Planting schemes.

A rainy good morning to ya

So I was stood in my greenhouse pondering on the fact that I may well have got carried away with my growing from seed this year as I have masses of plants an trying to work out where I was going to plant them all. Well that got me wondering about planting schemes

So does anyone out there have any good rules of thumb for creating simple ish planting schemes.

 

Hi xris

What plants do you have in the greenhouse?

 

Well at the moment I have alot of snap dragons and white fox gloves but those I'm going to mix in along a fence I did have a ton of marigolds to the point where I ended up giving alot away as I had more than I could cram into my boarders.

I was thinking more about ideas for next year as I do tend to just grow a whole load of stuff with out really planning where to put it.

 

don't intermix to many different plants, sort of keep them either in patches or like gertrude jekyll suggested in "drifts" (lengthy patches) , unless you want a wild effect, repeat them elswhere in the border 1 or 2 times, make sure you have some interest all year round and try to plant in a way, that faded plants might not leave gaps.

if you know your plants and their looks already (instead of buying unknown plants), that helps alot, so you can determine habit, flower type etc and imagine what will look good together, but still they might not do what you imagined, like if the weather lets you down like this year:-)

there are design principles for shapes and colours and height and anchor plants and what softens spiky plants up etc etc etc but you best get some books on that topic, library etc, its to comprehensive for describing it here, isn't it??

I planned a lot last year, replanted and planted and it kind of looks quite queer in some places, where I used plants which I never had before (only seen on the web) so I couldnt really judge their looks - so I ended up with mismatching colours, because it's just to much stuff in the garden now... but I also had some nice patches with unintended effects

this autumn/spring I will regroup again, and possibly the following year and....

 

Hi Xris. I would agree with Loveweeds about colour and drifts or groups.

There are loads of different styles, and when I started gardening I looked through lots of pictures in books - noting the pictures, and hence style, that I liked.

The guidelines that I have used are quite simple.

1) Limit the colour palette. In my case I have used the soft reds, blues, pinks purples etc but not sharp reds, yellow or orange. That way most plants within that palette make attractive companions. Having said that too much can be booring and an odd jolt can be good.

2) Plant in groups as they give much more impact that single plants.

3) Use long flowering plants. That way there should be plenty of things in flower at the same time.



Clematis montana and Wisteria. The colours seem to go well together and the size gives impact. These are not long flowering - but you don't get much choice in climbers.



Centranthus ruber is very long flowering, and seems to go with the Hesperis, Lupins and Poppies.



These are all very long flowering. Geranium 'Patricia' is a sterile hybrid, which means that it can flower for up to 20 weeks. Centranthus is not sterile but also flowers for as long. After It finishes in July, cut it back and it will be in flower again within 3 to 4 weeks. And Campanula poscharskyana flowers in both the spring/summer and again in the autumn.



Hemerocallis and two types of Astilbe also flower for quite a long time.

 

lovely, lovely, Peter !!!
in the middle pic you have sparingly used whites to brighten things up
Xris -white can be very usefull amongst other plants but will always stand out, therefore you can either use it sparingly or you have to use it in a way that it is ok to draw attention

 

I have actually been thinking about doing a white boarder, I've grown some white fox gloves this year to see what they are like. An white snap dragons.

 

worth a try !! include sth to break the white monotony. only white will be somewhat boring, but if you have some (just a little) colour in it -that will emphasize the white

 

I like to change the colour with the season (what season-this year it's just all the same). I don't like hot pinks, reds or orange early in the year but love them from August onwards, similarly I don't like pink shades until about mid-May-June and then I think they're lovely. The exception is that I do like my large scarlet poppies when they come early summer but I think that's because there's just one big clump of them and they provide an interesting focal point for a week or so.

So my year starts with predominantly creams (hellebores & early primroses), white (snowdrops & white crocus), green/pink blush (hellebores) and soft yellow then on to deeper yellows, purple and mauve, then blues, pinks and purples and towards the end of the summer deeper reds, oranges, ochre and the autumn leaf colours. Throughout the year there are greens, white and creams. I think it's because here in Britain our natural light changes as the year progresses.

 

I like a whiter shade of pale, skip a light fandango, do cartwheels across the floor.
Sorry for being frivolous, I've had a few
God is that the time.

 

you can tell

 

yes , the light can make quite adifference!!
this year I was lucky by chance because I had oxey-daisies the first time, never had lots of white before, these combined with lovely light pink malvae made quite an profusion to lift the spirits
this year they turned out to be a nice bright speck in the mostly dull weather, but
in a hot, sunny year the same might look colourless