DIY flowerbed: tips for choosing plants and a practical guide to arrangement

Recommendation points

• Selection of materials for arranging flower beds and flower beds
• Arrangement of flower beds from “a” to “z”
• 11 practical tips for choosing plants
• Typical mistakes of a novice florist

After planning has been completed and a sketch of the future flower bed has been created, it is time to start work on its arrangement. The tips outlined in the article will allow you to quickly and inexpensively equip a flower bed, select and plant plants correctly, and also avoid some of the mistakes that beginners often make..

Selection of materials for arranging flower beds and flower beds

Even before starting work on planting plants, it is necessary to stock up on materials for fencing the flower bed. There are a great many options: from classic stone and wood to scrap materials – car tires or plastic bottles. You just have to look around, and the original material for the fence is found!

For example, old plates will give your flower bed a retro feel..

Pipe scraps can be used as mini fencing containers that can be filled with fine gravel or even plants with small flowers (like forget-me-nots).

Fences for a flower bed can be made of brick, natural stone, paving slabs, it can be made on cement mortar or by dry masonry.

Advice:you do not need to buy these building materials on purpose. Using and combining the available leftovers, you can make a magnificent fence, you just have to show your imagination.

Various types of fencing are made of wood, from a traditional picket fence to a multi-level fence made from sawn cuts of small diameter trunks.

Wicker fences look very nice. This technique is not difficult to master. The most important thing is to dig deeply into the vertical base – stakes so that the fence does not fall when weaving.

In a wide assortment in stores there is a large selection of ready-made prefabricated plastic fences, the advantage of which is ease of installation – most often they just need to be thrust into the ground. For large flower beds, delimiting lawns and flower beds, sheet plastic curbs are produced.

Metal and cast-iron fences can be made by someone who has a welding machine and knows how to use it. Such fences for flower beds need regular painting..

Also, when creating flower beds, you may need:

1. Roulette, twine, pegs.
2. Bayonet shovel.
3. Rake.
4. Watering can.
5. Hoe.
6. Gloves for garden work.
7. Geotextile.
8. Fertile soil, selected taking into account the planted plants.
9. Gravel bed.
10. Sand.
11. Sawdust or straw for mulching.

Arrangement of flower beds from “a” to “z”

According to a pre-drawn plan, using a tape measure, twine and pegs, markings are made on the ground. Inside the marked area, sod is removed (if necessary), the soil is carefully dug up (to a depth of at least 15 cm), roots and stones are removed.

If the soil in the place chosen for the flower bed turns out to be rocky or infertile, then you can use a simple trick – dig a pit with a depth of at least 20 cm, cover it with geotextiles and first pour a drainage layer of gravel and sand, and then soil. Thus, under a flower bed for annuals, you can use any site that seems to be completely unsuitable for planting plants..

Depending on the selected plants and the type of soil, sand, peat, manure, mineral fertilizers, straw, sawdust are applied. Digging is done again, the earth is leveled with a rake, it spills well. It is better to start planting seedlings the next day so that the soil dries out a little..

Planting is carried out according to the sketch. If flower seeds are sown, then proceed according to the attached instructions.

When planting seedlings, it is necessary to consider how much the plant should grow. For planting, holes are dug, spilled with water. The plant is rolled from the container into the hand and gently moved into the hole. For this purpose, you can use containers made of coconut fiber, from which seedlings can not be removed..

After the end of planting, the flower bed is abundantly spilled with water. Watering must be done very carefully so that the seedlings and sown seeds are not washed out of the ground..

Now you can proceed with the construction of the conceived fence, sprinkling with gravel mixture.

11 practical tips for choosing plants

1. When choosing plants, one should be guided not only by the beauty and brightness of their flowers, but also by how decorative their leaves look. In the periods between flowering, it is they who will be able to give the flower bed an interesting look. For example, hosts, geychera, periwinkle are distinguished by beautiful leaves.

2. To decorate the edges of the flower bed, a ground cover plant with dim small flowers is selected. Their task is to provide a visual transition from a flower bed to a lawn or path. Spirea, lungwort, sedum, periwinkle are suitable for this purpose..

3. When selecting, it is necessary to take into account the conditions under which all plants will be comfortable. That is why plants that love frequent watering cannot be planted in the same flowerbed with those that prefer dry soil. For example, you cannot plant irises and hydrangeas, periwinkles and venus shoes next to each other..

4. For mixborders and groups, it is best to choose long-lived plants that do not require frequent transplanting, for example, peonies, daylilies, delphiniums, hazel grouses.

5. Small plants with bright flowers – petunias, salvias, marigolds, cannes, pelargonias and begonias.

6. If there is not a lot of space on the site, you should think about arranging flower beds or flower beds under trees. Many plants take root well under their crowns. These include lilies of the valley, dicenters, crocuses. Clefthoof is perfect as a ground cover plant..

7. Don’t forget about greenery. No matter how pleasing to the eye bright and cheerful colors of flowering plants, ornamental greenery in a flower bed should occupy at least 30% of the area. Sometimes it is worth planting a green island on lush blooming flower beds, for example, a ball of evergreen boxwood.

8. Rose is a very capricious plant. The experience of many flower growers suggests that it is better not to plant it in flower beds, it can be either a tapeworm plant, or exist among its own kind in a rose garden.

9. Plants, the flowering period of which stretches for the whole summer, can become a real find, these include phlox, astilbe, garden geraniums of various types.

10. There are plants that are best not used for flower beds, this is due to the fact that they need to be planted much later than other flowers and dug out for the winter. These manipulations will interfere with other plants, violate the integrity of the composition, for example, dahlias and gladioli.

11. Ornamental plants – pelargoniums, antennae, stachis are suitable for creating patterned patterns on parterre-arabesque beds. From flowering species, it is necessary to choose undersized species – fuchsia, begonias, ageratum.

Typical mistakes of a novice florist

1. Attempts to plant as many plant species as possible on a flower bed lead to a feeling of crowded and cluttered flower beds.
2. The selection of plants without taking into account the compatibility of their irrigation and feeding regimes leads to the fact that some of the plants die.
3. The lack of marks on the plan leads to confusion about where and what is planted in the flower bed. As a result, some of the plants die at the very first weeding..
4. Planting aggressive plants with a powerful root system or active dispersion of seeds leads to a violation of the geometry and order in the flower bed. Such plants include foxgloves, lupins, duchenei, terry soapwort, rudbeckia, etc..

One has only to start, and even the smallest flowerbed, created with your own hands, will help you acquire skills and experience that will allow you to modify it over time and supplement it with new plants, achieving continuous flowering.