2018 Spring & Garden

2018 Spring Home & Garden LINCOLN DAILY NEWS May 2, 2018 Page 13 By Nila Smith I t happens from time to time. You’re out and about and suddenly something catches your eye, a big bold beautiful flower garden. You can’t look away, because there is a lot to see and it is all attractive. For some people the concept behind their flower gardens could be labeled simply as “go big or go home.” It’s a matter of personal taste and is dictated only by the imagination and the size of the area available for flower gardening. For other’s smaller is better, and dainty petite beds scattered about a lawn can have the same impact, maybe with a more subdued “wow factor’ but none-the-less the beds are still capable of getting attention, if they are put together well. So, how does one do that? How do you “put together well” a bed that will grab the attention of the passersby? Rule number one has to be plant what you like. If you are planting for show and don’t love the flowers you are planting, you won’t love the final outcome, you won’t care about caring for them, and soon the smack-in-the-face that the neighbors see is not a beautiful flower bed, but rather an unsightly mass of dead and dying plants. So, if some popular gardening The front of the Smith’s Palmer Ave. residence on Lincoln’s north side looks like a tropical oasis every year. Photos by Nila Smith The “wow factor” flower garden Continued ■ ■