Building a balanced border
VISIT any nursery or garden centre in summer and you’ll see people impulse-buying plants.They’ll make a beeline for the flashy “stars” that stand out in the display beds – and ignore the less glamorous species.
But those “also-rans” are the backbone of a garden.They are the core plants that form the framework of a border. Once those are in place, you can decorate with show-off flowers. So if you’re really serious about having a garden that looks stylish all year round, start by thinking about how you assemble your basic building blocks.You don’t need any great design ability; anyone can do it – but there’s a knack.
The trick is to start small, choosing just three plants that look good together. If you want a basic blueprint, go for one upright plant, a bushy one and a short spreader, so that in a group the outline is roughly triangular.
IF YOU want to see the sort of thing I mean, stand Alchemilla mollis with Iris foetidissima and Helleborus orientalis – they have contrasting shapes and textures and are all easily grown, reliable performers for light shade.With one threesome under your belt, use a similar blueprint to make up other groups of three.
You could arrange trios of alpines in a small sink-garden on your doorstep, or make a small island bed in the lawn out of a threesome consisting of a birch tree with an evergreen Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenil and a carpet of dwarf spring bulbs growing in gravel at its feet.
When you’re making a whole border or an entire small garden, make up lots of trios and then join them together. There’s an easy way to make the planting scheme “stick together”: either repeat the same plant in several of your groups or else have one ground cover plant underlining the whole lot, which gives a great sense of continuity. Use an innocuous plant such as Alchemilla mollis, whose pleated, fan-shaped, apple-green leaves and airy sprays of limegreen flowers go with anything, as does the purplish-mauve foliage of Euphorbia dulcis “Chameleon”.
Naturally, growing conditions are something you need to think about when putting plants together. Plants such as Sedum spectabile, purple sage and lavender are superb for a dry, sunny spot; add trios of cat mint, mallow and silver artemisia to build up a fairly drought-resistant border, which you can gee up with spectacular alliums.
Place “building-block” plants so there’s room for the show-off kinds. Group tall building block shrubs at the back of a border and use chunky species to outline “planting bays” so that they create a leafy background. Or in a long, narrow border, you might arrange low, leafy ground cover as a living picture frame, outlining pockets of colourful annuals.