Border Planting Design - some tips and tricks

Plus: Great autumn plants, the new How To Garden feature, Zoom dates, and why grasses are like cheese

Aug 12, 2023

∙ Paid

Autumn is in the air here, but let’s keep looking on the bright side. Let’s do what gardening often makes us do, which is to put disappointment behind us and instead look forward to all the good things that are to come as our world circles round. Let’s look forward to those burnished plant colours, the oranges and reds and yellows which fire up the garden and bring warmth just at that moment when the chill is starting to hang around in the air. And who knows, perhaps the summer might even whoosh back in and announce itself as unfinished - wouldn’t that be brilliant?

In today’s issue, I’m going to be taking subscribers on a tour of a garden border which is made up of these colours, and I’ll also be setting a date for the next Border Design and Small Garden Design Zoom get-together. It costs just over £1 a week to be part of this - and remember, if you subscribe now, your subscription will always stay the same - it’ll never increase again.

How to Garden

Another massive thank you to everyone who has emailed about the new How to Garden section, which starts in September. (Remember, you don’t have to receive emails for every section of The Gardening Mind - more on that in the footnotes below1). In this exciting new section, we’re going to be talking about anything and everything garden-related: if there’s anything specific you’d like me to talk about, please note it here or as ever, you can email if you’d prefer.

Well, where to start with such a big old theme? In the world of gardens, we’re always learning, it’s true, and I was thinking about a way in which I could frame this massive, infinite subject without it becoming tedious.

Then inspiration struck. It was obvious.

Some of you may know I’m a pretty terrible cook: I still have to look up how to boil an egg - yes, every single time. My dream would be for someone to take me by the hand and walk me through what I need to know, step by step, without being too technical and without assuming that I know anything but that I also do know some other things.

So this is the way I’m going to be approaching How to Garden. I’m going to be taking you by the hand, looking at the basics, right from the horticultural equivalent of ‘Store Cupboard Basics’ and ‘Foolproof Recipes’, looking at seasonal garden issues and dilemmas, and often tying in existing sections eg Garden Design, Planting Design, What Makes A Garden, and A Kinder Way to Garden. I promise you I won’t be patronising anyone - I’ll be learning loads of new stuff along the way too. There are so many brilliant, experienced gardeners amongst us, and so as ever, reader participation is encouraged and welcomed!

Think of it as if you were putting together a good honest cheeseboard which consists, for example, of a simple hard Cheddar, a blue Stilton, and something goaty.

The first episode, Getting to know your garden, is heading your way next month. Who’s in?

Digging around

Appearing even sooner than that, I am properly excited to tell you that in a couple of weeks’ time, we have a new Q&A series, ‘Digging Around’, featuring some fascinating and fabulous people who love their gardens very much indeed. Writers, artists, gardeners, and more….. it’s been a lot of fun finding out some of the innermost workings of the gardening minds of others, and I cannot wait to share these with you!

Before we move on to the border design, I’ve a question which I need your help with:

The other day I posted the video below on social media, captioned rather wittily, I thought. I was soon put in my place, however, by a reader who in the gentlest and kindest way possible pointed out that there’s only one bee in the video and that the other two buzzy things are actually drone flies. This got me thinking.

I’ve decided I really need to learn to identify my insects.

I know nothing. I’m an absolute beginner. I’m thinking that there MUST be an effective and successful way in which we can learn how to spot the differences quickly, much in the same way that we learn to ID plants and trees, I guess, and I’ve a feeling it’s pretty much a question of familiarity and practice. So I’ll be, very occasionally, posting insects for us to try and identify in the hope that one of our lovely members will know - and remember there’s more than a fighting chance that I won’t know what they are either.

Did you recognise any of these three winged things above?

While we’re on the subject of wildlife, the following also got people talking:

Is it just me? Or do you too utter a little “Oh gosh I’m sorry” to that very surprised looking worm when you disrupt his day’s action?

Border Design - autumn colours

Following on from the Small Garden Design course, we’re now looking at planting, and specifically, how to go about tackling a border.

In our last zoom session, we discussed how to go about starting from scratch with an area or existing border, taking stock of what’s already there, looking at the soil and the conditions to select the best plants for the site. We talked about the structure, the flowering shrubs and grasses that create height and volume in the border, as well as harmony and that all-important atmosphere.

The structure in this photo comes mainly from ornamental grasses; this border is in one of the few projects where a client has told me not to include the colour pink, which, as you can imagine, was a bit of a surprise. So out went hydrangeas, out went roses, but as you look at the photo, ask yourself, could you imagine roses and hydrangeas there? I’m thinking pink just wouldn’t have been right for this spot. Somehow, the restriction on pink moved the whole palette into an echoing of the colours and tones of the buildings and surrounding agricultural landscape.

Let’s now take a closer look at these perennials which create this palette, and how we can use them to extend the border interest so that there’s something flowering through to September, (when we’ll be getting together on Zoom to discuss progress and to look at choosing those important fillers, spring bulbs, in order to create your bulb shopping list).

There’s a tradition in planting design of looking at three different levels: low, medium and high.