It's hard to imagine a park or a botanical garden without borders, but in your home garden you're more likely to talk about flower beds. However, the transition is fluid. You can create borders with hardy plants or annual flowers.
How do I create a border in the garden?
A border is created either by alternating planting with annual plant changes or with hardy perennials and flowering trees. For colorful planting, different plants such as horned violets, dahlias or heather are recommended in spring, summer, autumn and winter.
What exactly is a discount?
A border is a long and rather narrow bed that is used to border lawns, for example. The old Dutch “rabat” means “clothes hem” and has French origins. Some people also talk about borders in the front garden and mean the beds along the path to the front door.
What is meant by alternating planting?
Discounts are often designed with alternating planting. They are replanted at least in spring and summer, and often again in autumn. Care is then usually limited to watering and pulling weeds. The advantage is that you have a lush flowering bed at all times. However, the frequent plantings are disadvantageous.
In the fall, prepare the borders for spring by planting flower bulbs. Snowdrops, winter aconites and crocuses appear in late winter and provide a little color in the garden. Hyacinths, tulips and daffodils follow later, which are also available in dwarf form.
Can I create discounts that are easy to maintain?
With rotating planting, you have to replant the entire border two or three times a year. This is undoubtedly a lot of work. If you plant flowering trees or hardy perennials instead, there is no need to plant them; regular pruning is usually necessary. Roses, for example, are popular. So that you don't have to constantly remove weeds, you can cover your discounts, for example with gravel (€22.00 on Amazon) or bark mulch.
The most important things in brief:
- When planting alternately, replant two to three times a year
- Tips for spring: horned violets, tulips, forget-me-nots, gold lacquer, pansies, hycinths
- Tips for summer: mixed summer flowers, dahlias, zinnias, coneflowers, lobelia, cosmea, verbena, sage
- Tips for autumn: heather, autumn asters, ornamental grasses, ornamental cabbage
- Tips for the winter: ornamental grasses, snowdrops, crocuses, winter aconites
Tip
Discounts do not provide enough space to bloom profusely all year round. With interesting foliage colors, individual flowering plants and ornamental grasses, they are never boring.
