Garden borders are at the heart of the garden.
It’s probably the first thing any visitor to your garden sees. It’s the major splash of colour in most gardens. And it’s also likely to be the element that you enjoy the most yourself.
So I went to the famous West Dean Gardens near Chichester to ask for advice on creating superb garden borders from head gardener and garden writer Tom Brown.
West Deans Gardens date back to 1622, although the current garden layout was originally created in 1804. Many of the existing mature trees, such as beeches, limes, horse chestnuts and cedars, date from this period. The glasshouses and pergola were created in Victorian times, but it was the 1987 storm in Britain that paved the way for the gardens to become the superb 21st century gardens they are today.
West Dean College is now an arts and conservation educational trust and the gardens are open to the public.
This is a two-part article. Here we’re covering the planning and design elements of choosing plants for a brilliant border.
The second post will cover the practical side, such as how to space plants and support them.
What’s your starting point for creating garden borders?
There are more expert tips about planning a border here and also how to plant a border like a pro here.
Do you take a theme or idea as inspiration for a garden border?
How can a private garden-lover achieve year round colour?
It is worth saying that a professionally-run garden, especially one that is open to the public, has more expertise and resources than a private garden. So it is much harder for us amateur gardeners to achieve a long-lasting blaze of colour in our garden borders.
But we can still have beautiful, colourful borders, which we can really enjoy. They won’t be quite at the same level. Although if you read about Paul and Frances Moskovits’ amazing herbaceous border, you’ll see that it can be done.
How deep should a garden border be?
What I’m recommending this week…
I’ve realised I rarely review products – but recommendations can be really useful. So I’ve decided to start a regular ‘recommendations’ section at the end of every post, covering any gardening books, products or similar I’ve recommended or used recently.
This week I had a call from Becca and Freddie, who have just moved into their first flat with a garden. Some friends have passed on plants, but they needed to buy pots and also the compost to plant them in.
They wanted recommendations on where to buy. They’re also really busy, in demanding jobs, and don’t have time to find a local garden centre, especially as they live in London.
So I recommended the online garden supply company, The Garden Superstore. This company grew out of a professional horticultural supplier called Fargro, who only supply professional gardeners and garden designers. So the products in the Garden Superstore are ones that they also sell to the pros. There’s also good online gardening advice.
I first came across them when they sent me some products to review, one of which was Melcourt All-purpose peat-free compost. This is a really excellent peat-free compost, which absorbs water beautifully. I’ve been using it for seeds, potting on and also for planting up patio pots. I’ve had excellent germination and all the other plants look healthy too. There’s been quite a shortage of peat-free compost recently, but when I checked the Garden Superstore still had some in stock.
The Garden Superstore also sent me some taupe pots, which I’ve used a lot. Traditional black plastic garden pots don’t recycle, but these taupe ones can be sent for recycling, although I would also reuse them over and over again.
Pin to remember garden borders advice
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