How to arrange a flower bed in front of the house with your own hands?
It seems to some that decorating flower beds in the country is an easy task. It is enough to look at the photos of decorated flower beds, buy, or grow flower seedlings, and plant them in the same order. In fact, everything is much more complicated.
A flower bed is, in fact, a small biocenosis, in which a complex of factors is important:
- Lighting (the selection of plants for a flower bed depends on this);
- Type and condition of soil (acidity, structure, organic components);
- The interaction of plants with each other;
- Vegetation speed, flowering period of plants;
- Humidity and presence (or absence) of watering.
In addition, when designing a flower bed near a house, you need to take into account the style of architectural structures located on the site. For example, a country-style flower garden would look ridiculous next to a Victorian house.
How to start decorating a flower bed in front of the house
Lighting
Lighting types:
- bright light (at least seven hours a day, plants are in direct sunlight);
- diffused light (slight shading from the branches of shrubs or trees), direct rays illuminate the site in the morning or evening hours (2-3 hours);
- partial shade (no direct sunlight, but bright lighting);
- shadow.
Priming
First, you need to determine the type of soil and its acidity - these factors can be changed or corrected. In too heavy substrates or loams, sand and compost are added for better aeration. Acidified soils are improved by adding chalk.
Any type of substrate must be additionally enriched with mineral (complex) and organic (manure, bird droppings, compost) fertilizers.
Water and moisture
Water should not stagnate in the soil, this also applies to melt water: putrefactive processes can begin in the rhizomes, tubers or bulbs of perennials. Also, with an excess of water, root respiration of plants is hampered or blocked.
Ideas for decorating a flower bed
As examples or samples of flower bed decoration in the country, or near the house, you can use photos with decorated flower beds and flower beds. Images will help you come up with and select compositional solutions. You can, taking photos of decorated flower beds as a sample, change the color scheme of the composition, or use fragments of your favorites to create a flower garden.
Decor
You can decorate flower beds with objects of natural origin (stones, stumps, tree trunks) or artificially created (garden figures, lanterns). Decor items, in addition to decoration, can be of practical use. The soil covered with gravel will lose less moisture, and weeds will not germinate on the flower bed.
Tree trunks can serve as a support for plants with climbing stems (clematis, bindweed, ranch, sweet pea).
Selection of plants
When choosing plants, their relation to light is taken into account.
- Photophilous - a lot of sunlight is needed, otherwise they bloom poorly or do not bloom at all. These are decorative representatives of the Compositae family (asters, dahlias, majors, sunflowers, chamomiles, marigolds, echinacea, gerberas, yarrow). Roses, gladioli, foxglove, all members of the labiate family (lavender, salvia, thyme). Tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, fat women;
- Light shade tolerant (shade tolerant) - lilies, hydrangea, violets, woods, peonies, catchment, primrose;
- Shade-loving plants (cannot stand direct sunlight and can burn leaves)- astilbe, hosta, ferns, mahonia, lily of the valley, bergenia, periwinkle, rogersia.
The size of the plants and the speed of growth is another important factor for the correct design of the flower bed near the house. Low-growing and creeping plants are planted in the first row, otherwise, they will not be visible. Groundcover representatives of the plant kingdom will help fill the space between larger relatives. This will give the flower bed a more scenic look and eliminate weeds.
Note: ground cover plants grow rapidly, so you need to make sure that they allow their neighbors in the flower bed to grow.
Shrubs and ornamental foliage plants for decorating flower beds near the house
In contrast to flowering plants, the advantage of ornamental plants is that they decorate the flower garden from spring to late autumn.
Breeders have bred many varieties of dwarf and creeping shrubs, the height of which is 20-40 cm. Fire spirea, red-leaved barberry, variegated euonymus, holly mahonia, dwarf honeysuckle - do not require complex care, and are suitable for almost any flower arrangement.
Herbaceous ornamental plants include many representatives of the family of cereals (fescue, feather grass, molinia, reed grass, pike). Although during the flowering period, their inflorescences in the form of panicles, tails or feathers will decorate any flower garden.