Mixborders: ideas in landscape design

Didn’t it, once you, having waited for flowering in the garden, came to the conclusion that the plants were planted in a hurry, and therefore they look unkempt, sloppy? Immediately there is a desire to ask them some kind of effective layout program. This is the purpose of this mixborder - a mixed flower garden. We offer to figure out how to do it yourself.

If you literally translate "mixborder" from English, you get a "mixed border." After the adaptation of the concepts, the foreign word began to mean an arbitrary flower garden, made up of different groups of plants, thought out over the time of flowering and harmony of shades.

Mixborder can be considered a distant "relative" of rabatki - flower beds in the form of a bed. But on the elongated configuration, the similarities end. The discount uses a geometric pattern of colors (stars, squares, circles). A mixborder has “floating” lines, soft curves, defining the landscape style of the flower garden. Mixborder is organized outwardly unobtrusively, sometimes it seems as if the lovely natural scattering of flowers has naturally picked up the right palette and improved the lawn or the area around the house.

The popularity of mixborders is due to the relative simplicity of the choice of colors. Even a novice in gardening can afford to form such a bed. Of course, growing in a bed of everything in a row is no good. It is necessary to study the rules for selecting plants for the floristic collection.

It is important to take into account this feature. All plants are located quite tightly to each other. Therefore, they are quite difficult to weed. And it is impossible to water simultaneously. After all, some green specimens love water, others not so much.

But the picturesque view of such a flower bed will pay for all the efforts. It will not stop blooming from early spring to late autumn.Not for nothing, next to a mixborder, as a rule, do not plant any vegetable beds. The flower garden serves the purpose of enjoyment, so that its best neighbors - except benches, water features, beautiful lawns.

Types of mixborders depend on what plants make it up. There are a lot of species, the most popular are:

• Meadow. Flower bed as close as possible to the collection of plants to the natural meadow. He is saturated with low-key, but elegant flowers like the field. The palette of colors is somewhat blurry, unclean. Flax, daisies, poppies, wild carnations, bells, cornflowers - the main part of the meadow flower garden. Plus decorative cereals for expressive design.

• English. The classic version, in some ways even strict. Lush forms and festive shades almost none. Small-sized flowers, restrained, with graceful leaves. Pastel colors - pale pink, white, cream, pale purple. Of the flowers used small roses, daisies, stunted anemones, pale cineraria.

• Rustic. Very colorful and romantic mixborder, especially for fans of country style, Provence. Consists of the most unassuming plants,prescribed in the area. Suitable sunflowers, viburnum, lupins, mallow, laurel, buttercups, heather and other "semi-wild" culture.

• Shadow. Only plants that feel well in the shade are selected. The flower garden is obtained outwardly modest, with small and medium-sized flowers, pretty shrubs. At the same time fragrant and natural. You can collect cypress, yew, dwarf spruce, juniper, ferns. Not fabulous, but very picturesque in the shade mixborder rhododendrons, wolfberry, adiant, kupeny, uvulyarii, periwinkles, claret, waldstein, violets, saxifrage, hosts.

• Continuous flowering TWhich composition is better to break into a large free territory. In this type of mixed mixborder include representatives of the flora involved in the flowering relay during the three seasons. For example, backache, styloid phlox, virginian mertensia, lungwort, chionodox, crocus (spring), peony, dicentre, aquilegia, iberis, carnation, monarda, lily, gaillardia (summer), aster, anemone, chrysanthemum (autumn).

The basic principle of the creation of a mixborder is that low-growing plants (up to 40 cm) are brought to the forefront, followed by medium-sized plants (up to 60 cm), and higher (meters and up) are moved to the background.Also in the last row of the flower garden can be used trees, shrubs and climbing specimens, plus cereals.

It is good if novice gardeners will remember which mistakes to avoid when forming a mixborder:

• plants should not be planted at random, it is necessary to take into account their tolerance to the composition of the soil, wind, and humidity;
• flowers with strongly growing rhizomes are not allowed in the flower bed;
• it is not necessary to plant near the dry flowers and requiring constant watering;
• Do not exclude greenery from the mixborder collection, it will give it pomp and volume.

To determine the size of the mixborder, it is necessary to carry out a small calculation. If your plot is spacious, the architectural elements are voluminous, the buildings are tall, then it is advisable to break the flower bed with a magnificent, long, rich one. Analyze the size of the fence, fence, which may be adjacent flower garden. For example, with a standard 1.8 meter fence, a mixborder should be planned with a meter and a half width so that the fence does not visually dominate over flowers.

Well, if in a square you are limited, then create yourself a mini-mix-stone in stones - it looks elegant and fresh. Dig stones along a walkway or a small flower bed; stones should be only slightly larger than plants in a mini-flower garden. Groups of stones can be interleaved with low (20-40 cm) terraces.

Near the stones are placed flowers. It turns out that the flowers are knocked out from under the stones or “flow down” from them. Beautiful and stylish, does not take up much space.

It is believed that even in the most variegated mixborder there are enough five primary colors, otherwise the harmony of colors will be replaced by bad taste.

Some kind of classic are such color types:

• Monochrome. The theme is played up with shades of the same color. According to landscape artists, the monochrome version is not at all flawed. On the contrary, it conveys the subtle creative preferences of the owners of the acres. The plants in this delicate collection are well disclosed, the greens brightly emphasize the composition. True, if the monocolor is made white, then it will still be faded. But blue, red, yellow of all shades is a real poetic splash at your country house.Imagine a "bouquet" of delphiniums, forget-me-nots, bells, crocuses in their palette from dark blue to heavenly blue - beauty!

• Contrast flower garden. Palette fantasies are built on opposite tones and half tones. But such an extravagant technique is good for small compositions. Volumetric mixborder red-yellow-blue "hodgepodge" will bring to the pretentiousness. So, interrupting with hosts and decorative cereals, we plant in groups scarlet dahlias, blue aquilegia, yellow escholcium, purple montbrecium, and raspberry echinacea. Each species in a group and a lot of greens with a silvery shade will turn out festive and not extremely bright.

• Polychrome mixborder. About a third - bright plants that cause tone. The rest is calm. It is better to build a composition on combining shades - for example, lilac, burgundy, white, hot pink, cream, bronze, mustard, olive.
• There is also the concept of tint flower beds. For example, the lilac flowers, roses, irises, and purple phloxes will smoothly “flow” into each other. You can make a tint version and expressive. Say, "fiery passion": the drop in red and yellow colors, terry asters and gerberas.

When choosing a place for a flower bed, you should understand that it will not suit high damp areas, solid shadow or open space under the scorching rays. It is best to take a platform for mixborders, where there is a place for the sun and for the penumbra: on the slope, along the fence, near the house. A flowerbed at the edges of the terrace, around the perimeter of the suburban area, near the walkway will look good.

In general, it will be correct to create a project for the future mixborder. If you want to break it under the windows, then everything must be planned so that the plants are not above the window openings. If you choose the option along the track, then retreat at least half a meter.

It is possible to successfully form a complicated flower garden around the perimeter with the intermittent mixborder pattern. Because otherwise it is difficult to achieve such an arrangement of plants, when they do not overshadow each other. After all, the design is unique in that the flowers in the group are placed freely, as if flowing into each other. This natural and beautiful free flower garden.

The construction of the flowerbed scheme must proceed from the fact that the mixborder does not seem to accept straight lines. It has a wavy border, the more “waves” along the edges, the more attractive the mixborders are.

That is, a competent arrangement of groups of plants in your natural flowerbed is the rule of the golden section: one whole is divided into two parts, while the smaller part refers to the larger one as it is to the whole. Easier to say, the volume is divided into certain shares. In the flower garden of natural character, wave-like segments are its main charm and dignity.

Europeans have long confessed their love for mixed flower beds of arbitrary formation. Russians are just coming to taste, but mixborders are clearly in trend. In many ways, thanks to the art of combining different plants in an absolutely fantasy assortment.

Designers promote a huge number of ready-made planting schemes and names of plants in such a flower bed. Mixborders from ornamental shrubs and conifers look original. Conifer is better to pick low, up to one and a half meters. Perfectly fit into this composition dwarf pine and fir.Add a columnar thuja and a pyramidal juniper to them. The strict forms of these trees make your planting a real masterpiece.

And for the color "splash" to the hilt of barberries and rhododendrons. These flowering shrubs are set off with their orange, raspberry, yellow-red tones and dark green needles of tree species. In order to achieve a flower bed of greater luxury, heather bushes can be registered in the front row, flashing during the flowering with crimson garlands.

As for the mixborder of flowers, they are divided by functionality into skeletal and all others. The first denote accents, the basis of the meadow. The second fill the space. Skeletal plants should be showy, with large leaves and flowers. Try to push them further into the background. Pick the range you like for this purpose with dahlias, hydrangea, astilba, and delphiniums.

Skeleton flower concepts designers assign a different meaning. Some harmoniously weave them into a common flower bed as "elders". Others believe that the “skeleton” is just a certain frame, the pivot on which the flowers of the general array are “strung”.The second concept involves the use of jasmine, park roses, and red-leafed plums as skeletal plants.

But the middle tier, depending on the height of the flight of designer fantasy, is filled with perennials or annuals that bloom long and bright. This, for example, is a “bouquet” with yellow daylilies, frintillae; phlox, pennisetum.

Low-growing plants in the foreground can also be selected in a free format. If we proceed from the range of unpretentious, then fit petunias, cineraria, geyhery, tunbergia, geranium. They have both petals and leaves, bright, juicy, it will turn out solemnly and elegantly. As a folk note, you can add a few decorative cereals: sedge, perlovnik, feather grass and cattail.

Not so often, but among summer residents there are lovers of flower gardens from vegetables. It’s easy to create them, you don’t just have to plant everything in order not to get a senseless garden bed that can be eaten by autumn. “Soloists” in a vegetable mixborder - salads, spicy lace herbs, ornamental cabbage.

When compiling a mixborder, it is necessary to exclude aggressive plants that are rapidly growing and clogging the neighbors. It is necessary to have each type of flower or shrub at some reasonable distance from each other. Otherwise, the landings will not be accessed by watering and weeding.

It is necessary to provide stones and small platforms in the thick of the mixborder so that you can stand up for something to weed, remove dried flowers and leaves. With the same purpose, it is convenient to pave a narrow track from the non-parade side of the mixborder.

Among landscape designers there are many admirers of mixborders with a fountain. It really is fascinating. Especially if the viewing angle is such that the fountain is viewed from different positions, and every time it looks in a new way in a round dance of colors. Artificial fountain correctly positioned in the middle of the lawn, on the edge of which arrange flower garden. Such a corner will be a fascinating place at your cottage.

Artists of country gardens offer to add expressiveness of the composition, framing it with tiles, colored sand, light cobblestones. An incredible, unexpected effect is given by low lanterns, “snatching” the most beautiful fragments from a flower bed. To reproduce the feeling of night contemplation of such a flower serenade is not enough words.

Exotic lovers can put in a free flower garden on the places free from seasonal plants exotic specimens in pots. Epatage will look in combination with the colors of the middle climatic strip azaleas, oleanders, orchids in flowerpots.

Today mixborders intensively complement garden sculptures, mountain boulders. Flowerbeds "plant" the back rows on the supports and grids, where they organize screens of climbing perennials. In the composition with arches, all sorts of artificial slides mixborders also benefit.

However, it is worthwhile to constantly be guided by a sense of proportion so that, in pursuit of singularity, it is not possible to bring the sweet idea of ​​the dacha meadow to the absurdity of boundless decoration. In the experienced hands of a mixborder, of course, the winning card for turning the usual plot into a heavenly place.This will not be easy and expensive, but the opportunity to enjoy the river of flowers from a country house from spring to autumn will pay for the costs many times over.

How to make a mixborder from high simple annuals, see the following video.