How to make a flower bed and plant flowers that bloom all summer

Recommendation points

• How to avoid failures in the flower decoration of a summer cottage
• Plants for flower beds of continuous flowering
• Changeable compositions from annuals
• Perennial flower beds blooming from snow to snow
• Selection of plants, layout and other secrets of constant flowering
• A daunting task – monochrome composition blooming all summer
• Flowering plant care

Only 2–4 weeks per season lasts a lush flowering in a typical summer cottage flower bed. The rest of the time the flower garden is either growing or has already faded. To learn how to create flower beds that bloom all summer long, to pick flowers for them and take care of plants, without spending a lot of time, even beginner gardeners can do.

How to avoid failures in the flower decoration of a summer cottage

It is not an easy task to get the flower bed to bloom throughout the summer season. When embarking on this exciting creative work, it is important to know a few rules that will save you from common mistakes:

1. Planning plantings in a flower garden should begin with drawing up a flowering schedule for the plants planned for planting. In each period of time, at least three names of flowers should bloom on the flower bed.
2. It is necessary to draw a plan and allocate a place for plants on it, which will serve as a constructive basis for a flower bed and a spectacular frame for flowering neighbors: coniferous and deciduous shrubs, perennials with beautiful foliage. In the intervals between the spring-flowering plants, place the ones that bloom in the summer, and determine the place of the autumn soloists.
3. It is necessary to group the plants on the plan by size and color. Large to take the background, small to place in front. If the flowerbed is viewed from all sides, tall plants are grouped in the center. Broadleafs alternate with narrow-leaved and cereals. Different shades of green are selected and distributed over the area of ​​the flower garden.
4. Everyone has their own color preferences, but the rules for combining colors are common – either addition or contrast. For example, yellow contrasts with purple, but is complemented by red, orange. Blue is combined with cold pink, lilac, blue. White color is used to dilute too bright color spots, blur borders, soften contrasts.
5. An approximate calculation of the number of each plant species should be made. Flowers should not be planted in separate copies; uniform “spots” are required for the decorative effect. Coniferous and large decorative deciduous plants (hosta, rogersia, etc.).

1 – sunflower; 2 – Grenoble carnation; 3 – ordinary lumbago; 4 – subulate phlox; 5 – Sulia edelweiss; 6 – large-flowered coreopsis; 7 – Gaillardia; 8 – meadowsweet yarrow; 9 – oriental poppy; 10 – paniculate phlox; 11 – chrysanthemum; 12 – larkspur; 13 – delphinium blue

Plants for flower beds of continuous flowering

Changeable compositions from annuals

A less complicated, but no less excellent option for a flower bed of continuous flowering is a flower garden of annuals. If you plan to grow seedlings with your own hands, work on its creation begins in winter. Most annuals come from the tropics and subtropics and take time to develop before flowering. For example, petunias are sown for seedlings in February. Since March, asters, viola, annual chrysanthemums and dahlias, levkoy, verbena, cornflowers, alissum, lobelia, snapdragon and others have been sown. In April, a line of seeds of marigolds, cosme, nasturtium.

The main secret of a flower bed of annuals is not that they select special flowers that are typical for autumn, summer or spring. Having created a conveyor from constantly growing seedlings, you can supply the flower bed with any flowers regardless of the season. For example, viola or petunia from seedlings can bloom in late May and late September..

There are, of course, seasonal annuals. Autumn flower beds are decorated with fireworks from ornamental cabbage, elegant multi-colored asters.

Flowerpots with planted annuals make continuous flowering also mobile. If desired, they can be moved around the site – in the recreation area, near the gazebo, porch, reservoir, entrance, creating different images and moods. An important rule for decorating flowerpots: planting seedlings is made denser than in a flower garden to quickly acquire a decorative look.

Particular attention should be paid to tuberous begonias. Their long-lasting bloom is an incredible decoration for flower gardens. Luxurious inflorescences of modern varieties compete with roses, resemble azaleas and camellias. Tubers overwintered at home are divided and cut in spring. For reliable flowering, it is better to purchase new plants annually..

Perennial flower beds blooming from snow to snow

The choice of perennial plants that make up the compositions that give the first flowers in snowy thawed patches, delight with colors all summer and leave flowering under the snow, is almost inexhaustible. Here are just some of the most common and proven perennials that even a novice gardener can handle..

Spring:primroses, crocuses, woodlands, anemones, muscari, daffodils, tulips, oriental poppy, dicentra, doronicum, lilies of the valley.

Summer:irises, daylilies, lilies, bells, delphiniums, phloxes, astilbe.

Fall:perennial asters (New England and New Belgian varieties and hybrids), gelenium, stonecrop, rudbeckia, chrysanthemum, colchicum, sedges, miscanthus, rod-shaped millet.

Selection of plants, layout and other secrets of constant flowering

Coniferous and decorative deciduous plants are the skeleton of a flower bed, on which flowering elements are then built up. Needles, patterned, carved, smooth, pubescent leaves of different shades of green create a picturesque background. Having laid such a foundation for the composition, it remains only to fill it with flowering perennials and annuals.

We recommend the following conifers.

Spherical, cushion:

• mountain pine Pug, Gnome;
• thuja western Danica, Golden Globe;
• spruce cushion Nidiformis, Ehiniformis.

Creeping:

• Juniper Repanda, Green Carpet, Blue Carpet.

Sprawling:

• juniper Tamaristsifolia, Mint julep;
• mountain pine Pumilio;
• cedar elfin.

You do not need to fill the flower bed with a large number of conifers. Enough 3-4 copies of different shapes and shades. In support of them, you can add 2-3 ornamental shrubs – dwarf forms of barberry, medium-sized spireas.

Of the decorative deciduous perennials with spectacular foliage, first of all, hosts should be named – dozens of varieties are now offered. Buzulnik, rogersia, bergenia, saber-shaped iris leaves are no less beautiful. Daylilies are versatile – a luxurious fountain of linear green leaves combined with elegant inflorescences of different shades.

A daunting task – monochrome composition blooming all summer

Every gardener wants to learn how to manage the rainbow of colors that flowers create in their summer cottage. As in the choice of clothing, interior design, anyone has color preferences. Someone is closer to a cold palette, someone loves warm glowing tones. Based on color preferences, you can also choose plants for a flower bed that blooms all summer.

The yellow-orange flower bed creates the feeling of a sunny day even in cloudy weather:

• spring: yellow varieties of crocuses, daffodils, yellow and orange tulips;
• summer: evening primrose (primrose), calendula (marigold), yellow and orange lilies;
• autumn: helenium, marigolds, nasturtiums, rudbeckia, ocher-red sedges.

Pink-lilac-blue flower bed – brings freshness, romance into the mood of the garden:

• spring: muscari, brunner, pink and purple tulips, liverwort, kandyk, crocuses, juno;
• summer: lilies (pink tones, such as Triumphant, Enestacy), delphinium, blue cyanosis, monarda, cornflower, lavater, ageratum, lobelia;
• autumn: Echinacea purpurea, stonecrop, autumn asters, paniculata phlox.

White flower bed – tenderness and brevity:

• spring: blueberry, daffodils, poultry, lilies of the valley, arabis (rezuha);
• summer: white lilies, cornflower, pupavka, anafalis (pearl mussel), white varieties of delphinium, bellflower, mallow, lobelia, lavater;
• autumn: autumn aster, white echinacea, phlox.

White flowers will effectively complement silvery wormwood, seaside cineraria, white-bordered hosts, sedges, periwinkle.

Flowering plant care

Timely weeding, watering, feeding and loosening are the elementary truths of country floriculture. A flowerbed of continuous flowering, in addition to well-known care operations, requires the use of some additional techniques:

• removal of faded inflorescences to prolong flowering;
• pinching the top for regrowth of lateral shoots with flowers;
• replanting annuals in bald spots formed after the leaves die off, decorating voids with portable flowerpots;
• timely thinning, division and pruning, so that strong competitors do not crowd out weak ones.