We don’t know what kind of garden Kipling had in mind when he wrote, “Such gardens are not made by saying, oh, how beautiful, and sitting in the shade,” but it may have been a continuous-blooming garden or border that flowers from spring to fall.
The continuous-blooming garden is the aim of more garden lovers than any other type, and it is the most difficult to achieve.
Beginners usually start with annuals but soon realize that they must add bulbs and perennials, the backbone plants of the long-flowering garden, and then discover that even most of these have a short bloom season.
Combining Plants To Highlight The Garden
By careful selection, however, waves of bloom highlighting the garden throughout the year can be obtained from the combined use of annuals, perennials, and bulbous plants, such as lilies. Back them with flowering shrubs, and the whole becomes a gardening delight.
No two gardens are ever alike, as they reflect their owners’ tastes and needs. Some gardeners like pastel color schemes, while others long for brilliant effects.
However, no matter what plants we select for our gardens, we must evaluate their relationship to neighboring plants and the garden picture as a whole.
A large group of one variety may be spectacular in flower, but it will leave a blank space that will be difficult to obscure after it passes.
Some plants, delphiniums, for example, must be cut almost to the ground after their first flowering, so they must be placed next to plants that will cover up for them when they do not look attractive.
Then, in planning your border for continuous bloom, consider the soil and exposure. If yours is a windswept hilltop, avoid tall-growing plants that strong winds will quickly whip to pieces.
If your area is low and damp, avoid plants that demand hot, dry spots, and if you have a semi-shade, you will have to select accordingly.
Varieties That Will Fit
No matter what your situation, there are plant varieties that will “fit.” You may only sometimes be able to grow just what you want or some of the things you have seen elsewhere, but there is such a wide variety of material available that you can always plant a picture.
If your time is limited, make a garden manageable so that its care becomes manageable.
A modest, well-kept border filled with interesting, healthy plants is a distinct credit to you. But a large, unkept garden filled with mediocre varieties does not enhance your reputation as a gardener.
I’ve discovered that 5’ feet is the minimum border depth for a continuous color display.
Our English garden friends would not agree. They like to make borders 8’ to 12’ feet wide and truly make them superbly.
Let your space and the time you can devote to maintenance be your guide, but make sure your border is narrow enough for you to be satisfied with the result.
Plant With A Plan
Planning on paper before you start to plant is essential. If you try to plant without a plan, you may end up with a discouraging hodgepodge of this and that. Look to your catalogs for guidance in selecting the flowering plants you like.
Go through them carefully, noting the things you like or are familiar with. Then weigh the merits of each, estimating how they will combine with other plants, particularly from the standpoint of height, color, and bloom season.
Planning For A Border
In making a plan for a border, I’ve found that the most satisfactory procedure is to lay it out on a large sheet of paper, allowing 1” to 3” inch squares on paper to represent a square foot of ground space.
In this way, I have enough room on the plan to write in the name of the plants for various locations, their bloom season, height, color, and the quantity needed in each area I designate for them. Then, as you look at the plan, you have an instant idea of how the border will look.
For example, when you write, “Pacific hybrid delphinium, light blue, flowering early summer and fall, height 3’ to 7’ feet, three plants,” you have a descriptive notation.
When you glance at the plan, you get a mental picture of the plants as they will be in your garden. For an illustration of this, see below.
If you depend on the older method, where the plants in a list are keyed by number to their location in the plan, it is extremely difficult to get a clear picture of how your garden will look.
In printing the plans on pages 32 and 33 accompanying these suggestions, it was necessary to use the numbered key method, but the plans were developed exactly as I outlined above.
With your garden plan laid out in squares, transferring the arrangement to your border area is perfectly simple.
If you are one of those systematic folk who want everything just so, you can lay out the border area in 1’ foot squares with stakes and string, but staking it off into 5’ foot squares should be ample. This method allows you to transfer the plan to the ground readily.
The plan on pages 32 and 33 is broken into 4’ to 5’ foot square sections. You may use all four sections as shown or take one section and repeat it once or twice to fit your space.
If the space for your border is longer than 20’ feet, you may duplicate any number of the sections that you need with the assurance that there will not be any serious color clashes.
The border was designed to meet the desires of a client who wanted a minimum of red and orange and expressed the wish that numerous lilies highlight the design throughout the season.
All Season Border
Lilies have one extreme advantage in the all-season border: they easily fit in between other plants.
Three or five lily bulbs can be inter-planted among perennials without room for anything else. And lilies like such a location as they prefer a spot where the soil surface is well-shaded from the direct sun but where their flower stalks may stretch up into the full sunlight.
Narcissus, tulips, muscari, and scillas will provide color for early color. You will have many flowers throughout the planting in late spring, summer, and early fall.
A few show color well into autumn, and some bloom almost the entire season. If you garden where frosts hold off until late fall, add chrysanthemums, hardy asters, or other late-blooming perennials.
Numerous annuals should be added to take over after early flowering plants have passed. They are needed to follow the spring bulbs.
Some are indicated in the plan, but others should be included. They should be set out when nearly ready to bloom so that they begin their colorful work promptly.
The background had to be omitted in showing the accompanying plans, but its importance should be noticed.
Every garden or border will be more effective if its flowers can show off their beauty against a screen. Most garden folk prefer shrubs for this purpose, but where space is limited, a fence will do.
44659 by Romaine B. Ware