A border full of flowers and color this summer? With this handy step-by-step plan plus plant tips you can get started right away.
Good plan
If you dream of a border that will turn into a feast of flowers this season, you can immediately start making plans. Ice Saints (11-14 May) is almost over, so no more chance of frost. The coast is safe to plant and sow. Not just at random, of course, because a good plan is preceded by a good plan. Take a large sheet of paper on which you first sketch the contours and then the filling in of the border – taking the circumstances in the garden into account, of course. The best place for a flower border is in partial shade, where there is sun for four to five hours a day. A spot in full sun is also suitable, although on hot days this requires a bit more from the stamina of the plants. A shaded border can be wonderful if you like tough foliage plants, but offers fewer opportunities for colorful summer bloomers.
Plumes & Ears
Swaying plumes and soaring spikes create a dazzling spectacle. Inspirational:
† plume poppy (Macleaya cordata ‘Spetchley Ruby’)
† beautiful candle (Gaura lindheimeri ‘Cherry Brandy’)
† Feather Spireea (Astilbe ‘Mighty Chocolate Cherry’)
† pimpernel (Sanguisorba ‘Cangshan Cranberry’)
You can also bring a lot of color to the garden with medium-sized, shrub-like shrubs. Some flower profusely, others provide beautifully colored leaves. A few favourites:
- Mexican lemon blossom (Choisya ternata ‘Sundance’) with yellow-green foliage.
- shrub veronica Hebe ‘Silver Dollar’ with purple-green foliage.
- Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ with purple leaves.
- Ganzerik (Potentilla fruticosa ‘Red Ace’ or ‘Arc-en-ciel’) with striking orange-red flowers.
- bushmalva (Lavatera) gives a sea of flowers in all shades of pink.
- Hydrangea (Hydrangea) in many colors and types, such as the velvet hydrangea and panicle hydrangea.
- Miracle tree (Ricinus communis ‘Carmencita Red’) with red leaves and special fluffy flowers.
- butterfly bush (Buddleja) from high to low, with graceful purple and lilac plumes, like the Miss Ruby. The multicolored ‘Flower Power’ is also exciting.
With natural-looking grasses that you can also encounter on the verge, you bring a dash and color to a border. These are recommendations:
† finger grass (Panicum virgatum ‘Rehbraun’) turns reddish brown at the tips.
† diamond grass (Molinia caerulea ‘Transparent’) with a soft pink tinge.
† feather grass (stipa) for a cloudy, greenish-yellow accent.
Wishlist
The next step is to make a list of flowers and flowering plants that you love. What colors and shapes do you want to see and what do you want to pick from the garden? Get inspiration from gardening books, magazines, blogs and social media. You will soon be able to make a choice from this list of favorites by providing them with a ‘passport’. Write down these characteristics behind each plant:
- Flowering time (spring, summer, autumn)
- Inflorescence (high, low, bushy, transparent)
- Pitch (sun, partial shade, shade)
- Flower shape (ears, panicles, umbels, buttons, daisies)
- Colors (as available at nursery or garden center).
Butterflies in the border
With colorful screen flowers you bring a lot of life to the border, because butterflies and other insects can easily land on them. Beautiful examples;
† Yarrow in all kinds of colors such as Achillea millefolium ‘Summer Pastels’. The dazzling Achillea ‘Walther Funcke’ has orange-red umbels.
† Heaven key in pink flowering varieties, such as Sedum telephium ‘Atropurpureum’ with very dark, almost black leaves.
† royal weed that grows high in the border, such as Eupatorium maculatum ‘Purple Bush’.
• The elegant lace flower Ammi visnaga ‘Green Mist’ with light green umbels.
good soil
Start with the basics; after all, the soil is the breeding ground for everything you want to grow there. Therefore ensure the best conditions. Good soil crumbles, is dark and crumbly (well-draining) and contains plant debris (humus), which allows it to act as a ‘sponge’. If this is not the case, turn the soil in the border first and mix it with organic compost soil.
Once you start, you will never get tired of them: dahlias. They go into the ground like unsightly tubers, where they grow into the queens of the border. Available in many shapes and colours, there is always a dahlia to match the border.
Color in the mix
In order to arrive at a nicely coordinated color mix, it is useful to first make a so-called ‘stain plan’. Cut ‘clouds’ from colored paper and slide them on the sketch of the border. One cloud is at least three plants of the same type and color. You can also opt for larger groups of five or seven plants. An odd number is best integrated into the whole. When mixing colors, you can opt for shades that follow each other in the color range, such as red, orange and yellow, or for beautiful contrasts that reinforce each other. Often these are colors that are far apart, such as purple and orange. A ton-sur-ton mix can also be beautiful, with different gradations of one color.
Some plants never stop and continue to produce flowers. Examples of colorful go-getters:
† flame flower (like Phlox paniculata ‘Lavendercloud’†
† Bergamot plant (like Monarda ‘Scorpion’ or ‘Vintage Wine’†
† Licorice plant †Agastache ‘Hummingbird’†
† forest sage †Salvia nemorosa ‘Tanzerin’†
† Summer aster †Kalimeris mongolica ‘Antonia’†
† Beemdkrone (like the dark pink Knautia macedonica†
† Sun hat †Echinacea in all shades from pink to red†
† Knotweed (like the standout Persicaria ‘Red Dragon’†
† Nailwort (like the orange one Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’†
Keep it light
A border with ‘air’ in it looks natural and lush. Moreover, the plants will not crowd each other, but use each other’s qualities. Ornamental grasses are airy atmosphere makers to put between the foliage plants. With their mobile plumes they literally bring life to the border. But also screen flowers and ‘lace flowers’ give that feeling. These are often magnets for butterflies and bees, which makes the border even more lively.
Strong bloomers such as Cosmea and Zinnia are very easy to sow yourself and provide flowers all summer and autumn. Tip: sow them in trays first and then transplant the seedlings.
Showpieces
Always striking in solid colors is the hollyhock (Alcea rosea) or the purple mullein (Verbascum phoeniceum ‘Violetta’). Or consider fireworks, such as Kniphofia ‘Creamsicle’, or Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’.
color bombs
False poppy (Meconopsis cambrica ‘Frances Perry’) self-sows across the garden, bringing cheer everywhere with its orange-red flowers. Place a few plants in partial shade and let it wander around the yard choosing its best spots.
Sprinkle with pink and red
Atmosphere makers as elf track (Diascia personata) and cranesbill (Geranium riversleaianum ‘Russell Prichard’) weave themselves finely through other plants. Hanging over a low wall, the latter is also very beautiful. Colorful snake head (Penstemon ‘Garnet’) and marigolds (Tagetes patula ‘Disco Red’) fill in all the gaps.
Take the fence with you
Often a border is partly located along a fence that forms the decor of all the flowers. Need even more color? Then paint that background in a matching shade. Or plant a nice mix of colorful flowering creepers against it; the unsurpassed clematis ‘Perle d’Azur’ blooms for months into autumn – combined with fragrant honeysuckle and a decorative evergreen. But a climbing rose, firmly guided along a wall or wooden wall, is also an annual spectacle. For example, choose Rosa ‘Paul Transon’ or Rosa ‘Rhapsody in Blue’.
Add a tree?
The ornamental apple tree Malus ‘Red Sentinel’ is a beautiful red, which stays small and fits well in a border. The red apples are later a snack bar for birds.
Fixed and variable
The temptation is great to fill a border completely with perennials that come back every year. Also easy of course, because once they have been planted, the rest will take care of itself and you only have to keep some order now and then. But those who love gardening will also enjoy supplementing the border with summer bulbs and annual summer bloomers. It increases the choice of plants enormously and offers – certainly when it comes to color – much more spectacle. With summer bulbs, for example, think of dahlias and lilies, which really come into their own between perennials. The same goes for the exuberant summer bloomers that only last one season – the so-called annuals. Until frost sets in, they provide a continuous explosion of flowers.
Photography: GAP Photos, Getty Images
