I need detailed advice on how to make a flower bed please!?

Question

I have a new house with a pretty big back yard and i want to make a flower bed in the back. I read somewhere that there's an easy way to prepare a flower bed by putting newspapers on the area and compost on top and leave it there for a year. Did anybody try that?Could you give me details please?

Answer 1

That wont work.

Putting compost on top will leave a nice open area for seeds on the wind that have come off every weed in a 10mile radius to happily sow themselves and you'll have a big patch of weeds by next spring.

Try putting down a  strong tarpaulin to kill the weeds over the winter- the lack of light should do it, plenty of stones on top to keep it there. ANd dig it over in the spring, adding in some rotted compost.

Sadly gardening does involve some work!

Answer 2

ok here's what you do. First outline the area that you want to dig up to make a flower bed and shovel out the line about 6 inches deep inward from the yard. Then you want to remove the bad soil in the ground and replace it with topsoil and mix in a soil called yuka. This soil  has ground up fish parts but you cant see them which produces high rates of nitrogen which plants need to grow. Then just decide where you want the plants to go. Make sure that for the first 2 weeks your plants are watered every day or they will die from heat stress. Also when you plant new plants make sure to keep as much of the root ball as you can in tact but scrape the sides of the plant root ball dirt to break it up so that the plant root will emerge with little restraint from where they were tightly packed in the plastic containers. then just decide what ground cover you like. ( I highly recomend not using pinestraw as the acid levels they let off will kill roots an mess up your soil ph) enjoy