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Mixborder - the most fashionable flower garden

Sooner or later, a person who loves flowers comes to the idea of ​​creating a composition from different plants - flowering and decorative leafy. Such a mixed flower garden is called a mixborder. They suit him so that he does not lose his attractiveness all season.

Large compositions of a natural, natural look, which is a mixborder, are now at the peak of popularity among gardeners. We will not lag behind the garden fashion and will understand the principles of constructing a discreet multi-tiered flower bed of free outlines.

General issues

  • Mixborders are usually placed near fences and buildings in order to smooth out their unnaturalness and fit into the structure of the garden more concisely, as well as to decorate the boundaries of the site or hide their privacy from neighbors. Less often they arrange the so-called "double-sided" mixborder, which is located on any free spot in the garden. It is more difficult to arrange it, since the plants need to be planted so that the flower garden is beautiful from any angle of view along its entire length.
  • For a mixborder, choose plants that require minimal maintenance and remain decorative throughout the season. No covering exotics! Why do you need spring "gaps" in the composition.
  • Evaluate the area that you want to set aside for the future flower garden according to the type of soil. Most perennials like loose loamy soil with a high organic matter content. Fertile soil is a guarantee of the beauty and health of plants, because they have to grow in one place for several years. Moreover, you will no longer have the opportunity to dig up the soil, only loosening and fertilizing fertilizing will be available (mulching with organic matter, feeding randomly or with nutrient solutions).
  • If the plants you have selected have slightly different requirements for soil and watering, combine them into groups of "interest" and, if possible, remove dry-loving crops from "water-lovers".

Flowering schedule

A mixborder usually looks like a wide and winding bed. In order for the composition to always be beautiful, it is important to choose plants so that something blooms in the mixborder from spring to late autumn. However, do not get carried away with a large number of different plants. Excessive variegation does not suit a mixborder. This is not an annual flower bed. Preference should be given to discreet plants with elegant inflorescences.

It is better to plant medium-sized and low-growing plants of the same species in groups to get several expressive color spots that should set the tone, that is, bloom, in the middle of summer. Moreover, groups of simultaneously flowering plants should be located throughout the mixborder, smoothly flowing into groups of decorative leafy plants or those that have already faded or are yet to bloom.

Stocking density

Even before planting plants in a flower garden, it is important to know their height, diameter in an adult state, and density. You need to clearly imagine how this plant will look at every moment of its life: both at the time of flowering and at the time of wilting. Of course, it is better to select those that keep their shape well (euphorbia multicolor, astilbe, stonecrop prominent). But even without plants prone to falling apart (peonies, perennial asters, rudbeckia, lilies, milk-flowered and medium bells, New Zealand delphiniums), sometimes the composition cannot be made. The way out is to intersperse the "unstable" with "persistent" ones or to install light iron supports of green color (so that they are not conspicuous).

Remember that the full picture of the composition will open before you only 3-4 years after planting perennials, when they grow properly. Therefore, it is so important to initially observe the planting density so that the neighbors in the flower garden are not forced to fight for a place in the sun. It is possible to plant annuals on empty places, but some of them grow great and can easily "drown out" not yet matured specimens of perennial plants. It is better to mulch the empty places with bark or decorative chips.

Tiered

The foreground of any mixborder is a place for the smallest of its "inhabitants" - saxifrage, styloid phlox, thyme, soapwort, lamb, coin loosestrife, veronica filamentous, alissum, obriety, arabis, tenacious, periwinkle. To designate a clear border of a flower garden, dense low plants are suitable - hosts, heucheras, garden geraniums, undersized perennial carnations, border chrysanthemums, primroses, dwarf astilbe.

Behind these flowers, you can plant a strip of spring small-bulbous (muscari, redwood, chionodox) and bulbous, which do not require annual digging (daffodils, botanical tulips). Their withering leaves will cover the plants of the foreground, and the plants of the next tier will gradually "advance" from behind, growing in spring.

Next, place medium-sized (Gaillardia, Coreopsis, Rudbeckia, Veronica spikelet and long-leaved, Stonecrop, Yarrow, Echinacea, Lilies, Daylilies, Monarda, Cornflowers, Irises, Liatris, Bells, Spotted loosestrife, Tall paniculata. The height of the curtains along the entire length of the mixborder should vary to varying degrees. But too tall specimens among medium-sized ones are inappropriate. The higher the plant, the further from the edge of the mixborder it should be. Such plants will act as tapeworms.

Tapeworms, or skeletal plants, can act as tall flowers (delphiniums, aconites, stock-roses, buzulniks), which can be planted in a continuous line or leave gaps, as well as medium-sized conifers and some decorative leafy and beautifully flowering shrubs - they should be located singly at irregular intervals. You should not get carried away with shrubs, especially flowering specimens, so as not to overload an already complex composition with volume and color.

For the same reason, you should not settle lush plants with large flowers in a mixborder. It is very difficult to find an environment for them. If you really want to include, for example, roses in the "national team", then it is best to plant a couple of seedlings from the edge of the flower garden or give preference to ground cover roses in the foreground. Then you will not have to look for partners for them, at least from the outside, and so they can be covered for the winter so that other perennials do not fall under the covering material, which in this case can easily vanish.

If you can't imagine your mixborder without roses, you can plant tall varieties in the background that can winter without shelter, for example: Blanc Double de Coubert (Rugosa hybrid, white, double, height 120-150 cm), Sir Thomas Lipton (Rugosa hybrid , white, semi-double or double, height, 150-200 cm), Hansaland (hybrid Rugosa, red, semi-double, height 150-180 cm), Foetida Persiana (hybrid Foetida, yellow, double, height 150-200 cm), John Davis (hybrid Kordesii, pale pink, flower shape like old roses, height 200-250 cm), Prairie Dawn (scrub, pink, semi-double, height 100-150 cm), Prairie Youth (scrub, pink, semi-double, height 150- 180 cm), William Baffin (Kordesii hybrid, pink, semi-double, height 180-200 cm) and others.

In some cases, for the sake of completeness, you can run it over a high lattice fence, against which a mixborder, clematis is located.

Groups of plants that flare up brightly during the season need to be "diluted" with a light, airy "suite" of kermek, pearl mussel, forget-me-nots, cleoma, gypsophila, and various ornamental cereals.

"I want to dacha", No. 4, 2014 (Nizhny Novgorod)

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