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A.  General Information
B.  Establish a Bedline
C.  Removing Unwanted Plants from Bedline
D.  Give your Landscape the Right Start

A. General Information
To be successful in planting any kind of plant, you have to have the right plant in the right place and give it the right care. Before you look for a plant to buy, pick a certain area in your yard and list the purposes new plants should serve to make that area work. You should know the conditions that exist in the area to know which plants will thrive there.

B. Establish a Bedline
spread garden hose To get your carefully selected plants into the ground and keep them satisfied for years, you need to mark a bedline. Bedlines should be simple so you can easily mow the lawn. You can sketch out a bedline scheme on paper and think about the access to doorways and utility areas and anything else that goes through the lawn. Spread a garden hose in the sun on a driveway or patio for about 15 minutes to make it flexible, then lay it on the ground in the shape of your proposed bedline. Adjust the hose until you like the outline. Make sure you can mow the lawn easily with that outline. Spray the ground or grass with marking paint. Don't use regular spray paint and don't spray paving, stones, or plants you want to keep. Take away the hose and make sure you like it before you start digging.

C. Removing Unwanted Plants from Bedline
The next thing you need to do is get rid of any plants inside the bedline that you don't want. Pick a day to spray the bed when it is hot, sunny, dry, and still. Using a pump sprayer, cover the area inside the bed with a systemic grass and weed killer. Keep the spray head at the recommended distance above grass and weeds. Wait three days for the product to kill everything. If you see green spots, respray as needed. If it rains, give it another day or two to dry out. If it doesn't look like they're dying, reapply the product on a sunny, still day and wait for it to work. shovel-cut bedline jab blade under roots When grass and weeds have turned brown, shovel-cut the bedline. Use a narrow-bladed shovel to cut an almost vertical edge along the grassed side of your planting bed. Scrape soil away so the opposite side of the trench rolls upwards into the bed area. Make your V-cut about 6 inches deep so it will hold a 3-inch layer of mulch. Use the same shovel and jab the blade under the roots of dead grass. Scrape and remove all roots, grass, and weeds.

D. Give your Landscape the Right Start
To give your landscape the right start, you need to prepare your bed correctly before planting anything. To make it easier for water to percolate through soil, you can start tilling, digging, and turning the ground. To keep weeds away from the planting bed, apply preemergent herbicide. Use it on bare soil before you set out container-grown or balled-and-burlapped plants. Reapply it every spring as needed by scratching into the soil around plants. Also, laying a very thick layer of mulch will make it harder for weeds to grow. Deep watering can prepare plants for a dry spell. To do this, apply water slowly for long periods of time at infrequent intervals. An automatic sprinkler system can make watering easy.

Fertilizer Properly applying fertilizer keeps plants flourishing. Fertilizers are combinations of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium along with other minor elements like calcium, magnesium, and iron. Synthetic fertilizers may be dry and in granular, powder, or pellet form or liquid. With dry fertilizer, keep it away from foliage and don't mound it at the base of plants. Instead, scratch it into the soil around plants and water well. Natural fertilizers also come in dry or liquid forms. Most of them are not complete fertilizers. For example, bloodmeal supplies nitrogen that will quickly green up failing plants. Bonemeal gives phosphorus for root growth and flower formation. So, you may need more than one product for complete fertilization.

Foundation Plantings Plants growing close to your house are known as foundation plantings. Shrubs are the first ingredient in most foundation plantings and can give several options for dressing up your home. score the root-ball First, pick a spot to plant your new shrub while making sure the growing conditions match the needs of the plant. Also, make sure there's enough space around the spot for the shrub to grow for many years. Dig a hole twice as wide as the plant's container and as deep as the container is tall. Carefully remove the shrub from its plastic pot and lay it on the ground. Use the shovel blade to score the root ball, if needed.

Set the shrub in the hole to check the depth. The top of the root ball should be level with the surface of the undisturbed ground around the hole. Remove the plant and shovel additional soil into the bottom of the hole. put plant into hole Put the plant into the hole to check the depth again and if the root ball sits too high, remove the plant and dig the hole deeper. But, if you're planting in heavy clay soils, plant shrubs an inch or two higher than the level of the undisturbed soil. Mix topsoil or composted organic matter with the soil you dug from the hole, usually at a ratio of 1:1. In areas with high rainfall and heavy clay soil, lower the amount of organic matter in the mix to 4:1. Shovel the mixed soil around the plant, filling the hole completely. Don't stomp soil in place. settle soil with water Water to settle the soil and add additional soil mixture as needed after settling. Use left over soil to make a moat 3 to 4 inches high around the hole. Pat it firmly in place. Mulch the area inside the moat with a 2- to 3-inch layer of organic mulch. Lay a garden hose at the base of the plant and turn the water on to a gentle stream. Fill the moat slowly several times, letting water soak in.