Nick Bailey explains how to bulk up your borders on a budget
Creating a themed display needn't cost a fortune if you follow these tips
You may have noticed I talk a lot about repeating plants through borders. In fact, it’s a repeating theme in this column! But for good reason. Garden designers often repeat plants through a scheme and you’ll see the same approach in well-designed public gardens, too. The reason for it, of course, is that it provides rhythm, repetition and a cohesion to the landscape. And it doesn’t need to be on a huge scale –
I do the same thing in pots. The challenge with running a repeated plant through borders at home is the cost. Perennials and grasses typically retail for £5-10, so if you multiply that by 10 or 20 plants, the costs start to soar. But there are plenty of ways of ge ing the look for a fraction of the price:
Splitting new stock
Gardencentres and nurseries are about to fill up with perennials and grasses for the new season. Some are in small pots (see panel), but others can be bought in 2 litre containers. Many of these larger plants can be split prior to planting, turning one plant into four or more. Multistemmed species (rather than those with a single crown, such as heucheras) are ideal candidates. The likes of lysimachia ‘Firecracker’, deciduous artemisia, bidens, helianthus ‘Lemon
Queen’, some asters, ground cover euphorbias, achillea, hesperantha, vinca, anaphalis, hemerocallis and crocosmia can all be split straight from the pot. And many grasses can be treated this way, too. A single 2 litre pot of Stipa tenuissima, for example, can be broken up into 10 plus plantlets and grown on. The same goes for milium, miscanthus and ophiopogon.
Perennial cuttings
If you’ve got a favourite dahlia, delphinium or lupin, try starting them this month under glass or in a protected place in a tray of compost. As new shoots emerge cut them off at the base with a li le bit of tuber/root a achedand treat them like softwood cu ings. Started this early they stand a reasonable chance of flowering this year. Not to mention you get to quadruple your stock of a favourite plant, ready for border repetition, for free!
Growing from seed
There’s nothing especially innovative about growing from seed but it does allow you to choose bulky, impactful annuals such as cleome and
Nicotiana sylvestris or first-year flowering perennials such as achillea or gaillardia, which can go on to make a dramatic repeating theme in your borders.
Splitting your own plants
Now's a good moment to split your own existing perennials. Using the back to back fork method or a large serrated knife, separate chunks of root and foliage from the parent plant and spread the propagules through your borders.