Mixborder - ready-made schemes, selection of plants and instructions for creating with your own hands (90 photos)
Is it difficult to create a mixborder with your own hands, how to choose its color scheme, where to place a flower garden and how to care for it - questions that can confuse a novice gardener. We are happy to help you find the answer to your questions.
What is a mixborder?
In modern landscape design, a mixborder is a flower bed of various plant species, planted in groups, having an oblong shape.
When creating mixborders, they often try to use perennial plants, sometimes diluted with annuals. Also sometimes use coniferous and deciduous trees and shrubs, a variety of vines.
Rockery is a landscape composition with a predominance of stones. Stones play a dominant role here, plants go on a secondary plane, they only set off, create visible accents.
In contrast to the rock garden, which is usually erected on a hill, the rockery can be located both on flat ground and on terraces.
Watch the video: Mixborders from perennial flowers and conifers
The mixborder can be used as dividers of a park zone into sectors, they can decorate an entrance to a garden, make a decor of a slope, arrange a garden path.
Two types of mixborders can be distinguished: those viewed from all sides, and those created for one-sided decoration.
Mixborder Styles
Lugovoi. Reflects the romance of the mountain and meadow landscape. In their creation, meadow herbs and a variety of cereal crops are used.
English. There is a strict style in the design. Clarity of lines, severity of forms and restraint of colors are the main features of such a flower garden.
Rustic. A variety of bright color shades, splendor of flowering, the assortment of plants consists mainly of local cultures.
Vegetable. They create a mixborder design from various vegetable crops, choosing the color of leaves and flowers. It also has functional significance, because in the fall gardeners can collect their bonus - a crop of vegetables.
Color scheme
It is important for a beginner gardener to choose the right color scheme of plants. Having considered numerous photos of mixborders, you can choose for yourself the most acceptable color scheme that will meet the desires and tastes. It is important here not to overdo it with a variety of shades, to harmoniously place color spots.
For a harmonious combination of color shades, it is advisable to choose no more than 4-5 colors. A novice designer can choose a color chromatic circle to help them choose shades. Using it, it is easy to determine the contrast of colors and their compatibility.
To create the most harmonious composition, mix warm colors with warm colors and cool colors with cold colors.
Mixborder Placement
First of all, you need to choose a place for the future flower garden. It should meet the purpose of the mixborder - to decorate the edge of the terrace, create a natural fence around the perimeter of the garden, decorate garden paths or be located along the wall of the house. An ideal place for such a flower garden is a site where both light and shadow are present in equal amounts.
When choosing a site, it is necessary to take into account the length of the future flower garden, the limitations are the height of the windows, the distance from the viewpoint, the distance between the track and the mixborder.
A place for a flower garden should have an acceptable level of humidity, a sufficient amount of light and shadow, as well as sufficient fertility of the soil.
The mixborder design should be created in accordance with the basic style of the garden in which you intend to place it.
Creating a Mixborder
First of all, you need to draw a mixborder diagram, taking into account the characteristic features of such flower beds. There are several rules for creating mixborders.
Plant height. So that the upper part of the flower garden does not get lost when viewing, position the flower garden so that the height of the tallest plant does not exceed half the distance from the viewing point to the flower garden.
Clear border mixborder. To achieve clear boundaries, use colored stone chips or cuts of trees, you can also use paving slabs or beautiful stones. You can plant a border from perennial stunted plants.
Planting plants, remembering their height in adulthood. High plant closer to the center, low - closer to the edge of the flower garden.
Do not overdo it with an abundance of different types of plants. It is better to use 3-4 decorative species than to create excessive spotting.
When planning a mixborder, discard too straight lines. The flower garden looks more elegantly, smoothly bending in natural beauty.
How to choose the right plants
When choosing plants, it is necessary to consider the type of mixborder. It depends on whether you want to create a contrasting color scheme. It happens polychrome (in which several different colors are used), or monochrome mixborder (created from several shades of the same color).
To create a mixborder from perennials, consider the space into which plants grow in adulthood. No need to plant perennials tightly, but rather add voids to annuals that temporarily fill empty spaces.
Starting from the highest in the center of the flower garden, plant the plants in tiers. You can use irises, astilbe, phlox, daylilies, cereals - feather grass, mane barley, burns. Geranium, echinacea, coreopsis, lobelia will add piquancy.
Choose plants that give the flower garden natural naturalness, naturally fit into the design and decorate your mixborder. Do not forget about the green background, on which flowering plants will look advantageous. For greens, use hosts, cineraria, geyhera.
For the lower tier of such a flower garden, you can use verbena, alissums, stonecrops, awl-shaped phlox, thyme, nyvyanik, lobelia or petunia, as well as many bulbous ones - crocuses, snowdrops, dwarf tulips.
When creating a mixborder of shrubs, place the tallest plants in the background. Flowering shrubs can make up the middle tier: Japanese spirea, Japanese henomeles, Forsythia, elderberry, mock up, and also mixborder shrubs with decorative foliage - cotoneaster, white derain, barberry, will beautifully decorate.
Creeping plants - Cossack juniper, different types of ivy, creeping cotoneaster will decorate the lower tier.
A coniferous mixborder can be created using dwarf species of pine, spruce, fir, spherical or cone-shaped arborvitae for the middle tier, which lend themselves well to pruning.For the lower tier, pick creeping conifers - Cossack juniper, cedar elfin, Japanese tuyevik.
The mixborder of roses looks unusually regal, but requires special care. Roses need pruning, so plan a flower garden that size so you can reach the most distant plants.
For the winter, roses need to be sheltered, protecting from freezing. To do this, provide a shelter system. You can use metal arcs coated with film or spanbond.
How to care for a mixborder
Rules for the care of the finished mixborder:
- Provide watering on time.
- Weed in a timely manner.
- Sometimes add to the irrigation of fertilizers, both mineral and organic preparations. This will increase the vitality of plants, add beauty to flowering and resistance to disease.
- Cover heat-loving plants from frost.
- Timely carry out sanitary, medical and anti-aging pruning.
- Take timely measures to combat diseases and pests.
Guided by these rules for the creation and care of mixborders, you can not only decorate your garden with a floral miracle, but also surprise your friends with the beauty of decorative plants in your flower garden.
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Join the discussion:
I was interested in landscape design, visiting the country house of my husband’s parents. They are real enthusiasts in this area and I enjoy working with them. Therefore, for 10 years of married life I have mastered the subject quite well and allow myself to notice some on the topic of the article and addressed to its author. So, despite a fairly complete presentation, not given due attention to the topic of soil characteristics and its compliance with the requirements of some ornamental plants. It should also be reminded to gardeners and lovers of plants antagonists who will not comfortably grow in one flower bed. But in general, a good article with very successful photos.
Last year we bought a house and having the dream to make a very beautiful courtyard, all in flowers. True, I love this beauty, but so far I have no idea how to do it. My mom loves landscape design. She has such beauty under the balcony - everyone walks and looks around. Very useful article with great photos. I’ll definitely implement some of this in my yard.
There is a summer residence, since there is no time and effort to plant plants, vegetables and something like that, I decided to plant flowers (a flower bed). In this article I found myself a good option. All options will look very nice. Special thanks for a very detailed explanation and instructions on what and how to do and plant. What land to choose and flowers. The color scheme of colors is chosen very harmoniously
The landscape designer is a real artist. It makes the world more beautiful and helps customers realize their concept of beauty. Each option of landscaping a site is a small beauty story. Here, even education will not help much if the person himself does not know how to see and compose the beautiful. All the ideas in the photo in the article are a vivid example of man-made designer beauty.