My
mother-in-law lives in a retirement community. She's an avid gardener with an
unusually green thumb. For Memorial Day she
volunteered to plant a patriotic floral flag garden. She shared how to make a
floral flag garden. You can also use these ideas to make mini indoor patriotic gardens for fall and winter. Or they can be used to decorate graves of loved ones.
Best red flowers: geraniums, carnations, roses, mums, impatiens. White flowers could be gardenia, lily, carnation, impatiens and mums. Blue flowers include hydrangeas, forget-me-nots, cornflowers, petunias.
Flag
centerpiece. There are several ways to make a patriotic garden. My
mother-in-law arranged hers as floral tribute around her community's flag. Use
this option if you have a flag pole. Or place a flag in the center. Make sure that
it is in a solid holder, does not touch the ground and is either lit at night
or taken down at dusk. You can create a patriotic garden around a lamp post.
Place small flags in and around the perimeter and leave the light on at night.
Floral
flag flower options. The easiest way is to use same kind of flowers for
even spacing and growth. Impatiens and petunias are ideal.They come in solid
red, white, dark purple and striped. Petunias have the best shade of blue. Use
them for the blue field of stars.
Floral
flag. For this option, you need 5.5 foot by 7.5 foot flower bed. Plant 13 rows
of flowers 4-5 inches apart. Each row should have about 15 blossoms planted 5-6
inches apart. Stagger plant spacing row to row so that they don't look like a
pegboard. For the field of blue, start rows 1-6 with 6 alternating blue and
white flowers. Begin and end with blue. Continue rows 1, 3 and 5 with 9 red
flowers and rows 2,4 and 6 with 9 white flowered plants. Plant rows 7, 9, 11
and 13 with 15 red flowers. Plant rows 8,10 and 12 with 15 white flowers.
Amount
and cost of flowers: You will need 22-24 blue flowered plants, 87-90 red
plants, 88 to 90 white plants. This is a total of 197 to 204 plants. You get 32
plants from a large flat with 8 trays in it. Each tray has four plants. Buy
about 6-7 flats for this sized garden: 3 red, 3 white and 1 with 24 blue
flowers and the rest mixed.
