If you don't have room for a full garden, having flower beds along your walkways, or in a windowsill pot are great ways to add some beauty to your property, and can also be a place where you can grow a few choice vegetables or herbs. Flower beds lining a walkway are only limited by your imagination, and can be easier to care for than a full-blown garden. You will need a lot of the same tools, but the time you spend keeping flower beds beautiful will be substantially less than a full garden would be.

When choosing plants for your flower beds, remember to consider how much space you have before you go about and buy. If you only have six inches of planting space, you don't want plants that will spread out over a two-foot space. In this case, you may want to buy some plants for your flower beds that will grow up instead of out, and then get some greens that will fill out the space below. If you get spreading plants, you are going to spend a lot of time trimming down your flower beds.

After you decide how much space you have, and what types of plants and flowers will go best in your flower beds, you can look online for examples or suggestions. There are many gardening and home improvement sites that have amazing and beautiful ideas for gardens and flower beds alike. A walk around your neighborhood can even help you with ideas, and may give you an idea of what plants do the best in your particular climate. You may also find color schemes and ideas that you love by looking around, and this may help you figure out exactly what you need. Ask a salesperson at your local garden center for ideas and suggestions as well.

Once you have your flower beds planted and on their way, don't forget to protect them. A big problem some people have with flower beds planted near walkways is that people often don't pay attention to them, and they are easily destroyed by someone thoughtlessly walking through them. You can help stop stuff like this happening by getting some sort of barrier. You can find stones that stand on end or mini fences that will form a barrier between your sidewalk and your flower beds. When you have something like this, people are less likely to step there.