How to Make a Gardening Flyer

Whether it's to teach beginners the basics of gardening, giving education to your customers, or helping create a community of vegetable growers, a flyer about gardening can be an efficient handout to educate others about a rewarding hobby and way of life. The key to any good flyer is to give only the information necessary in a quick and simple format that is easy to read and understand. For gardeners, you already have a captive audience interested in learning more; all you have to do is create the way they will view the information.

Paper and pen or pencil

Basic computer programs (such as MS Word or Works)

Printer (optional)

Make a list of all the items you feel should be included in your flyer. This may have to do with planting seeds, garden layout, and factual information about your zone, frost-free dates, or specific information about perennials, annuals, or fruits and vegetables.

Choose your layout. Do you want your flyer to have a tri-fold style, be a simple one sheet handout, or a bi-fold front-and-back flyer? The layout you pick can determine how you want to cover your topic. Larger open areas tend to involve more in-depth information, while small spaces are good for quick tips or trivia.

Write your content. Choose how much space you want to devote to each topic. Keep your content short and to the point to fit into the space requirements for each section.

Don't be afraid to change your mind in the planning stages. For a vegetable gardening flyer, if you find yourself taking up seventy-five percent of your space talking about tomatoes, consider creating more than one flyer and breaking each down to just the one vegetable, rather than trying to cram all the other vegetables into the last twenty-five percent.

Plot out your flyer on paper first by drawing in the boxes of content and labeling where you want specific photos or illustrations. Don't forget to include your contact information, if necessary.

Create the final flyer by designing in the photos of plants or vegetables (either highlighted or used as a background) and apply different fonts for your text. Make something pleasing to the eye and important to the reader. Cut information that doesn't seem necessary or clutters up the page.

Determine if you will be printing your flyers from home or "outsourcing" to your local print and copy shop. Consider the costs of paying for copies versus the toll the flyers may take on your color ink. Five dollars to Staples may not be so much when compared to the $30 it will cost you to buy a new color cartridge.

Consider your fonts and don't overdo changing up the style. A nice bold header may look just as good with a simple font than having something difficult to read for the sake of beefing up your design.

Don't overflow your flyer. If you have trouble focusing on a specific area of the flyer, you have flooded the reader with too much information in too little space.