Basic Bed Design
It’s really challenging to keep a post like this simple as there is much to consider in landscape design. A design plan is always the best place to start, but to be honest, we start a lot of our beds on impulse: we find some beautiful plants on sale and we buy them! When we get home and admire our beautiful purchase, we are left trying to figure out a good planting location and bed design.
So, I’m limiting this post to the very practical day-to-day considerations for creating a new flowerbed: watering, weeding, mulching and edging. If you keep these things in mind, your new bed with be beautiful, and low maintenance, for years to come.
Poppies and yarrow bloom next to a bubbler fountain in a small, mulched garden bed.
Flowers bloom in a bed that uses drip irrigation, landscape stone, and mulch.
How will you water the bed? If the plants you purchased regularly require water after becoming established, you need easy access to water. Dragging a hose around, in my experience, is never a long term solution. Consider expanding your irrigation system, or adding inexpensive drip irrigation, to minimize the work and to maximize your success and enjoyment. Well watered plants grow vigorously, resist disease, and will help crowd out weeds.
Flowers bloom in a mulched garden bed with drip irrigation.
How will you keep the bed weeded? A more practical question is, how do I minimize weeding? And the answer to that question is a good offensive plan. I am a fan of landscape fabric and mulch (rock in the West). I also recommend using a pre-emergent each Spring. A few weeds can be easily pulled by hand after a good rain, but it you have a large area, find a herbicide that’s safe for you, your pets, and the environment, and invest in a sprayer. Plan to refresh your mulch as least once a year. You can also use black landscape fabric in the early spring to cover beds, which forces weed seed to germinate and burn up, before you re-plant annuals in late spring.
Landscape stone edging, mulch and a large stone are used in this flower bed.
How will you maintain around the bed & its border? I avoid using borders of small rocks, which look nice when built, but are difficult to maintain and impossible to weed. Instead, use weed-whacker friendly edging material like steel or vinyl edging, or landscape stones. Alternatively, you can simply create a grass-free “cut” to delineate between your bed and your lawn. The cut can be maintained with a weed whacker and/or herbicide. However, you will likely need to redefine the cut edge annually using a sharp shovel. Use rounded outlines for your beds so they are easy to mow and trim around.
An example of metal landscape edging in use.
How will the bed look in the winter? I usually get so focused on flowers blooming during the spring or summer I forget about all the other seasons. So, remember your bed has the potential to be beautiful year round. Over time, consider adding stones, small bushes or ornamentals that will provide winter interest, height, texture and color.
Pots, plant stands and colorful bird feeders add winter interest. Moose is waiting for his dinner to be served.
Pots, planters, grasses, colorful chairs, and stones add winter interest.
Wow, that’s a lot of information, but don’t let it overwhelm you. Doing something is always better than doing nothing, as we all learn through trial and error. Best of luck in creating your new flowerbed. And remember, the easiest way to get anything done is to enlist your significant other to do the work for you (wink wink)!