Creating Beds and Borders

Creating Beds and Borders delivers practical advice and innovative ideas for creatng eye-catching island beds and borders. Selected from the pages of Fine Gardening magazine, the articles in this book will help you make the most of sun and shade, choose the best plants, and design for long-season good looks. All this information from talented designers will inspire you to create a beautiful garden of your own.

In this book you will discover how to:

• build a bed the easy way
• use shrubs for beautiful borders
• lay out the curves of an island bed
• choose plants for multi-season interest
• prune perennials to prolong flowering
• create eye-catching drama with foliage

More Design Guides:

Gardening in Small Spaces
Gardening in Containers
Accent your Garden
Exploring Garden Style
Landscaping Your Home

Introduction

PART 1: Design Strategies
Bed & Border Basics
Order in the Border
Design Island Beds to View from Any Angle
Perennial Border Design with Foliage

PART 2: Great Border Plants

Good Looks Begin at the Edge
Flowering Shrubs Enhance Mixed Borders
Annuals Pep Up Perennial Borders
Lacing the Border with Beauty
Shrubs for the Perennial Border: Elisabeth Sheldon
Well-Placed Shrubs Make Borders Better
Roses Enliven a Border

PART 3: Special Techniques
Build a Bed without Breaking Your Back
Drawing the Line on Curved Beds & Borders
Pruning Perennials in Midseason
Start with Seeds for a Collector's Paradise
Renovating a Perennial Bed

PART 4: Garden Gallery
A Perennial Border for All Seasons
Solutions for Wet, Shady Sites
Designing a Warm-Climate Border
Can't Dig Down? Build Up
Sun and Shade

Credits

Index

Beds and borders are often the highlight of a garden -- the place where we grow our most cherished plants and where we strive to create show-stopping color in one season or less conspicuous, yet continuous bloom from spring through fall. They are, in most cases, the most decorative plantings in the garden.

When you design a bed or border, you have to consider its location, design, soil preparation, and plantings. Will your border be placed in a sunny spot against a white picket fence or in the shade on the north side of your house? Or do you prefer a series of freestanding beds in your lawn? Will their shape be formal or informal, geometric or curving? Do you need to remove sod and amend your soil? What shall you plant, and in what combination for best effect?

In Creating Beds & Borders, some of America's best gardeners will walk you through those decisions. For years, they've been sharing their insights in Fine Gardening magazine. Now, you have their work in a single book that you can take with you out in the yard for inspiration and ideas. They'll teach you how to dig a new bed without breaking your back, how to best use a variety of plants in a border, and how to maintain your borders both through the summer and over the years. You'll also discover a gallery of unique beds and borders filled with innovative ideas and creative solutions for challenging situations.