How to redesign a flowerbed ?

Do you fancy a change of scenery? Nothing is easier done in flowerbeds of perennial and foliage's plants. It is a project that will be done in only a few hours and easy to achieve.

How to redesign a flowerbed ?
Redesign the flowerbed in small touches or in clearing it all out.

Firstly take time to think about it
Before going out in the garden, take time to reflect. A few minutes of thinking sometimes avoid hours of work! Observe carefully your flowerbed and assess what you like about it and what you dislike. Do you need to add plants, move some around or remove some? There is not a universal answer. But often the right answer is a combination of the three. Adding plants allows to reinforce an effect or to modify the flowers- arrangement's ambiance. Transplanting plants allows modifying the shapes and colours' distribution while ensuring that the flowers in question thrive in that particular spot, if they already do. Removing plants is often necessary when a flowerbed becomes too crowded, if you cannot extend it or if you simply wish not to limit the growth of some plants…

How to redesign a flowerbed ?
Finding the right spot for plants takes time and you must have selected them beforehand!

More character
As for new plantations, use some ‘structuring' plants to give balance to the entire setting, following your own taste. These plants act as a decorative material, their shape emphasising an effect or on the contrary bringing back harmony. Your flowerbed seems too brushy? Place a plant with a neat shape which will temper it all, such as a ball-shaped Common Box, an Acanthus or a straight-shaped ornamental grass for example. You find the entire flowerbed too rigid, too heavy? Place some light, filmy plants like ‘floating' ornamental grasses, Gypsophila (Baby's Breath) etc. The interesting effect of a flowerbed often relies on contrasts.

How to redesign a flowerbed ?
Are you looking for harmony or some contrast: it is a taste matter!

Redesign the borders
The shape of a flowerbed influences a lot the visual effect. Straight borders do not suit a romantic or exotic garden while winding ones hardly suit a contemporary garden. The length and the width of the flowerbed also accentuate the given effect. In a small garden, the choice of a long, narrow flowerbed is often made to be able to have a lawn area. Several small, isolated flowerbeds allow multiplying the focal points thus creating several ambiances (however mowing is more complicated). Choosing the shape of a flowerbed is not a mere formality!

A good tip for flowerbeds
If you wish to proceed to a flowerbed's extension, help yourself with a visual mark to draw the contour on the ground. To delimit a new shape, place a watering-hose on the lawn. You can then modify the future contour as you wish. Once you have chosen the area you wish to landscape, remove the grass following the hose: cut the grass short then remove it from below. As an alternative, you can draw the contour of your flowerbed with flour but it is not as environmentally friendly.

How to redesign a flowerbed ?
The watering hose helps visualising the contours of the future flowerbed.
How to redesign a flowerbed ?
The watering hose helps visualising the contours of the future flowerbed.
M. Jean-Michel GROULT
 
Pépinières PLANFOR
1950 Route de Cère
40090 UCHACQ - FRANCE
Tel : (020).7660.0178