If you decided that this is the summer that you want to get serious about outdoor floral arranging, then you picked a good year. The experts agree that the past two growing seasons in Massachusetts were tough — or, as Shawn Giurleo, of Millbrook Farms in Concord puts it, “horrible.” But this year is different — a nice balance of rain and sun has set us up for a bloomin’ great summer for flowers.

       “This year has been awesome,” says Cindy Anderson, a nursery manager for Winston Flowers. “This is the way it’s supposed to be. The product this year is gorgeous.”

But don’t get too dazzled by the color, advises Giurleo. The trend these days is to be as conscious about texture as you are about color.

“Create texture in a pot,” says Giurleo. “Flowers come and go, but texture can make it look good even when the flowers aren’t in full bloom.”

The sweet potato vine (especially in chartreuse and black), licorice plant, and even grasses are great ways to build texture. Coleus is another favorite — and since it comes in about 30 different colors, you can find one that provides just the right accent for your pot.

“Personally, I like to use foliages,” she says. “And I like to use flowering materials as an accent, rather than the other way around.”

You might think that flower choices remain pretty much the same from one year to the next. Not so. The gardening industry is in high gear these days. Anderson thinks this sharp focus on home is due to an odd combination of global unrest, high gas prices and Martha Stewart.

“There’s a greater interest in gardening,” says Anderson, who’s been in the gardening business for more than 25 years. “It’s been growing for a while. I think it’s because people are staying closer to home, for whatever reason. And Martha Stewart has been a very good influence on the industry.”

The result is that there’s new product all the time. “There’s always a new color,” Anderson says, “always a new shape.”

“African daisies were just so-so a few years ago,” she says. “Now they have an incredible range of colors.”

Giurleo credits a company called Proven Winners with pushing the industry forward.

“They’ve been the biggest thing in the past five years,” he says. “They are the rage. Their flowers are very hearty, long lasting, and heat- and cold-resistant. Just amazing.”

Giurleo knows how to recognize a trend. His Millbrook Farms, located on Route 2 in Concord, has been family owned and operated for the past 20 years. It’s hard work, but he likes it.

“It’s not like selling cars,” he says. “People are very happy when they come to buy flowers.”

* Try to resist instant gratification when shopping for plants to pot. The way a flower looks in the store isn’t necessarily how it will look in a couple of weeks. Think long term, how the flowers will evolve. Non-flowering plants provide visual stability to a container.

* Think monochromatically. Don’t be afraid to create pots of similarly colored plants. It’s one of the new tends.

* Keep everything in scale. People often try to cram too much into a single container. And buy pots and plants that match the scale of your spaces, indoors and out.

* Before choosing your flowers, take a close look at your light-to-shade ratio. People think they have a general idea about how much light an area gets, but they’re often way off.

* Don’t forget the pots. They don’t have to be terra cotta, you know. Companies are re-thinking pots, and have come up with some very contemporary designs. The pots can be as stylish and eye-catching as the flowers, and they may last a lot longer, too.