Designing a border

Sorry for the barrage of topics-I went to Tatton Park show yesterday and have come back highly dissatified with my garden :(
My border is based on one thing-blue. Consequently, there's very little cohesion to it.
I've been reading up online and most sites say to choose plants for how they will contribute to the structure of the border, and to stick to big clumps of fewer species if you don't have much space.
But I want plants I like, and lots of different ones :(
Might it be possible get a small area with a lot of different plants to look even OK, or should I consider cutting down?

 

I keep looking at books and I was at Tatton Park on Sunday as well but you know what I think you should just do what suits you. I have a tendency to find a space and fill it with whatever I like the look of.I love so many different plants I would need a garden the size of Tatton Park to put them all in. There is no rhyme or reason to my garden and I'm sure the designers amongst us would be in despair but I love it. Any way half the fun is moving things around and and making it up as you go along

 

There were some lovely gardens but remember they are only lovely for a few days of the show. Your border has to look beautiful for a much longer period. There is not much point in it being fantastic for just two weeks.
I would go for lots of different plants. Large groups are OK if you have a huge border.
My front border is working OK. I have restricted it to blues, whites and pink and they go OK. Soft billowy things like gypsophila whith agapanthus and echinaceas sticking up.
I have catmint, blue sage, pink osteospernum, white and blue lavender, pinkish thyme,pinkish echinacea, white echinacea, pink gypsophila, blue agapanthus, blue flax, blue cornflowers have seeded in, blue scabious died, grape hyacinths for early colour, snowdrops. Its looking really good at present, even my wife likes it. Its only a small border.

 

I tried colour co-ordinating borders, whether it be soft pastels or hot hot colours. It didn't last - not only because I am a plantaholic, but also one main driver was to have something in flower every week of the year.

So now my attention to colour and size is now just a consideration when adding a new plant. Thinking when its gonna flower, and with what. In early spring, my colour palatte is yellow, with leavening of blue and mauve, then as the summer bites, the pinks, blues and whites move to the fore, leavened with scarlets and orange. Come autumn the scarlets of fuchsias and yellows of rudbeckia and evening primrose take centre stage, In winter, green with flashes of colour, from viburnum, cyclamen etc.

BTW - gardens have elastic walls - there is always space to put a new plant - drifts may take a bit of planning :D

 

DB how about thinking changing seasons of colour.
Can we see a photo of your garden at the stage it is please to help us give you some ideas.

Rome was not built in a day gardens evolve over the years and we are always happy to be changing.

Good Luck.

 

There is a gardening programme on this Friday all about colour and how different colour schemes work together, so I will watch that.

But with me what usually happens is I plant things wherever I think will suit them, then after a while I think wow that looks good but it's usually by pure accident :D

I have got a section that I am working on using tall plants in yellows, whites and red/oranges, looking good at the moment and am planning on moving some yellow things from other parts of the garden to that bed.

It's all about moving and changing things. I also have a red plant and purple one that look brilliant together.

 

And if it doesn't look good I'll move it

 

Thats what gardening is all about enjoy.

 

I'd have a wander around the neighbourhood and see which gardens you like, maybe take pics or make notes, then review and see what the common factors are. Not trying to copy a garden, just figuring out what you like and what you could live with. (eg over the road has a nicely manicured lawn and a few architectural plants. I love to look at it but would hate it for my own!)

I looked around my borders to see which I liked and which I wasn't so sure of. Seems I like those with something that ties the border together, though each border is different from the rest. So either colours (one corner is oranges and blues only), form (one is conifers), or type of plant (one border is trying to be cottage garden) - in each case there are odd plants I've taken a fancy to in between, but so long as the backbone is there the oddities seem to fit in.

The border I'm not happy with is actually my largest and the one with most sun - it's where I've left the most plants from previous owner and I've just added willy nilly, and to be honest it looks a mess. Spacing is out, heights are wrong, colours don't fit. I'll change it for next year - maybe plant up the roses from pots and into that border. If I can fit them in then hopefully the rest of the border can be shuffled a little, and the roses should act as a backbone so it will hang together.

 

Wow you've put a lot of thought into that oogie haven't you. Sounds like a good plan. Last year was our first in the house, and the previous owners didn't really use the garden apart from put a pond in which i like. So last year we put flowers in the one border we prepared but they weren't perenial or hardy so they all died up.

This year i really want to try and get some plants that aren't going to die after a year otherwise its going to be to expensive to replace it all every year.

 

Thanks for the replies everyone :D
I constantly look at other gardens as I'm walking about, but I've never seen a border I really like. Well, not that would fit in my garden anyway!
One thing I have, that I haven't noticed in any others is very low growing plants at the front-don't know if that's the problem?
For Scotkat, here are some pictures-
In June-I was surprised myself to see how much it had filled out!
And here's a little panorama now-
1 The fuschia and agapanthus will be staying in pots, there's salvia, primula, penstemon and mint(I think) to go in the border.
2 You can see on the June pic that there used to be delphiniums and a Jacob's ladder. These finished flowering and looked really scruffy so I cut them back, which has left gaping holes!
3 Sweet peas doing OK.
4 Hanging baskets also growing a storm. Not bad for �£3 worth of plants in each :D
5 The constantly shaded yard where I try to grow a few shade lovers. Something has to be done with the forget-me-not pot-not sure what though.

The only really obvious thing to me is that the foxglove is waaaay too big for the border, so I am going to do a rejig of the pots and get it in one in the shady yard.
Any and all other opinions most welcome :D

 

Any thoughts? Critisism welcome :D

 

You'd be surprised what you can fit into a border! I think the trick is how to shrink something you like to fit. eg my "english country garden" is no more than a 6' x2' representation with only 5 types battling it out, a proper version IMHO should have dozens of plants in a border 5' deep as a minimum! I just took the idea of height and plant type and trimmed it down.

Low plants in front - I think that's always shown as the way to do it, low at front and tall at the back. But your border is quite small, 5'x18"'? So at the front I think you can start with plants that are no smaller than 2-3' tall, and behind 4-6'. Penstemons would be great in there. You may need to zigzag the planting to get two layers in.

I'd put in an evergreen climber on a trellis behind the border - the expanse of fence is adding to the perceived low habit of the planting. Then the odd tall flower won't seem at all out of place. I have a lot of fence looking empty this year so I took the cheap way out and planted sunflowers all the way along it, next year I will have to do better!

Maybe a couple (no more) of evergreen shrubs too or it might be stark in winter. They don't have to be conifers, though there are a couple of 6' thin ones like Skyrocket. Pittosporum tenuifolium "variegata" can be trimmed to shape as desired. (I think they say protect in winter but I've never done that in 10yrs in Berks & Surrey).

Hanging baskets look good - I also bought cheap plants early on and I'm very pleased. It always seems like a waste of money buying the bigger plants later on.

I like your troughs going up the fence - I might try something similar, though I'm not sure where I could put them.

 

Hi daisybelle,

Choisya Sundance is a very striking evergreen which will give you a splash of yellow on a dull winters day and you can keep it in check with pruning, it also has pretty white flowers in the spring. Hellibores bloom in late winter, and will give a bit of greenery when the perinnials lose their leaves.

 

Hi daisybelle,

Choisya Sundance is a very striking evergreen which will give you a splash of yellow on a dull winters day and you can keep it in check with pruning, it also has pretty white flowers in the spring. Hellibores bloom in late winter, and will give a bit of greenery when the perinnials lose their leaves.