How To Redo a Flower Garden: An Action Plan (Part 2)

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How to choose a style

It is extremely necessary to maintain the style of a new flower garden, which should organically fit into your garden. Whether it will be a lush flowerbed in the Victorian taste or an uncomplicated rustic version with familiar and beloved dahlias and gladioli from childhood — it’s up to you to make the decision.

How To Redo a Flower Garden: An Action Plan (Part 2)
It is extremely necessary to maintain the style of the new flower garden

In recent years, gardens in the spirit of naturgarten have become fashionable with the extensive use of ornamental herbs and a certain composition of plants that mimic natural plant communities. Maybe you should try to do something similar?

How To Redo a Flower Garden: An Action Plan (Part 2)
Maybe your flower garden will be in a natural style?

Filling the flower garden

When choosing plants for a new flower garden, carefully study their disposition. It is not recommended to let known aggressors in there. Species such as Lysimachia, Polygonum, Polygonatum, Solidago, Viola, Convallária, Anemone hupehensis var. japonica, Brunnera, Stachys byzantina, Rudbeckia laciniata, Ájuga, will grow uncontrollably and suffocate other plants. It is better to prefer herbaceous perennials with a meek character that are consistently decorative, such as astilbes or Ligularia.

How To Redo a Flower Garden: An Action Plan (Part 2)
It is better to prefer herbaceous perennials with a meek character, which are consistently decorative

How to get enough plants

The architecture and palette of the flower garden should be studied by observing the flowering plants in your garden and thinking about how to use them optimally. It’s good if you have a special school where seedlings grow up. Usually we limit ourselves to buying one pot, assuming to propagate the plant we like. The school just gives such an opportunity — to observe how it develops, how it blooms, to choose the right scale. And in the end — to get the necessary number of planting units, since many copies are needed to create a full-fledged flower garden. It will take quite a long time to wait for the flower beds to grow in the flower garden itself, and to get a quick result, it is better to work with your own planting material, which you will have in the right amount.

How To Redo a Flower Garden: An Action Plan (Part 2)
Astilbas grow up in school

Some of the planting units can be obtained from old plants, if you want to continue to see them in your garden. During the reconstruction of the old flower garden, everything is dug out, rejuvenated by division, then planted again according to a pre-planned plan.

How To Redo a Flower Garden: An Action Plan (Part 2)
Flower beds are being prepared for planting in a new place

But if you want to do everything in a new way, the species composition is selected, as already mentioned, in accordance with the ecological requirements of plants for insolation conditions, soils, irrigation. It is impossible to plant moisture-loving and drought-resistant crops together. Some species will feel comfortable exclusively in the sun, others require partial shade.

How To Redo a Flower Garden: An Action Plan (Part 2)
The species composition is selected in accordance with the ecological requirements of plants. Example of a sunny flower garden

Decoration of the flower garden edge

The last chord is the decoration of the edge of the flower garden. I strongly disapprove of the use of all kinds of plastic tapes, fences, etc. And even the old technique of edging flowerbeds with bricks laid on the side and painted with lime reminds me of government flowerbeds on the forecourts of southern towns in the years of my childhood.

I use the English method, using a special shovel, invented by the same Englishmen, when the edge of the lawn is cut to a certain depth. This makes it possible to limit the growth of grasses creeping into flower beds. This is done once in the spring, then, if necessary, the borders are trimmed during the summer. The view of the flower garden in this case turns out to be very neat and finished.

How To Redo a Flower Garden: An Action Plan (Part 2)
The edge of the flower garden can be decorated by pruning the edge of the lawn. On the left — a special blade for this purpose

I have not considered specific options for the reconstruction process — I only give general advice on what to pay attention to when conducting such a responsible and necessary operation. It is up to you to decide what kind of composition your new flower garden will have.

It would be interesting to know what difficulties or surprises readers encountered when making such changes — reconstructing or completely redesigning their flower beds. Share your experience in the comments, it will be very interesting to those who are just going to start this serious business.


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