Beginning A Flower Garden In May

I’ve always wanted to be a gardener, especially beginning a flower garden. However, it felt too overwhelming.

When I decided in beginning a flower garden, I did my research by figuring out my zone (something I didn’t even know existed until 2 years ago), found out what flowers grew best in my zone (zone 9b), followed a bunch of influencers, and watched so many YouTube videos.

The first time I tried gardening was about four years ago. I started with both flowers and vegetables. Nothing grew. I wasted so much money on soil, plants, and flowers. I felt super discouraged. The next year, I tried again, this time with only vegetables. More specifically, tomatoes, peppers, and zucchinis.

They grew in abundance and grew wildly! I didn’t have time to tend to them, so they took over my planter box (which was already built in the backyard before I moved in).

The tomatoes also attracted the gnarliest caterpillars. It freaked me out until my daughter said they reminded her of Bugs’ Life. It was of her thinking they were cute, did I have the courage to finally harvest the vegetables, and eventually clean out the planter box.

Last year, I did nothing. I figured either I didn’t have the time or whatever I grew would just die anyway. I ended up ordering a bunch of flower seeds and never doing anything with them.

When beginning a flower garden, I’d totally forget everything I learned whenever I was ready and in the backyard. And I did a lot of research by following influencers (who also gardened in zone 9), reading about gardening, and watching YouTube videos.

In all honesty, I also didn’t know where to start because most people I followed already had such beautiful, thriving gardens. When I tried to research how to start a flower garden, a lot of vegetable garden resources popped up online.

I was more keen on beginning a flower garden after my success in the planter box with vegetables. I thought flowers would attract prettier insects and animals like butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.

This year, however, beginning a flower garden wasn’t as intentional as in other years. A section of my backyard was overgrown with so much ivy, weeds, and unwanted small trees. There was an old chicken coop in the corner of my backyard that was covered in ivy, weeds, and small trees growing inside. I was too intimidated to get back there and clear it out. I have a fear of bugs that I know is silly, but hey, it’s a personal fear I’m trying to overcome.

I’ve had estimates on clearing that section out, which would run several hundred dollars, and I couldn’t commit to spending that much for some reason.

Thankfully, my friend had time and was able to come over to clear out that section. It was so overgrown. He had to go to Home Depot and rent a huge weed-whacking-looking machine with a metal blade at one end and a chain on the other end that attaches to your waist to clear out that corner.

In that same corner of the yard, stands a huge, beautiful oak tree that needs to be trimmed every few years, which costs a thousand or more to have done professionally.

My initial intentions were to clean up the yard, even if it looked bare. I didn’t want any more weeds, ivy, and unnecessary trees (excluding the big oak tree, which I love) taking over my yard anymore. Some trees require professional maintenance when overgrown.

Okay, back to beginning a flower garden. Again, it was unintentional. After my friend cleared out that corner, I told my brother when we were casually chatting. For years, I’ve been begging my brother to help me with beginning a flower garden since he has such a beautiful garden himself.

He kept telling me to do the hard work first, of weeding my backyard and clearing it out, then he’d help. So when my yard was finally cleaned up (thanks to my friend), he came over on a day off and took me to buy bags of soil. We started on the Monday after Mother’s Day this year, 2025.

My brother brought all his leftover supplies from his garden, like new tubes for an irrigation system and seeds. And the most priceless of all, he brought his wealth of knowledge.

He helped and made me prune my rose bushes, something I hate doing because I viscerally feel bad for some reason. I can’t explain it, but I feel like I could possibly be hurting the plants. Plus, to me, they’re so beautiful, even if overgrown and wild.

One of the rose bushes, he had to prune while I wasn’t looking. Like I said, I don’t know why, but viscerally it just made me feel bad. When I turned around, all the roses littered the ground. Not one rose was spared. My brother had no mercy!

My brother told me that in order for roses or plants to flourish and bloom, regular pruning is necessary. Even if it felt sinister to me to prune rose bushes of their beautiful flowers.

I have a bunch of beautiful indoor plants that I love and are thriving. They are pruned regularly without a second thought. I think it’s a little different with indoor plants because their leaves will slowly turn yellow or brown one by one, which makes pruning easier for me. Or maybe I’m just used to it by now, and that’s all it’ll take is for me to get used to these rose bushes.

For one of my rose bushes, he told me I needed to prune at least two or three major branches that were sagging, but no more than that. He didn’t want me to stress that specific rose out. He said certain rose bushes are very durable. However, some can still get stressed with too much trauma.

He also taught me about my soil in the backyard. My brother asked if I knew which climate I was in, and I answered, “Yeah, zone 9b.” He said, “No, we’re in a Mediterranean climate.” I had no clue.

I didn’t know I had to know things like the type of zone, climate, and soil I live in or have. Without even knowing that different zones and gardening climates existed, how was I supposed to know the appropriate questions to ask?

Trust me, I’ve trekked down to my local nursery and asked the simple question of how I begin a garden, and was inundated with so much of their expert knowledge. It felt so overwhelming that I forgot everything I had listened to.

Not once did I hear them mention zones or climate. I did, however, hear them say we have clay in our soil. The only reason I knew about zones was through eavesdropping on a conversation between my brother and my mom.

Where I live, we have clay in our soil (again, something I didn’t know and was told by my brother and local nursery), which can make it difficult to grow things. My brother taught me how to “prepare” my soil for beginning a flower garden.

I didn’t know soil even needed to be prepared!

In one section of my backyard, I have soil that is mainly clay. He could tell because there were cracks in the surface. The soil dried up and became so hard, thick cracks formed at the top of the soil.

He told me that because of how dry and hard the soil is, this makes it difficult for earthworms to do their thing. The earthworms would’ve broken up the clay into healthy soil for gardening, if the soil wasn’t so abundant in clay. Earthworms are a great indicator of healthy soil.

He advised me to pull or rake all the weeds (if any) out of the soil and layer it with a fresh topsoil mix that we purchased at Costco. I also needed to water this area abundantly to soften the clay.

My brother also informed me that if weeds are growing in certain areas, that’s a good indicator that the soil is healthy enough to start growing other things. But if it’s dry and bare (like where the cracks formed), that tells us that I need to prep my soil to start attracting the right bugs, like earthworms, to do their job underground.

According to my brother, prepping soil by adding topsoil and watering it regularly can take months for the soil to be ready to start growing things. The point is to attract life (i.e., good bugs) back into the soil again.

In some areas, I also have tan bark and wasn’t sure if I needed to take that out first. This to me seemed like too much work already. Thankfully, my brother said it looked like the tan bark was already decomposing. And if it wasn’t, that’s fine because it eventually will. All I needed to do was add topsoil over it, and my soil would be good to go. Oh, and to water it!

It seems like the key to beginning a flower garden or any kind of garden, for that matter, is to water, water, water! Something I never did before. I thought watering once a week would be sufficient. I mean, that’s the case for my houseplants.

However, that is far from the truth. Apparently, you are supposed to water your beginning flower garden every day for at least two to three weeks!

So far, it has worked! I’m starting all of my flowers from seeds this year, and I can confidently say I have seen sprouts for most of them!

If you are thinking of beginning a flower garden, start by learning these three things about your area first:

Zone: Learn what zone you are in. You can ask Google which zone you live in by using your zip code.

Climate: Learn what climate you’re in. Again, using Google.

Soil: Ask your local nursery what kind of soil your area has. You can also click here to check out this site, which explains all six different soil types (I found the site by doing a quick google search of different types of soil).

Water: Once you’ve decided on your flowers (or even if you’re just prepping your soil), whether from seed or small container plants, be sure to water every day for the next two to three weeks. Most seed packages have sowing instructions on the back as well.

It’s important to learn about the zone and climate you’re in. This will help make purchasing flowers or plants a lot easier. You want to find the right flowers and plants that will grow in your area effortlessly. Most online nurseries allow you to filter flowers and plants based on zones.

To make the process less overwhelming, I divided my flower garden into manageable sections. In each area, I removed any weeds and added topsoil as needed. I directly sowed wildflower seeds in sections that previously had weeds in them. We gently pressed the wildflower seeds into the soil by stepping on them and then watered the area thoroughly.

I also planted some flower seeds in plastic seed-starting trays and plastic plant pots. I want to plant my flowers in a variety of different ways to see how they work out and what works best.

In the section that didn’t have weeds and was completely bare, I added topsoil as well and have been watering it daily.

Once the soil is prepared, I plan to transplant the flowers I started from seed in plastic seed-starting trays and plastic plant pots into that area. The flower seeds I planted in them are catnip, cosmos, zinnias, nasturtiums, and snapdragons.

I found a bunch of random planter pots my mom left behind around the yard. In them, I planted cosmos, marigolds, and zinnia seeds. The marigolds aren’t looking too good.

I’m in week three now of beginning a flower garden. I hope to keep this up so I can show my progress and share what I learn along the way.

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Love, Sutivi.