and shrubs.

Select your shrubs and flowers (annuals and perennials) and plant them in a balanced pattern. The taller plants and shrubs should be toward the center. Frequently water for the first two weeks.

After planting, mulch the garden with approximately three inches of mulch.

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How to Grow Strawberries
Planting and Fertilizing Your Garden

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