Perennial Flower Borders – Affordable and Gorgeous

One of the questions I get asked most frequently is: how do I create my perennial flower borders? What are the steps I go through? In particular people ask about my bed at the far right hand side of my garden.

It’s very flattering for anyone to be so interested, but I have to admit the process for creating this border was not a completely planned affair. There were plenty of misteps along the way. However, as I think about it, there was some kind of method to my madness, so I thought I’d share the steps and my thinking.

Why Perennial Flower Borders?

I guess I ought to start by explaining why I love perennial plants so much and use them so extensively in my flower borders. Well, first up perennials are great value, as they can live for many years. There’s no constant faffing about with annuals.

Added to this, they’re often easy to propagate too, so you can make more plants for free, by simply dividing clumps, taking cuttings or collecting and sowing the seeds. What’s not to like about that.

As if this isn’t enough, I think perennials also look wonderful in pots as well as borders. So if one perennial gets too big for a flower bed, that’s not a problem. You can simply divide it up and pop the spare plant in a pot. So perennial flower beds can be a source of plants for your patio too!

Okay, so now I’ve convinced you that perennials are the way to go in your flower borders, what are the steps you need to go through to create such a border?

Conditions & Position of Perennial Flower Borders

Well in the case of my bed on the right hand side in my garden, I first thought carefully about what the area of my garden is like.

Way back then, our garden was a kids playing area – full of sports kit and our own and other people’s children! The one thing it was not full of was flowers!

In all this mayhem, the area in question for the bed was going to be behind the young chap in the far right of the picture.

Aside from being a shambles back then, it also had some tricky growing conditions which it still has today. It’s sort of north-west facing, a semi-shaded spot. One end of the bed was going to be very shaded and the other would have a fair amount of intermittent sun – especially in the evening. There are a few deciduous trees growing near by which create a lot of the shade. The area could be quite dry too.

As it’s at the far right hand side of my garden I felt it was not a bed you’d stand squarely in front of and look at. It was more something you would walk past. This meant, to my mind, the border needed to look good from the ends, as you look down the length of it – rather than simply from the front. So when planning and visualising the planting, I spent a lot of time stood at the far right hand end of the bed, and envisaged how things would look from there. Mr F-W might call this day-dreaming but to me, even if I’m not moving a muscle, it’s definitely still gardening!

Size Matters in Perennial Flower Borders

Next I thought about the size of the border. I’m a big fan of having generous borders. You need room to fit at least three plants in front to back, as otherwise a bed ends up looking bitty and underwhelming. It has no visual depth. I think there’s nothing worse than a garden full of lawn with skinny litttle beds all around the edge. I can appreciate how someone with a small garden might be scared to give too much of it over to flower beds, but a generous border doesn’t make your garden seem smaller – in my experience, quite the reverse.

I’m very lucky in that I have quite a bit of space. So when I dug the border into the grass I made it as big as I could. It is mostly 10ft wide (i.e. deep). Though as with other things in my garden, it arcs, so it does gradually deepen even more than this. At its widest point its probably 12ft. The bed is very long too – just over 29 ft long!

That’s a big old area to fill, and I like my beds to be overflowing with plants. So I knew I’d need plants which not only would cope with the conditions but were good spreaders – to soak up some of the space and keep my plant buying costs to a minimum. I also needed to be prepared to propogate. Otherwise this was going to be a painfully pricey border that people just saunter past!

Colour Scheme for Your Perennial Flower Borders

I next thought about colour. When creating perennial flower borders you need to think carefully about your colour-scheme. Without a bit of a plan, and an appreciation of your conditions, it’s all too easy to buy plants which catch your eye but don’t really fit in. You end up with a right old, mish-mash of colours and plants which are wrong for the spot, and wont thrive. These are both expensive mistakes to make.

To help you find and stick to a colour scheme, a really good trick is to have a physical something as your colour and texture reference guide. It needs to be a colour combination/look you love of course. But other than that it can be a painting, a bit of wrapping paper, a piece of fabric, a post card – anything you really love the look/mood of and want to reflect in your border. The beauty of this approach is that you then have a firm, physical reference point. So if you’re drawn to a plant and it doesn’t fit, you immediately know – and you’re not tempted to stray as you are reminded of the gorgeous effect you’re going for.

Colour Wheel

If you don’t have such a reference, a colour wheel is really helpful too. I’ve written before about how to use the colour wheel to come up with colour combinations. So I won’t go into masses of detail here about the theory. But very quickly the broad rules are:

• Colours which are adjacent to each other on the colour wheel work well
• Those that are opposite each other are good too
• Or if you want to pick three colours, choose ones which are an equal distance apart on the colour wheel
• More than 5 colours and a scheme becomes rather bitty
• But the good news is white, silver, cream, grey, brown and green are considered neutrals – so they don’t count.

My Colours

I already had a Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii growing in the area where I was creating the border. It’s such a handsome, sculptural perennial. Its bluish-green foliage looks fresh all year round which is handy. But it’s in early summer when all the action starts. Then the plant develops large, dome-shaped, lime-yellow flowers that tower above it. It’s a real statement plant and I didn’t want to waste it.

So that determined my first colour, lime-yellow. As a contrast I thought I’d add to the mix a hot pink which is opposite it on the colour wheel and purple which is next to hot pink on the colour wheel. To soften things up I thought I’d have a lot of white neutral colour plants too.

The Look I was Going For

When planning perennial flower borders you also need to get very clear about the style or effect you are looking to creatte. I wanted this big bed to look romantic, full, opulent, wild, generous.

Perennial Flower Borders – The Plants

Armed with the conditions, colour scheme and look I wanted to achieve I was ready to choose the plants for my perennial flower border.

1.Silene Fimbriata

For limey-yellow and green loveliness that fills a bed I chose Silene Fimbriata. If you like a nice tidy border this plant isn’t for you! Silene Fimbriata produces a glorious tangle of stems topped with the sweetest, limey coloured flowers. These are shaped like an old-fashioned bonnet and have a little white fringe.

Silene Fimbriata romps away from May through to August and even when the flowers are over, the foliage keeps the lime effect going and looks zingy and fresh.

2. Heuchera Lime Marmalade

To add a further dose of limey- yellow to the border I chose Heuchera Lime Marmalade. It’s at the shadiest end of the border, where it really pulses out of the gloom. Its leaves are almost phosphorescent!

Heucheras are also easy-peasy to propagate. So I bought one plant and over the years increased my stock so that now I have a lovely block of it. If you fancy boosting your own number of heucheras in a similar way you can see how I did it in my blog on dealing with leggy heucheras

3. Hosta Sea Dream

Hostas are great in shade and while their flowers are often pretty inconsequential they often have wonderful, impactful leaves. So I knew I’d need a hosta or two in this border. Many of my chosen hostas could be a neutral green but for a limey yellow accent I added the hostas Sea Dream to the mix. It has bright gold heart-shaped leaves have creamy white edges, making quite a show! There’s a real glow to this hosta and it grows about 35cm tall and 60cm wide, providing a helpful space filler. The flowers are lavender – they’re nothing special but I thought they’d work with the purple scheme in the bed too!

4. Mexican Feathergrass

Allongside the Hosta I also planted the perennial grass, Stipa tenuissima, otherwise known as Mexican Feather Grass. Not only is it tonally spot on, providing a serious dash of lime-yellow. But it provides wonderful floaty movement in the bed. And yet again it’s a plant you can divide up quite easily, to increase your stock.

5. Alliums Purple Sensation

To punctuate all the froth of the bed and provide some structure (and some purple) I threaded over 100 Alliums Purple Sensation through the bed. These powerful perennials pierce the clouds of green and lime yellow with majestic, globe like purple spheres.

Alliums, like Eurphorbia, are good in dry conditions, so I knew they’d work in this border. When planting them I took care to position the alliums randomly (the last thing you want is a straight line of allium soldiers!) I also ensured they would like good when looking down the bed from one end. As that’s how the bed would be often viewed. To do this I laboriously used pea canes, positioning them where I planned to put the alliums so that I could visualise how it would look. It was a pain to do but the end effect of a staggered and random patttern really works.

6. Clematis

I chose a purple clematis, climbing an obelisk to provide further structure and impact in the border – I’m sorry I can’t recall the variety. However the picture of it alongside the Eurphorbia shows how very effective this colour combination of zingy, limey yellow and purple really is.

7. Nepeta Walkers Low

For more tones of purple, and frothy romanticism I turned to Nepeta Walkers Low. I wanetd these to spill over the edge of the border in a repeating pattern running down its length. Repeating planting provides a sense of order, even in a rammed and rambling bed like this one.

To economise, I bought one Nepeta grew it on and then divided it up into three. In addition to being a bargain, it’s an absolute bee magnet and blooms all summer long. So it keeps the bed full of froth and colour long after the Alliums have finished.

8. Galium odoratum

To fill out the border, a large chunk of it is carpeted by a layer of Galium odoratum otherwise known as Sweet Woodruff. This hardy perennial provides the most gorgeous fluffy soft cushion of dainty white flowers from spring right up until July. It’s ideal for shaded areas and now carpets the whole border without strangling plants. If I feel it’s getting too big for its boots I can easily pull it up, so it’s not that invasive but it’s ever so pretty.

9. Tiarella Emerald Ellie

To keep all the soft romance going, and to give some structure to the perennial flower border’s perimeter, I decided to very informally edge it with white fluffy Tiarellas Emerald Ellie. I love tiarellas and this one is possibly my favourite. The leaves are eye-catching and provide that all important slightly limey yellow accent. Now the flowers, if I’m honest are a pinkish white but because the border also has hot pink in it, I don’t think that matters.

10. Ferns and Hellebores

Perennial ferns and Hellebores added more interesting shape to the border and are nice and neutral from a colour point of view. I also have oceans of snowdrops in the bed to provide early interest.

Hot Pink & Not Perennial

The hot pink for the border is provided by two roses, Rosa For Your Eyes Only and the gorgeously scented Boscobel. I also have a softer pink rose Wildeve, which is almost whitey-pink so it kind of works with the colour scheme.

Now, you will quite rightly point out a rose is not a perennial, it’s a shrub. I also have four Buxus balls in the border – again shrubs. I know I know, call the perennial police!

But I’m not going to apologise as I feel a few shrubs provide a slightly more permanent structure to a bed or border dominated by perennials. I think shrubs actually enable the perennials to really sing. So would suggest that you include room for a tiny dose of shrubs in any of your perennials flower borders.

So that it. A large bed packed with perennial plants (and a few shrubs) and to me, a lot of joy.

Steps For Creating Perennial Flower Borders

So in summary as I review how I went about planning this most popular one of my perennial flower borders, I’ve identified the following steps which you too might find handy:

How to Create Your Own Perennial Flower Border

• Consider the soil conditions (drainage and dryness)
• Gauge the position (the amount of light the plants will get)
• Think about the size you have to fill
• Be as generous as you can if you are creating the border from scratch
• Decide on your colour scheme and stick to it
• Use something with the colour combination you love – a picture, wrapping paper, a piece of fabric, a post card – as your inspiration and guide
• Or use the colour wheel
• Only then think about the plants
• If you’ve already got a plant in place you love, use it as your start point for your colour scheme
• Think about the flowering period
• Leaves are important too
• Allow for a few shrubs to add structure
• Be prepared to propagate your perennials to save money

That’s it. I’ll leave you with one further photo of the border taken just a moment ago from one end.

Happy perennial gardening X