Spring Has Sprung: Planting the Perfect Garden

Tools

You can’t get started planting if you don’t have the proper tools! Use these to get your garden started on the right path from the beginning:

Dirt Shovel: A shovel is a garden necessity, unless you really feel like digging through the hard ground with your bare hands. Make sure you dig a deep enough hole!

Wheelbarrow: Grab yourself a blue (or pink!) wheelbarrow to make it easier to haul away things you don’t need – like all the hard rocks you’ll find under the soil!

Hedge Shears: You can’t go wrong with a pair of these – trim up the bushes around your garden so everything will look nice and neat!

All ready for planting? Great! First, however, you need to see how much sunlight your garden gets, to make sure you plant appropriate flowers! Grab a paper and pencil, and draw a little diagram of your garden. Next, grab a comfy lawn chair, your favorite flavor of NeoCola, a good book, and find a cozy spot outside to spend the day. Keep track of where the sun hits your garden throughout the day, and mark it on the diagram. Once you’re finished, you’ll know whether you need plants for sun or shade – and then it’s time to get started planting!

Sun

Have a sunny garden? Great! You have tons of flower options out there, but here are a few of my favorites:

Colour Changing Tulips: One of the prettiest flowers available! These lovely tulips will bloom in early spring and really brighten up the garden with their intense, changing colors! Definitely a favorite of gardeners everywhere.

Wocky Glove: Named because they look like they’d fit on a (very tiny) wocky’s foot, wocky gloves are a lovely cascading, purple flower that attract butterflies.

Rainbow Anthurium: You can’t go wrong with this simple, elegant plant. The colorful foliage will brighten up the corners of your garden – this makes a great border plant!

Rude Daffodil: Don’t let the fact that these flowers have a bit of an attitude get to you – they look great in the garden! The pink petals and bright green leaves will give your garden amazing accents.

Snap Draik: I may be a bit partial to Snap Draiks – being a Draik myself and all! – but who can resist this classic flower? Bright red petals will brighten up your spring and summer garden – just don’t get too close! These plants have a tendency to nip at the hand that waters them.

Shade

Don’t worry if your garden is mostly in the shade – there’s plenty of choices for you out there as well!

Bleeding Heart: This lovely shade addition to the garden features a hanging, pink flower that looks like little hearts hanging off the vine. This particular flower thrives in the shade!

Cyclamen: These ground-dwelling flowers originated on wet forest floor – they love the shade! Plant with caution, however - these little plants are known to take over the entire garden.

Cineraria: This bush-like plant comes in both purple and yellow, and thrives in the shade. It will be a lovely border-accent around your garden – more colorful and fragrant than just a plain picket fence!

Rainbow Morning Flower: One of my absolute favorite plants. It’s hard to imagine something so colorful grows in the shade, but this plant thrives without that hot afternoon sun! Also, this little beauty will fill your entire garden with an amazing smell!

Picked out the plants you like? Great! Now it’s time to move onto one of the best parts of having your own garden: decorating!

Decorating

Flowers are not the only thing that goes in a garden these days. At the Gardening Supply store in the Neopian Bazaar, you can find tons of fountains, bird houses, bridges, ponds – the possibilities are endless! Here are my recommendations:

Ponds: A pond makes a garden seem much more homey and personal – not to mention you add the possibility of water plants to the mix! Some of the best ponds include the Wooden Border Pond, the Mini Waterfall Pond, and my personal favorite – the Rainbow Brick Pond! Who can resist the intense color this will add to your garden? Any pond will create a serene setting in your garden with enough zen to make you feel like you’re on a permanent vacation in Shenkuu!

Fountains: Don’t have room for an entire pond? Then fountains are the way to go! Check out the Light Faerie Fountain, which will look lovely in the middle of a bed of Purple Frillix flowers. The Shell Fountain adds a hint of elegance to your yard, and the Tiered Rock Fountain has feng shui written all over it.

Arbors and Trellises: This is a unique way to add a ‘fence’ to your garden – and best of all, it can hold even more flowers! Be sure to check out the Deluxe Gold Trellis and the Red Wooden Trellis – these are both steady pieces that can handle heavy vines and attractive works of art! A Blue Wooden Arbor may be just the thing you need to add a centerpiece to your garden.

Whatever you do, avoid gnomes! These little creatures seem to be all over Neopia, but beware: They’ll take over your garden, and this is never a good thing – unless you plan on setting up your own Wingoball court right in your own yard!

I hope this guide will help convince you that this is the perfect time to get started in the yard! The sooner you plant, the sooner you’ll be able to enjoy a beautiful yard with flowers, trees, bushes, ponds – the possibilities are endless! I’ll be flying around soon to check out gardens all over Neopia – and to scope out any new flowers I may find to plant in my own garden come next spring! Happy planting!