As stated earlier there are three common basic types of border; shrub, mixed and herbaceous.  Shrub borders should only need the most cursory preparation and can even just be larger shrubs planted amongst the grass (though this will be unpopular with the person who does the mowing). A mixed or herbaceous border needs proper preparation and then proper planning before planting. The secret to a successful border is preparation and careful planning: • Know your site; what is the aspect, is it sunny south facing or shady north? You can use a Sun Chart to have an idea of the amount and direction of sun striking your site and to see at what times of day and of year it will be in shade. • What is the soil like, wet, well drained, acid, alkali, rich or poor, sandy, silty, clay or peaty? • Is the site exposed to wind, if so chose stockier tougher varieties and you may want a more permanent buffer half way down like a shrub to act as a partition/mini windbreak to stop the whole border being flattened from the side. Try planting backed by a hedge that faces the most exposed quarter so the border can grow up in the lee. • How big is your border. Measure your border and make a plan on paper, nothing too fancy, on this you can mark what you put where. Knowing how big an area you are working with will inform you of the amount of plants you will need. • Know your plants, over and under-planting are both very common problems. Too few plants and you will spend a lot of the future weeding.  Too many and everything will be drawn up and suffer from the competition. So find out from the nursery or a good book what height and spread you can expect from each plant and if they will perform well in your conditions. Try to group plants that need similar maintenance to avoid unnecessary disturbance. • Do you want a seasonal or colour themed or colour, e.g. a ‘hot’ (red, oranges and yellows) or white and silver, sympathetic colour scheme or a random riot of colour, these choices will dictate the ‘pallet’ of plants you select from to paint your border.

When planning what you want your new border to look like you may wish to think about the flower and foliage colours you will employ. Generally gardeners will employ complimentary or contrasting colours. You can use a colour wheel like the one below to help plan this if you know the flower colour of a plant.

Complimentary colours will be within three segments of each other (e.g. blues with greens or reds with oranges). These give more calming and gentle combinations. Contrasting colours will be on opposite sides of the wheel (e.g. yellows and purples). Contrasting colours are more arrestingly impact-full, but must be used with care as too much can be a messy, noisy riot. For those interested in colour in the garden the two gurus to study are the English ladies Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville- West. You can use the browse by Colour feature of our Availability List  to help you a bit, but it is a bit broad and arbitrary in it’s colour selection as many flowers have more than one colour to them.

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