This spring, take a walk on the 'wildflower' side

Springtime. Time to start thinking about your flower beds and curb appeal. If you're tired of the same old annuals, or too many choices leave you bewildered about where to begin, this spring consider thinking outside the planting box. Plant wildflowers. Lots of them.

In a world dominated by red geraniums, pink begonias and yellow marigolds, wildflowers possess a simple grace and elegance that will enhance any garden or landscape. Wildflowers can magically transform a bare patch of soil into a glorious garden. They constantly color your landscape all season long. No matter your soil or sunshine, wildflowers are the answer to beautiful, bountiful blooms that keep the garden alive with a continual dazzling display of color.

Wildflower gardens are gaining popularity for a variety of reasons:

• They require little maintenance. Native plants are already well-suited to your location.

• Wildflowers offer a diversity of unusual foliage shapes and sizes and colorful blooms.

• They can be grown in hard-to-maintain areas - corners, along fences, or slopes that are difficult to mow or water.

• Wildflowers attract a number of garden-friendly visitors, such as birds and butterflies.

Wherever you live, choose a location that gets six to eight hours of full sun and has good drainage. Most wildflowers can grow in heavy clay or less than fertile soils. The key to growing a hearty wildflower patch is to start with a good seedbed.

• Remove any existing weeds or grasses.

• Till the top 1 to 2 inches of soil. Tilling deeper than that will stir up thousands of dormant weed seeds and the wildflowers will struggle to get established.

• When planting wildflower seeds in a new garden area, don't fertilize unless your soil is extremely sandy; wildflowers don't need fertilizer. They are used to growing in average soils.

If you'd like to try your hand at growing wildflowers, you need to start with good seeds and the right mix for your geographical location. Outsidepride.com has done all the work for you, offering a wide variety of wildflower seed mixes created specifically for your geographical region: Remember, a good wildflower mix contains both annuals and perennials. This gives the garden a wider variety of colors, heights and season-long blooms.

Northeastern Wildflower Mix is designed specifically for the special needs of the Northeast. This attractive wildflower mix is made up of 19 species, of which one third are annuals and the remaining are biennials or perennials.

Courtesy of ARAcontent