About Lawn, Mixborders And Collecting

Tamara Shpilina is a plant collector by nature. What kind of flowers she has in the garden. And everything is in its place - collected in neat mixborders. And what a lawn - just a classic of the genre! So we asked Tamara to tell about her secrets of landscaping a garden in the English style.

The lawn is the head of everything

The lawn is both a background for flower beds in the garden, and a connecting link of all design elements, and just a delight for the eyes. On my site, I first laid out flower beds, and only after that my husband and I arranged a lawn. In this place, where there is now a green carpet, there used to be vegetable beds and potatoes. The place is sunny. In general, a small shade for the lawn is not terrible - if you take care of it, everything will work out too.

To begin with, we selected all plant residues, leveled the ground, my husband tamped it down with a homemade device, and I sowed seeds on the surface. We chose the “sports turf” mixture because it is more resistant to trampling. The package indicated the consumption of seeds per 1 sq. m, from this calculation they scattered the seeds with their hands. Then the soil was harvested with a rake and the crops were immediately watered. They did not protect the lawn from the birds, they did not cover it. In the future, it is advisable to continue to keep seedlings moist.

The first time we mowed a lawn with a grass stand of 8 cm.

In late spring (May-June), for the first time, I fertilize the lawn with ammonium nitrate or other nitrogen fertilizer and then 3-4 more times until July. And from July to mid-August (no later) I feed already Azophos (it quickly dissolves) every 10 days.

Fertilizers are scattered dry and, if rain is not expected, I immediately pour tap water from a hose through a sprayer.
I mow the grass every 5 days with a lawn mower with a grass catcher. The last time I cut my hair was in October - I look at the weather. Last year she cut on 16 October.
Every 10 days I dig the edges of the lawn facing the flower beds and paths with a shovel and cut with scissors.
In the fall, be sure to remove the leaves from the lawn so that the grass does not heat up.
In the first 5 years in the spring, I annually made punctures in the thickness of the lawn with a pitchfork to improve air exchange in the root. And now I don't.
Once I had to repair the lawn - in the spring I just sowed seeds in the place of the formed bald spots.
So that the weeds do not spoil the appearance of the grass cover, after the first feeding, when the grass grows up, I mow it and spray the entire lawn with the herbicides Propolol or Hacker. All weeds die, but the lawn grass remains.

Perennial flower beds: planting according to tiers

In general, it is better to arrange a mixborder in a sunny place. My flower beds are located near the fence and garage in order to cover these elements as much as possible, thereby smoothing the boundaries of the site. Since they are not visible “from the back”, therefore the tallest crops are in the background in them, and their height decreases closer to the front edge.

I build future compositions from plants in my head, and then transfer them to the garden. I plant flowers, but sometimes I transplant them later, change places, select a more harmonious combination. I used to like strict English flower beds, so the first mixborder was made rectangular. And now I like curved lines more, closer to natural, natural ones.

To compose a flower garden, I select plants so that they contrast with each other in height and texture, match in color, replace each other in flowering time, so that the flower garden remains attractive throughout the season.

I grew plants for the mixborder myself - what I liked, what grew, from that I made flower beds. I plant the plants tightly, but still focus on the size that they will reach in adulthood.

Sample assortment

For example, I'll tell you about the plants that inhabit the rectangular mixborder. In the background - climbing roses, western thuja, heliopsis, changeable highlander, helenium, veronicastrum, steep. In the center - various phloxes (I love them very much), veronica, burnet, willow loaf, buzulnik, irises, daylilies, darmera. The unsightly "legs" of phloxes are covered by various peonies and salvias. In the foreground are primroses, geychera, Carpathian bell, garden geraniums, mertensia, carnations, catnip, sage, tiarella.

Astilbes and hosts are planted under the apple tree in partial shade. Echinacea, Monarda, Astrantia grow in a small flower garden opposite.

Who blooms for whom

First, snowdrops and corydalis bloom in a flowerbed with perennials. Then - primroses, tulips, peonies, sage, catnip. Astilbe, climbing roses are taking over. Phloxes finish the "color representation". After the sage and catnip have faded, I prune them, and they bloom again until frost.

In the garden in May, I already have an alpine slide in bloom, because there are growing phlox styloid and splayed, saxifrage, marigold, yaskolka, yasnotka, bergenia.

A hyssop border has been planted around the flower garden with roses and dwarf dahlias. I cut him regularly so that he does not lose his shape.

I loosen the soil in the flower beds almost every week so that they look beautiful, and the weeds die, I don't have to weed them on purpose.

I do not change the soil in the flower beds. In the spring, I definitely feed perennial flowers with Azofoskaya (it is the cheapest) - I sprinkle dry fertilizer and sprinkle flower beds if there is no rain.

For a long time, I also arranged a flower bed of annuals. I grew all the seedlings myself, the assortment practically did not change. By the way, the most hardy flowers among annuals are ever-flowering begonia, salvia, ageratum, cineraria, marigolds.

But recently, in place of a flower bed of annuals, I arranged a gravel garden - I planted dwarf conifers and made an ornament from several types of decorative dumping and pebbles.

A garden made by one's own hands is a small universe for its owner. This is an outlet, a resting place, a place where you want to go out even after rain, talk with your favorite plants and just enjoy life.