Moving to a new home provides a fresh canvas for self-expression, both indoors and out. If you have always wanted to plant a garden but have never had space, now is the perfect time to create something beautiful. Ideal Supplies is the Covington, KY, hardware store offering all of the landscape supplies you need to start a garden, with team members always happy to share their best green thumb suggestions.

Review these three tips from the local hardware store before starting your garden:

Choose the Best Site

Select a site in your yard that provides the right amount of sun exposure for the flowers, vegetables, and herbs you want to plant. Most vegetables and plants require six hours of sunlight per day to thrive. Perform a soil test to determine if the pH level is workable. Levels between 6.2 and 6.8 are ideal for most plants to absorb nutrients.

Remove Weeds & Grass

Use a flat-edged spade to till your garden site. This removes grass and weeds, so your plants have room to grow. If you are concerned about losing quality topsoil during the removal process, place eight to 10 sheets of newspaper over your garden bed and soak it with water, which will smother the weeds and grass as it decomposes. Cover the wet paper with 4 to 6 inches of quality soil to finish the bed.

Select & Plant Seeds

Select and plant seeds based on your soil type, the level of sun exposure, and your hardiness zone. Hardiness zones in Kentucky range from 5b to 6b. Plant seeds according to packet directions and consider using a wide variety of flowers and herbs that grow in different seasons. Doing so means you will have a garden in bloom for most of the year.

Discuss these and other helpful gardening tips with the friendly folks at Ideal Supplies. The local hardware store offers mulch, sand and gravel, and plenty of other landscape supplies to help you create a private oasis. Call (859) 491-6666 to get started or visit the website for more information. See what customers are saying about the hardware store on Yelp.