First a disclaimer. The featured image is not my own, I borrowed it from the interweb, but gives an impression of what I’m aiming for.
I have begun to wrangle my growing list of available plants into something approaching a design for the borders. Actually that’s not quite true. It’s really more like arranging the chess pieces before the game starts. Perhaps it’s more like trying to find the missing rook down the back of the sofa. Anyhow, acts preparatory to border design rather than the design itself. Definitely not procrastination. Nossir.
To begin to make sense of all this, I’ve done what any troubled office worker would do, created a spreadsheet. Step 1 has been to build a database of plants I have or expect to have and researching characteristics such as preferred aspect, colour, flowering season, foliage colour, height, spread and so on. This being a blog about propagation, I have also noted propagation methods recommended for each plant, for future reference. Step 2 has been to attempt to identify which plant goes well with which other plants on my list. To do this I’ve looked through various garden books I have, garden plans, websites to see what I can find. Here is the database in all its glory. If you click on the image you can zoom in to see what’s going on in the messy place that is my brain.
I was beginning to find it bewildering to think about colour palettes with umpteen variations on a theme of red, red/purple, red/orange, pink/red blah blah. I’ve added an attribute to each plant – everything is either hot, warm or cool. Red and orange and their ilk are hot; yellow, pink, purple, brown, are warm; white, violet, blue, green are all cool. I’m going to make groupings based on that attribute and height, in the main. Next I have to decide which plants go in which border. I’m thinking of taking a leaf out of Rosemary Verey’s book and have a hot border and a cool border, perhaps with some ‘warm’ grading between. Not sure yet. My head might actually explode if I try to factor in foliage too. Oh, and flowering time. And preferred aspect. Boom!
The prep work on the database is paying some dividends, however, some useful management information is seeping out from the underlying data. Here is the cross-reference table of colour temperature vs size. It will at least help me to figure out what might go where. The numbers in the table are quantity of plants available, more to be added as cuttings strike, germinations happen.
I should consider this to be an iterative process, I think, for my sanity as much as anything else. Year One will be an experiment to see what works well, where there are bare or uninteresting spots at different times of year. I can always move plants around. I’m also impatient so I’ll overstuff the borders I think. When things start to look overcrowded, I can remove to make room.
To misquote the Orange One, ‘who knew healthcare garden design was this complicated?’
I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with some more definite border designs.
What plant combinations do you recommend from your garden? Or what border planning advice do you have for a novice? I’ll be very happy to hear in the comments.
[Update 02–5-17, see what the border design eventually became.]
I love the organized approach to your border design. Just one word of caution pink can be either warm or cool depending on whether it’s base is yellow or blue.
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Rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic, possibly. We’ll see. Thanks for the tip, will bear that in mind.
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No, planning is never wasted even if you change them, as it focuses the mind. Good luck
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I saw a stunning combination of bright blue Delphiniums and yellow Lupins at Powis Castle – I’ll tweet a pic! Orange Calendula would also set off the blue delphiniums too. For subtler, more pastel oriented colour combinations I recommend Gertrude Jekyll’s planting plans. I am reading one of her books that describe them, and you can see them at places like Hestercombe in Somerset.
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Thanks very much for the suggestions. Don’t have any delphiniums or lupins, or indeed calendula! Am trying to restrict myself to the multitude of plants I’ve propagated recently. If I have a glaring gap colour-wise I might get some new stock in but my current problem is too many plants! That said, when I offload my spares at the plant sale in may, the chance of me coping away with no new plants is vanishingly small. Perhaps I’ll be able to pick up some of your suggestions. Or grow from seed next year maybe. Will check out your pic, tvm.
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It’s a most marvellous database. I can’t believe how organised you are. I really admire your attention to detail and forethought.
My approach is really different, much more vague and based on trial and error and muddling through. I have a plan to ‘cut summer flowers’ in June, but will meander towards a planting scheme as time wears on. Big stuff at the back, little stuff at the front, and as much colour as possible 😄
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I’m familiar with that approach, normally the school I go to. Jury is out on the db, it’ll either be highly useful or a total waste, a displacement activity. Reminds me strongly of A level revision. Lots of time on the timetable, not a lot of actual revision. It’s an attempt to bring some order to the multitude of plants resulting from the propagation frenzy of the last few months. We shall very much see…
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I have never seen such organize flower color planting. It is great.
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Thanks! “all” i have to do now is turn all that into a planting plan that will look fab. Pencil and paper time I think, old skool.
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